Winter Nearly Bankrupted His Business (Here’s What Saved It) — Unfiltered Turnaround
This transcript is a continuation of a coaching interview where Mike Andes advises Cyrus (owner of Eco Valley Lawn Care) on marketing, website conversion, delegation, and capacity planning. Mike emphasizes conversion optimization (estimate request form above-the-fold, better site for SEO and talent attraction), leveraging social media and video for SEO and recruiting, and achieving top-of-Google ranking with 30+ Google reviews and address verification. He advises delegation — moving bookkeeping, phone answering/dispatching, and admin off the owner so he can focus on managing crews and sales — as the key skill to scale from ~$400k to $1M. Tactics discussed include improving lead-to-customer conversion (raise conversion from 1/50 to 1/10), doubling/tripling leads via website improvements and organic SEO within 2–6 months, timing price increases before season start, and estimating mowing capacity per truck (discussion of three trucks vs needing a fourth). The conversation repeats and overlaps in the transcript.
Chapters
And we stayed right around 4:12, 4:50.
My ops manager leave at the end.
Of the year to just move on to greener pastures.
It seems really enticing to want to grow like an $800,000 business just in Northampton.
I think it is possible.
But we went from full financial collapse. You know, we would have been in the negative if we had higher expenses for the past three years because it's just been figuring it out doing residential.
And the condos 2. We had one commercial account this year and we changed all of our residentials over to, to a flat rate because.
It hasn't been real winter here in three years.
So everyone was, you know, saying I don't want to pay. I barely had any income.
I would dip into the savings. But so this year I changed them.
From like 800 to 1200 on average.
For salt snow, walkways, steps, or even brushing the cars off. And that ended up. And then it ended up being real winter and they got a hell of a deal. So now they're all like pretty locked in.
And hopefully next year when I try to raise the price, they'll still still.
Be game for that because usually residential.
You know, they don't.
It's commercial and condos that'll go for a flat rate.
Right.
And then the residentials will this. I'll, I'm not going to risk that.
I'll, I'll shovel myself or I'll find.
Someone else willing to do it.
It's like 1200 and then regardless how much snow happens there.
Yeah, I didn't put any cap on it, you know, which I could also do.
Say if this is up to 30.
Inches and then you hit your cap.
And then we're gonna have to charge out from there just to get smoke smarter about it, right?
Yeah, for sure.
So 65 grand, that's pretty good though not a lot better than.
Yeah, yeah, not too bad. Honestly, I was happy with our snow operation and I also was like, you know, it's, it's the double edged sword. Like I, you know, we need income and I wish I had year round.
Services to offer and more snow for folks that like.
It used to be a consistent thing.
Where every week, every two weeks you could count on it.
But not for the last seven to.
10 years it hasn't been quite like that. And then these past three were brutal compared. Like people didn't believe in winter.
And then this year it finally came back. But I was able to get it to a point now where I hired enough folks and had experienced folks that came back from prior years that knew.
What they were doing. And I was able to, like, be out of town or even out of state for some snowstorms, you know, which I never thought, you know, I might be able to do again. It was like last winter. For the previous two winters, it's just been grind time. Like six hours on the computer, doing back end, you know, writing the training manual, getting all my marketing for the next year and just hitting the gym. And then that was my day. Super consistent, working on the business. Gave up my winter passions of snowboarding and, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I like to do a lot of, like, backcountry snowboarding. So split boarding, trying to get out.
Like, you know, into nature, decompress, take a couple months off. And this year I was able to do that. You know, I got back out there and my crew, I had trips planned.
For weekends, and then it would end up snowing.
I wake up in a cabin and be zero degrees, and they'd be calling me, like, yeah, we got to get going.
Like, where's the, you know, key for this thing?
And they. They handled business and no complaints, you know, which was awesome to see.
That's good. So 2023 was 325, approximately.
Yeah.
Then 2024, last year's 400. A little over 400,000.
Yep.
For this year, you shooting for, like, basically 500,000, kind of your goal.
Probably closer to 600. I mean, 150 a year is a comfortable growth rate for me because I've done it every single year since inception. In 2021, our first year, we did 150. Then we did 312. Then last year, I was hoping for.
500, but we had all these setbacks with employees, you know, either having to be let go or getting injured, and we stayed right around 412, 450.
And then this year, I think, easily.
Granted, we have another truck.
You know, we're going to get another.
Mower, and we have a more experienced crew, and we have that many more, you know, clients. Plus we have.
I can show you all this marketing in here. We got stacks and stacks and stacks of, you know. Yeah, we got 5,000 every door, direct mail postcards, plus your. Your old school instant quotes. These worked well, you know, so we're looking to make a push somewhere, you know, this year.
And so last year, like, the kind of the. The trouble with the growth was just retaining employees.
Yes. So it's been a saga, man. I'll tell you. I can't. I didn't count how many I've actually.
Hired like between inception and now.
But last year essentially I had my ops manager leave at the end of.
The year to just move on to greener pastures. He wants, his heart's not in it. He doesn't see himself as, you know, in the landscaping and lawn care or like a, you know, he's not passionate about leadership. But he was great and really helped.
Me standardize the processes.
And he was, had more, you know, blue collar experience than even me. And he's like, you need to be like whipping people into shape. This way, this way, this way. He helped me come up with the.
Training manual, but he's gone my mowing. Foreman hurt his knee on the job.
And has been out of work ever since. Doing rehab for his knee. No, no set comeback date. You know, he was an older guy and then I had to let one go, you know, due to theft with some filling up his own gas tank, like petty stuff. And he was all on honestly in every way, shape or form. One of the best people to work with and was super fast, agile on his feet, learned all the services really quick. And he was a young gun who is. I was looking to, you know, grow with the business, but that didn't end up working.
So how many employees was there? Like a peak. So like for example, a month like fall season, I know last year during November we had 50,000.
Yeah.
During May, spring rush we had 63,000. During those period of times, how many employees are staffed at that point?
Usually I'd say like I have around, you know, 10 to 12, but only six to eight full time equivalents. So that's the thing with how I've started the business. I had a lot of friends that helped me and weren't in it, you know, full time because they had other goals. They're either going to school, have other aspirations, but yet they have too much institutional knowledge, do too good a work.
And I trust them too much to just like think, think that they're not worth, you know, to keep around. So I'd have, you know, four or five full time people that were newer and then I'd have some part timers helping me out on the weekends to try and keep from, you know, folks working too much overtime or people's bodies who couldn't handle it.
Right.
But that's the thing I've been trying.
To move away from, you know, part time help. So this is going to be the first season, I think, where I'm just, you know, it's either full time or bust sort of a thing.
Right.
Because that's really, you know, what I've, what I've seen works the best in terms of getting, you know, the production that we need out of everybody setting people up to grow with the business into a position where they know the ins and outs are here every day, know everybody's first and last name, know what makes them tick, know what makes them.
It's also just easier to manage like if you hit, right. Because like on 600, 000 revenue, you can do that with five to six full time employees.
Right.
But when you have like 10, 12 part timers, it's hard to build the culture because they ren with someone new all the time.
Right.
It's also hard to manage 12 people.
Yeah.
And so they get less efficient, they get less training, that's more time with you to be able to figure out how to actually do things correctly so cause more callbacks, etc.
Right.
So, so that's what we're moving towards and I'm set up for that. You know, I have seven on staff.
Right now that are going to be my full time employees.
But then I always based on how my hiring and you know, turnover has.
Gone based on medical not, you know, people not cutting it. I don't know really if they're going to work out unless I work with them every day, day in and day out for a month to see, see if they're, you know, up for the job and what their attitude's like. On the fifth Friday in 100 degree heat, I always have people in the pipeline. I'm like ready to go. I'm gonna start staggering. April 1st will be the next soonest hire date and we'll get to know like during this first week of March cleanups. In case anybody doesn't work out the first week, I got someone to step in. You know, I'm always nervous about not having enough help because I don't think we could do, you know, six, I don't think, you know, based on where my prices are at. If we need more folks to do that amount of revenue and I'm willing to, to have to step up and realize like it'll take more to manage that but in order to get there and then find the right squad that actually wants to work, you know, 50 hours a week in the busy seasons and their bodies can handle it, you know, taper off and figure out, you know, down the line when we can really make it efficient enough to do it exactly as, you know, as the book says so to say, do people.
Quit or is it like they just want part time because like, like technically if you just say you're charging 80 an hour, which we're not hitting that now, but let's say it's 80 bucks an hour, we're able to actually hit that target. Right. And everyone works 30 budgeted hours a week. So about full time, right. We should be pulling in around ten grand of labor revenue per employee per month. And so that's where I think with five to six employees, what we need. Yeah, but that does require them all working full time.
Right.
And so like on your, in your hiring ad, are you attracting a lot of part?
We are. No, no. So we haven't. It's just that's the way the cookies crumbled, I guess.
And like, you know, I've hired on some folks that have other full time commitments and then have just worked as weekends because I know, you know, I can't count on my staff to show up every time I require them for a weekend. So it's like some of them aren't productive by the fifth or sixth day.
But they're, they're really good employees and.
They'Re trustworthy and they want to be with the company for a couple years. So it's like, do I let them.
Work 30 hours or you know, say.
Goodbye because they can't work a full time week and then spend another five, ten grand finding someone who might work out, who might be a better fit.
You know, but for now, but we just, you know, all my high school friends are pretty much doing their own.
Thing at this point. That's helped me, started the business and really helped me standardize and when you.
Have that fluctuating, you know, you never.
Know what your revenue is going to be. It can be helpful to be able to pull from a part time employee and not have to give them a ton of guaranteed hours. With our summer slump, when things fall off, it's like I'm not, you know, required by law to be paying them, you know, X amount per week. So it's been helpful up till now, but definitely this year we're going to see how few people we can get away with and you know, try to find the folks that are, you know, really gung ho to get, get after it with as many hours as possible to make hay while the sun shines because at the end of the day that's what's, you know, best for their finances and, and for the businesses too. It's just hard to convince them of that when it's, when it's just, you Know, go time in the spring season, so.
Okay, cool. Very cool. I know you have some questions. We'll go over that and then what we'll try to do is figure out like the, from a 4L framework perspective, like what are the aspects that we need to improve in each area.
Right.
Kind of like the targets for those. Which I kind of have an idea of now, but. Great. I know you have a bazillion questions, so let's go through.
Yeah.
And that will inform me better.
Okay, sure, sure. Let me grab a pen too so I can take some notes when we.
Get to darker too.
Yeah, I got sharpie work.
Yeah, it works totally. Okay.
We got questions for days. Let's go.
So I feel like it seems really enticing to want to grow like an $800,000 business just in Northampton.
I think it is possible.
I just don't know whether that's where.
I want to focus all of my marketing efforts this year.
Right.
Is it better to have a higher customer value spread out among multiple towns or a lower, you know, customer lifetime.
Value all in one town and just keep taking mowing only maybe spring clean up here, fall clean up there.
Doing the bids right around now.
Like when it's two minutes in between each house is nice.
Fall cleanup season, it's five minutes.
We forgot something. You know, down the road from when I was go pick up a rake.
It's nice, but is it limiting me, you know, when there's this, you know, equal equivalent sized town with just as many folks that are interested in the.
Electric component with no other competitors, just, you know, about a 15 minute drive from the Hadley shop.
But that leaves that it's about 35 minutes from here. So it would be smarter to probably just. I think what you're going to say.
Is move Southampton and East Hampton. Those are also viable markets, granted. Much smaller, a little more rural, you probably not as many folks who care as much about the electric thing, but still do need lawn mowing that we could branch into and do, you know, work our way this way towards the shop in Hadley, which is just moving north. Amherst is a little further north even, but it's a huge untapped market.
So moving, expanding your service area is always going to increase the amount of customers you can have. Like it's the fastest way to grow because you simply increase the amount of surface area of people that could potentially use your services. Right. The challenging part, I think is by saying, hey, we have to tap into people who care about electricity that all of a sudden just cut our market by like 90%. Yeah. Because most people don't care. Yeah. And so my thought is we use the electric part and if that's something that means a lot to you and you think there are a portion of you that care, but can we make it efficient enough to where anyone that needs lawn care service, anyone that needs landscaping, we can still serve them and be profitable on them and be competitive. Because like most customers, 90% of them don't care about the electric thing. They literally just look into the price.
Yeah.
And if it's a little quieter, cool. But they could care less.
Right.
And so if we can become competitive in that market, we can 10x the the market that we can serve here. Right. And if you're building a $600,000 business in this market, I look, I look at like the lead side, like your website and other things that I see. We can double it easily. Easily. So like I think going into a different market is always the simplest solution because yes, you will immediately unlock that 10% that cares about electric and you don't have any competition. So like you will get those customers. And so it seems then intuitive, we'll go to the next city and all of a sudden you have this massive service area.
Right.
Driving 35 minutes from here saps all your electric stuff. Now you got stuff so far away, it becomes even more. You have to invest more in batteries because you can't afford them to come back here. So like I would really say, like, based upon what I've seen with on the, the marketing side, if you just focus on this area, you can easily get to like a million. Million. Yeah, it just a matter, it's a function of can we get more efficient so we can, we can actually serve a market that doesn't care. Electric just needs the lawn care side. That's 100% of the market versus maybe 10%.
Right, right.
And so I think that's what I would be focusing on because as soon as you get into a wider, a wider service area, you're less efficient now.
Yeah.
So you can only serve that 10% of the market because you have to go up market. You have, you can only be the higher cost option for electric.
Right, Right.
So I would really encourage you to stay, say in the current area, you are at 600,000. When I look at your website and.
I see 450, 600 is the goal. But we didn't do much marketing last year besides a truck wrap and some lawn signs and we grew 150.
So let's just call it 450 though. Like, I think when I look at the website work, we're on the second page of Google. We only have 15 Google reviews. Like, there's so much opportunity there. Just putting your estimate request form on the front of the page, above the fold, that alone will get you 30, 40% more leads. So like those are the things that, like when I look at the leads opportunity, like I see, I see these hires. The thing is, if we get dumped leads, like if tomorrow you're getting like 10, 15 leads a day.
Yeah.
You would, you would end up forcing yourself to raise prices. Right. Because right now, like the, the function, the real problem is the fact that we have such a low hourly rate.
Right.
Like we're just not making enough per hour. Therefore we can't pay our guys enough on P4P to keep them sticking around. So we go back to hourly rate simply because 40% on a low margin sales service is still not enough for them.
Right.
Like if we could pay everyone 28, 29 an hour, we would keep a better crew. Yeah. But we can't afford to do that because the margin, like our prices are too low. Yeah. We're too inefficient. And so the only way for me to convince you that, to raise that to where you're actually making the 80-100 per hour is just dump leads on you.
Right.
And that's where I actually see the opportunity. And that's why you're wanting to go in a different market. Because I need more leads.
Right.
I agree with you. Like in the world of leads just being dumped on you, you raise prices, you can be able to pay your employee employees more, you buy the extra mower, whatever you need. Right. And so I actually see this as a lead problem. And you know, I rarely actually say that. Like, usually I'm like, efficiency, like, let's nail this thing down, let's get weight, you know, cut P for P. All this other stuff, it's very rare as, hey, we just need done tons and tons of leads.
Yeah.
And that's why I say going to another market is so attractive to you because you know, immediately you unlock leads.
Right.
But when I look at what you currently have with the website, the current operations, like what you can do with the marketing, we're not tapping into it.
It's true.
I mean, at the beginning of this.
Foray, like I took an online course to get some design work done. You know, I've done, I got, you know, the AI skills to build out all these, you know, postcards, door Hangers. And then I bought your stuff too, just to help me, you know, solidify that and make that a bit easier. But I really haven't found the time to get a good Facebook up, you know, do the Instagram, because I've had enough, you know, you know, success, I suppose, just with lawn signs. And we have 12 up right now from customers who have agreed to do that for a couple free mowings or for free, you know, bless them. So that's, that's work for now.
But tapping into.
I mean, I wanted to call around and see about someone on upwork helping me get the SEO dialed in. So that leads me to my next question of.
I mean, I have the option of putting 36 Lawrence Plain Road and Hadley.
As a official address. We could ask the landlord about that on Google. But right now my service area is Northampton. And 99 of the calls that I get or the website visitors I do get on the intake form is, are from Northampton. So that helps me. I'm wondering, you know, if I put in Hadley. We had a Hadley route last year, so that's where our shop's located. But the lawns are a lot bigger and I think, you know, there's probably a little more, you know, price discretion in that market. So I'm wondering, should I do that.
You think to having on any address on Google is any positive? Because at least you show up on the map. And right now with Google listing integrated directly. Now with maps like you want an address, right, you're showing up on the second page, but you are showing up at first on Google listing. And that's because no one around here has Google Reviews. You have 15 and it's like the most.
Right.
So if you can get above 30, at least in terms of reviews, that'll help. If you can also get an address verified on the map, even better. Now, ideally, it is in Northampton, right? So is this. This is Northampton, Southampton.
This sounds away. Yeah, I don't want to put it here.
And then Hadley's kind of in between.
Hadley is further.
It's even further north than Northampton than Northampton is. Oh, it's Southampton, East Hampton, Northampton, Hadley.
Got it. But if I'm looking at a map, like, are we what, three, four miles from the center of your kind of like service area?
About probably closer to 10 right now.
No, I mean your shop space.
Oh, my shop space. Yeah, my shop space a little closer.
Verify that one. Use that one as a verification. It's already a commercial address, so easier to verify.
Right.
I'm assuming all your Stuff is sitting there. So you have to do video verification for Google but if you just have that verified and you get 30 Google reviews, just that alone will probably be in the first page of Google. Yeah. And so like that alone, just that one move will get you 20% more leads. I'd say just like on the second page of Google, everything dies. Like no one cares. You've got five competitors above you from an organic search.
Right.
None of them have Google listing. Like none of, none of them are taking Google reviews seriously.
Right.
So inside service autopilot. If you can just simply make an automation based upon when you complete a job it's sending them an automated.
I have that. Yeah. I mean it going, it's going out with the invoice. I don't know if that's a mistake.
It should be a separate email.
We'll do your cards on file. Say again, do you have cards on file for customers?
What kind of.
What do you mean credit cards on file? Yes. So do they get an actual invoice?
No. So only it's only one time jobs are getting it.
Only one time jobs are folks paying by check.
I suppose.
So what you can do is just have it where it's like every 90 days or 120 days you send a review request to customers. Now instead of asking for review, what you want to do is you want to say was your service satisfactory? And then if they click yes it goes to Google. If they click no, it goes to a Google form and sends information to you.
Okay.
And then what I would say is in inside that tell them that you're. If they leave a review for your crew that they get a 50 bonus or whatever you want to put it on that because then they're much more inclined to leave a review.
So do say $50 incentive for free.
Mowing for the, to the customer.
I wouldn't do anything free mowing or anything like that. I would just say hey, if you leave a review for us, yeah. The crew that was at your site, your property last gets a bonus.
Okay.
Because. Because most of the time they feel good about especially so I like to do is for recurring service. I like to go was your, was your property status? Was, was the service satisfactory? Yes or no. More of a survey based. And if they say yes it's going to Google, they say no, it's going to a Google form to keep that internal information for one time projects. I would change that one because the reason you're getting very few reviews on that is people typically don't care about Your business. But they do care about the guys who showed up to their property and did the work, right? And so they say, hey, Mr. Jones, Billy Bob, Joe and whatever was at your property. They love doing the service. If you leave us a review, they get a $50 bonus. If you do that, you'll get way more from the one time jobs. Because now the customer cares about the people who show up for their property. They really could care less about ecobalance.
That's what I found. I mean, when I was doing. I mean, I still know every customer on a first name basis nearly, you.
Know, but it's, it's true as, as, as we start getting more and more folks, you know, doing the service and I'm not there. They're getting to know my folks and I'm making sure they're gregarious, outgoing, knowledgeable and can take the, you know, the place of the. As the face of the business. And that's really, you know, people care more about that than, you know, the business itself. That's why, I mean, you know, that I forget.
Florida turf pro is that other YouTuber. He does the, like, he puts him.
And his family on the postcard and then it says, this is what I promise you. Like, you know, it.
It rings true. It makes a lot more sense if.
People feel like my crews are getting a tip, you know, from the business based on how good of a job they did.
And then you give that money to like whoever was the last. So like the one. The challenging part is like, let's say so we do every 90 days. It's going out as the survey. And that way if they, you know, get it multiple times, it's not a big deal every 90 to 120 days. But the one time jobs, one or the one where I mentioned the 50 job bonus and those ones we just crush on, right. We're printing one to two a week just from like spring cleanups, mulch installs, bush trims just from that side, right?
And we do really good mulch work. That's where we were priced pretty good. We were like 200 bucks a yard.
Installed for some of our mulch. Because we're taking so much time with it really like edging crazy to the point where there's like two or three inches of sod removed. We have to get a lot of material off site to do it like that. But I think that's one area where, you know, customers really, we go above and beyond. We're not, we don't have a bark blower. We're not running in and out. We're probably like, you know, twice as expensive as the, you know, the next company in terms of install. But we still have folks going for that from us.
Like, if you even wanted to get 20 reviews in a week, this is what I would do. I would put a picture of your team.
Yep.
I would say we're, we're gonna, we're getting ready for the spring season. You know, this is our team. If you've done service with us in the past and our work was quality, let us know, Leave us a review. And for every review that we get, we're gonna put $50 towards a party for our team or whatever. Like, and we're gonna go off site, do a meeting, do it all around. The team though, they don't care about your business, they care about the team. Especially because they, you know all their names, they know your employees names. They like Bob last year because he installed the mulch, like focus on that side and you'll get 15 to 20 pretty quickly.
Yeah.
And then just set up the automation to that. It's every three months, every four months. Is collecting reviews organically all the time.
Right, Right. Wow. Yeah. Novel. Awesome. Yeah.
Because I just been, I mean, I've had it on my high, high priority.
List to call every customer this year over the winter and say.
But it seems, you know, at this.
Point, you know, if I'm just touching on that and that's the main point of the call, it's like, I don't think that's a good idea.
Yeah. Especially because on a call they still have to go log in on their, their device. They make it where they click on something, it's immediately there.
Right.
So even text, do you have text inside service hub? Why? Or not?
No, I did not opt for that feature, unfortunately.
So email though is sufficient. Like just make the, like behind the yes and the no is pictures.
Right.
And instead of just say like, was your, you know, service satisfactory? That makes it easier.
Yeah. Right. Right.
Cool.
That's. Yeah, that's definitely something I can focus on. That would be high impact, low cost for sure.
So two properties, you know, what would you do in my shoes and what do you think the best step is? Trying to, you know, I don't, I don't want to get ahead of myself.
And try and think about, you know, 100 locations before I have two. Right. Like in your most recent visit to the Carolinas. Like that's not something I'm gung ho on. The only reason, I mean, I'm thinking.
About this, this early already is because.
We now have to plug this in here.
Right.
Is it going to be, you know, a distraction or a detraction or, you know, is the business at a place.
Where I think it can, can sort of can sustain that and start branching out into two locations under one roof with me, as you know, you know, still managing everything. As long as I can get some ops managers who are going to be coming back, you know, for next year and then be able to have people leaving from here with a crossword trustworthy crew and not have to be in two places at one time.
Yeah. Like, I would try to get one location in profit mode with higher prices, well above 500,000 before I start breaking it apart.
Right.
Also from a leadership perspective, no one to be able to like start team meeting at the other spot, anything like that. Right. What was nice is like, as you hire this year, you can say, hey, this is on the horizon, next few years, what we want to do. And then potentially you get someone that's a little early and you can kind of foster them into that role. But I would not be pushing for that. Especially like the fact that right now you're only splitting the two locations because you can charge the truck here. Right. Like, you're driving extra 15 or 20 minutes now simply to charge the truck. Yeah. And so, like, can we charge that truck there any way, shape or form? Like, can we put an inverter there or anything?
It's not going to work.
No. And then you would have to bring that truck basically then every day.
Yeah.
Which is not possible.
Right.
So it's starting a mo crew from here. And I mean, I have hired a foreman with, to be an ops manager in training, you know, throughout this season. Like, I'm ready to start handing off. They're actually out doing quotes today.
They're doing property inspections, taking pictures, everything, taking a video. And then, you know, they're sending that to me over and then I'm actually coming up with the prices for the customers.
But I have people who are well.
Fit for those roles who now seem like they'd be committed for at least a year, two years, three years, you.
Know, so it's not, you know, out of the question. But from a revenue perspective, I'm trying.
To hand off certain administrative and sales and ops manager tasks without giving them a true, you know, salary and like, you know, gung ho. This is, this is it. Because at 500k, we can't quite afford it yet.
Right. But it just starts to feel janky for the employees when like there's two different start sites. Yeah. The one that you currently have over there at the shop space is at different landscaping companies. Property.
Yeah.
Here's your house.
Right.
So like it starts to feel janky from an employee's perspective.
Right.
And that's where churn comes. They don't feel like it's a real business. Yeah. And there's no camaraderie, no culture. You don't start in the same place every day. See you every day.
Right.
And that's when you start to get low morale. People leave because they don't see you for three or four days. They think you're out partying, like doing whatever, like. So that's where I get concerned at the size of business is splitting is actually from a cultural perspective.
Yeah.
Retention.
Right.
Can we move the whole thing here? I mean, we could in theory with enough work.
Yeah.
In space and we have enough electric.
Capacity and, you know, parking capacity. But that becomes a question of over there.
You'll see when we cruise over there.
There's some serious benefits to. To have in a spot like that. He's loading us up with mulch. He's hooking us up with salt. Any time of night. He, you know, any bulk material we need, he's got. He's got the loaders for those. We're not having to drive to get them.
Well, 800 bucks a month isn't so bad either. Yeah. So like what you could do is like, you could probably grow into this. So even if you didn't like full scale going like, let's build this whole shop sale now. Great. We're going to slowly move into this.
Yeah.
But when we hit the 800, a million plus now it's an 8. 800 bucks a month is not going to kill. You have a secondary spot. You might have a couple pieces of equipment there. It's closer to your service area. And don't treat a separate. Like separate locations, but more or less here's where we keep maybe the trailers or like the landscape stuff. It's closer to our service area. They have the loaders, et cetera. You can make sense of spending 800 bucks a month to have those type of savings. But I would not split the locations up.
Right.
Until you have someone that has been here for a few years. They're like your general manager. They're not just like here and they're a good worker. But like they run team meetings, they do hiring, they do all aspects of the business. I wouldn't split the two because you're going to have like the whole notion of part time employees and like very much like a transient employment base happens when it's like, oh, yeah, we kind of start here sometimes, we start over here sometimes. We never really see the owner. There's no real leadership. There's no accountability. They get less efficient throughout the day. They forget stuff throughout the day. Like it just becomes a mess.
Yeah.
So I would really try to keep it centralized and if that means starting here, fine. You know, three trucks, you could start here pretty quickly. Right. You just need to park the trucks, then have parking for the employees. You say you park the. You pull the truck out, you park where the truck was at.
Right, right.
And then have like $800 a month is not a horrible thing to keep. If you can have saving, if you make some of it financially from a just savings of like material parking up there, whatever it might be. Yeah. Yep.
Interesting.
Do you need that? If you had this all built out, would you even need that, you think?
I suppose we wouldn't.
Honestly, like.
But then there's the risk of this.
Not being zoned and it's like. Right, that's all.
That's kind of.
It's like a long term. I want to go all in. And, you know, we have no other.
Option because this is, you know, now our home and we have, you know, a mortgage out on it. Right. But you know, there's already set up and changes. So hard, you know, moving from a, you know, all that from that space over to here. Like, there's a lot of equipment, 40 foot shipping container.
But that's closer to your service area, right?
It is.
Well, you could just have like a scaled down version of all the equipment on the trucks here. And that's like your equipment depot.
Right.
Like, hey, if you guys are out throughout the day or you need more batteries or you need to go pick up one of the, you know, battery luggage things that's all over there. But then they start here. You have meetings, you're like, this is a good environment, I feel like, for the team.
Yeah.
Versus being in someone else's yard. It's a weird thing for an employee. Like, yeah, I show up here, but yeah, I know it says other landscape. All around me is a massive company that's also very appealing for them to just like fail.
Right, right.
So, like, personally, I think this would be a more controlled environment. You have really nice space for them. It, you know, you can build this out exactly the way you want it, organize the shop space. You don't have a competitor around you I guess there's a weird experience for an employee. They feel very much like second rate. Yeah. Yeah.
That's an interesting point for sure. Yeah.
Yeah.
I hadn't thought about that so much.
Right.
So trying to move into this spot as the main HQ and keeping that.
As like a depot, you think depot slash, insurance policy. Like if it was just the depot, I'd say let's get rid of it for 800amonth. Yeah. But the fact is, like, if you got the card pulled out from under here, you don't want to be like going back and begging to go back. And he's like, sorry, I already like put stuff in that.
Yeah, exactly.
So it'd really be an insurance policy.
Right, right.
Which you can't afford that insurance policy at 400,000 in revenue, but you can if you continue to grow.
Right?
Yeah. The way I'm treating this on the.
From an accounting perspective on this property is the mortgage is 2600. We're paying three grand total. Between my wife and I, the business pays a thousand, I pay a thousand, and she pays the other thousand.
And so I'm treating that as rent.
On the, on the, the balance sheet though, because technically it's not a commercial property. It's never going to have any worth on the balance sheet itself. So it's just I'm renting to myself.
Yeah.
For a thousand bucks a month. So all in, we're like 1800.
Do you actually write yourself a check from the business too?
Yes, I just do the direct deposit automated kind of a thing.
Y. That's good. As long. As long as you can actually put it as an expense on the P. L. And then like on your side, you'll claim it as income.
Right.
But it'll wash itself out. Okay, good.
So yeah, we talked a little bit about winter and winter struggles. And I'm curious, now that you have so many, you know, Augusta locations in winter markets, winter layoffs have been a struggle.
Right.
Like even for folks who have worked.
For me for the year, sometimes the, the red tape of like they don't receive payments for two months and then they only back date it a month or folks haven't received a single payment all year. So like I need an HR department to be able to call like the department of unemployment assistance and be able to get them on.
So how you're talking about your employees when they go, when they get laid.
Off for four months, you know, our, our seasons in the past have been.
Closer to like off season is three months, December 15th through March 15th. I say we can get boots on the ground now this month it was more like December through April 1st is what I say.
So that's four months of, you know, it's a hard sell even. You know, I thought about, I've seen.
You mention like the cash bonus for a return. I've talked to other folks about them paying their employees a flat like $500 a week just to be able to show up if they have, you know, really good snow accounts. Those are folks more with like loaders and things where like if they don't have people show, they're really, you know, up an alley.
But how have you dealt with that?
I mean it's the turnover.
I don't want to put anyone else in a financially precarious position to say, look, you need to show up to work because you work for me, but I only have work for you maybe once a month. And then don't go look for another job or at least tell them that.
You'Re going to actually have to miss a bunch of days every time it's knows, right. And, and then that ends up being, you know, them having such a limited income throughout the entire, you know, season.
And it's hard to find folks even that have been in the industry for.
A while that are like okay with just going on unemployment, milking it and pretending to look for a job.
Right.
They make it so you actually have to be applying, following up, what was the rejection reason, etc. Etc. You can't really just, you know, it's so hard, you know.
Yeah. There's two things you can do. One is if you're not paying people, like just trying to pay them to do nothing.
Right.
You can afford to pay more during the snow, right. And just make it so much per hour like they are willing to miss a day of work, they're willing to work on the weekends, willing work at night. Yeah. Because so high, right. Versus like I'm going to try to keep it on kind of busy, pay them a little bit of money just like that. That's probably what I would do. That being said, like most of your services for snow are simple, right? Like snow plow. Like you don't do a ton of plowing, right?
We only have one plow truck and then one sidewalk snow vehicle at the.
Moment for our big condos, like wide sidewalk account.
And most do you at night.
A lot of times, A lot of the time it is.
So they, if you can pay them high enough, they can go get another job but then still be on call for you Right. You have to make it very high. But I'd rather pay them a lot per hour than being on the sum flat rate per week thing to keep them around. All of a sudden, if I just put that towards the hourly rate, I could double my hourly rate.
Yeah.
Because you pay people $45 an hour to show up to snowplow, they probably do it in the middle of the night.
Right.
I mean, they're doing it right now for 25 or 30.
Right.
And that's what.
You know, our, our landlord also pays.
His guys and he has a massive operation and it seems like all of his trucks are out every snowstorm.
So.
But I have heard of folks paying.
Closer to 30, 40 for folks. They really want to show up every single time. And that, that, that seems like.
And it puts. To take the pressure off of. You have to pay them all the time.
Right.
Because I enjoy the rest. But after the fall, after the fall season, I mean, like, it's a bane of my existence. Right. From a financial standpoint, to not have.
Consistent income over the winter, but also.
The fact that I get all this.
Time to myself to work on the business and then do stuff that I've been putting off in my personal life for these three months is definitely huge to help me go, you know, 110% into spring every year.
Have you considered doing winter services for your existing recurring mowing customers?
I've thought about it, but I don't know what there is to do. I mean, it's cold here and it's, it can be snowy. So beyond winter pruning, what is there? Right, there's those four different ways that.
You talked about, depending on what market and how much snow they get.
We could talk about that, but I.
Have yet to figure out any.
You know, it's tree service, but that's.
A whole other bag.
So for, for mowing, how many mowing customers do you have?
Like 100 right now.
Okay. And then how many of those take you up on the flat rate snow?
I think like at least 90% did this.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, that's really.
I required it. And some of them basically said goodbye.
And found another service last year. Cool. Yeah.
Okay, so that, then that was $1200.
Per customer for 800 to 1200, depending.
On the size of the driveway.
Yeah, that's really good. Yeah. This is probably your best off season ever, then.
It is absolutely by a long shot.
So what I would consider doing is, you know, that let's say 800 to $1200 per customer is what they're going to pay. And 90% of people do that. That's awesome. Yeah. Can we get that to fifteen to eighteen hundred dollars if we say, hey, if it doesn't snow? Because the, the objection they're going to have is, hey, the past three has hardly snowed.
Right.
Give them the downside protection of that happening. That if it doesn't snow, we still show up every two weeks and we're going to trim, we're going to blow things off it branches. The objection they're going to have is, hey, the past three has hardly snowed.
Right.
Give them the downside protection of that happening. That if it doesn't snow, we still show up every two weeks and we're going to trim, going to blow things off if branches have fallen down because of a windstorm. We're going to check your gutters. We're going to make sure we flap out the mats because they got moved around those leaves up in the, in the alley of the gutters. Like add the whole list of service that you can do if it doesn't snow.
Right.
It'll also reduce the amount of people who will cancel because they're like, I don't want snow. It doesn't snow sometimes.
Yeah, right.
So I think you could increase the ticket per off season per customer and increase the retention of them throughout the off season if you have a downside protection, which is if it doesn't snow, you still get services. And then what I would say is if, if it doesn't snow, realize that all your competition is charging that flat rate and their customers are unhappy because they're not showing up.
Right.
So what you do is you market against that. You say, hey, are you tired of paying for something for snow and it not snowing?
Right.
We come even if it doesn't snow. But now you can charge a more premium price.
Right.
Gutters is something I've considered. I mean, I'm trying to think of what you just mentioned, like stick in winter damage pruning and shrubs.
That's a go, right?
Gutters, gutters, leaf cleanup. Yeah, we, we edge the walkways and blow things off. We look for any sticks that are falling. We check the gutters and the downspouts. We'll do a visual inspection and we'll make.
So you're bringing ladders?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what we do is we only look. So we will knock it on the second floor. Okay. So it's like, it's like, hey, it's only the first floor. Because anything down washes from that is going to end up in their bottom ones anyways. And so we will also put as the last item in our property inspection is a property inspection with a video and we'll send it to the customer. The reason, especially in this market too, you got a bunch of snowbirds.
Yeah.
And so they will, they are, they're willing to pay more just knowing every two weeks you're going to be there, you're going to make a video and send it to them. And so we, we have some of our services where we don't, they actually don't have any grass or, or bushes, but they just want us to show up, blow everything off, make it look like they're home and then send us a video. Send them a video because they're out in Florida.
Right.
For the off season. So if you can increase like right now, let's just say the average of $1,000 and 90%, that'd be like $90,000, I would assume approximately is what you probably in the off season. Right. Maybe a little bit less. Because you said 65.
Yeah.
So if we had 65 to 120, now all of a sudden you can afford to keep a couple of employees full time.
Right.
During the off season because you training.
Them on service, autopilot, you know, and.
You have enough recurring services because the problem right now is you need them for snow. But that's intermittent. Right. We want to increase the winter services. So, you know, every week, okay, we have at least 40 budget hours on the schedule just with the 80, 90, 100 recurring visits we have for winter services.
Right.
Interesting.
So what you could do though is even going to the spring as you sell more mowing customers, you put that on the estimate. So in our estimate notes, someone asked for mowing. Great. We're going to give them a price. In that note for the. I said this is a 12 month service. We continue throughout the off season with winter services. I leave it at that. They accept that estimate for mowing. And then come fall, as it's going into winter, before I get ahead of it, before they start canceling mowing and say, hey, mowing's ending, we'll make it a number. November 1st. After November 1st, we start winter services. This is what we would typically call snow services. But we make sure we come to your property regardless of it, snows or not.
Right.
And now that conversion will increase because now they're not worried about they're not being snow.
Right, Right.
You also then can increase the price because you're showing up twice as often throughout the office Right.
How often do you do visit?
Every two weeks.
Every two weeks? Yeah. Yeah. So I won't increase because now they're not worried about they're not being snow.
Right, right.
You also then can increase the price because you're showing up twice as often throughout the off season.
How often do you do this? Every two weeks.
Every two weeks?
Yeah.
Yeah. So I want recurring revenue.
How much do you, what do you need for a minimum visit?
Right.
I mean we charge what we would for mowing, current revenue.
How much do you, what do you need for a minimum visit?
Right.
I mean, we charge what we would for mowing.
Yeah. Okay.
So I, my goal is to keep the same, same price. I stay there the same amount of time.
Got it. So, yeah.
Okay. So my goal is to keep the same, same price, stay there the same amount of time.
Got it.
So I'm not going to come there and do a full out property cleanup for 50 bucks.
Right.
But I'm going to come, I'm going to spend the same amount of budget hours I would for mowing. So I tell the customer, hey look, we come to your property, here's the list of services we do. We start at the top and we work our way down and we get through as much as we can in the same amount of time we would usually have spent on mowing your grass.
Right.
Because they're used to you showing up for 20 for the 30 minutes. Yeah. So you show up, you start at the top of the checklist and you work your way down and then you can just even have it where on the dispatcher note, they just put what number on the checklist they got to. I'm not going to come there and do a full out property cleanup for 50 bucks.
Right.
But I'm gonna come, I'm gonna spend the same amount of budget hours. So we have like our set, nine or ten things that they're supposed to do in which services you usually get like three or four and then the next service they might get a little further and by the end of winter, usually we've gotten through the whole list a few times.
Right.
Where we're getting to the bottom of the list as I would for mowing. So I tell the customer, hey look, we come to your property, here's the list of services we do. We start at the top and then.
You have one less person that needs.
A thorough spring cleanup and then can take 100.
The whole goal is to pull. We work our way down and we get through as much as we can in the same Amount of time we would usually have spent on mowing your grass, all that demand forward, get it done during my off season so that when all the spring cleanups come pouring in, I actually have availability because my team, my customers got taken care of.
Right.
And he pitches the customers like, hey, if you have a fall cleanup and a spring cleanup, it's going to cost you $2,000.
Yeah.
Why not sign up? Right. Because they're used to you showing up for 20, 30 minutes. Yeah. So you show up, you start at the top of the checklist, and you work your way down for winter services and Snow Services for 1500. And we come every two weeks. And your property looks good the entire winter versus just twice a year.
Right.
I'm nervous about growing snow to the extent of like, we had 30 overall customers this year. Five, four or five condo accounts, one.
True commercial cannabis dispensary, and then a bunch of driveways. But I mean, there was times when I was out, you know, 16 hours again, and I have hired 15, 20 people for what I think should, you know, six to eight people should be able to get.
And then you can just even have it where on the dispatcher note, they just put what number on the checklist they got to done.
So, you know, but for my current.
Customers, I can see that working, you know, and then.
And now with their winter services, you fill in all the gaps around what otherwise would be snow events so you can keep a more consistent crew on board.
Right.
So it's not like, oh, there's snow. All right, who's available? It's more a matter of, like, I have my. So we have like our set, nine or ten things that they're supposed to do. On winter services, you should get like three or four. And then the next service, they might get a little further. And by the end of winter, usually we've gotten through the whole list a few times.
Right.
Where we're getting to the bottom of the list. 3, 4, 5 guys are working full time. And now, now there's snow on the ground. Guess what we're not doing. We're not pruning.
And then you have one less person.
That needs a thorough spring cleanup and then can take 100%.
The whole goal is the pool thing. We're not blowing things up. It's time for snow. So you just merge right into it.
Right, right.
And what we do is, like, in our snow snow markets especially, especially if it only snows like four to five, six times a year, it's perfect because, okay, it's in the Middle of January, we've kind of got the whole property looking good. Now it snows great. We just send our crew because they can't do anything else. They're coming in full time. They're coming to work like normal. I just send them out for snow.
Yep.
Right. And they're going to go to all the winter service visits like they normally would. Just do all the, all the driveways and I pull that next bi weekly visit forward. So if it's like, well, it's supposed to be next week, great. Well, there's snow on the ground. I can't have anything. I do anything else. They're just gonna go plow everyone's driveway and pull that, that, that one visit forward, all that demand forward. Get it done during my off season. So that when all the spring cleanups come pouring.
Yeah, I mean, there was a good bit of snow on the ground, like enough covering all the sticks and leaves and everything.
And I actually have availability because my team, my customers got taken care of.
Right.
And he pitches the customers, you know.
This season, which is. Would prevent us from doing quite a bit of, you know, what you mentioned. But yeah, yeah.
Gutters is something, you know, condos are requested that usually have either farmed out.
Or just have the property maintenance company tell. We don't clean gutters. That seems like a dead end.
Right. But what you could do is do inspections. Right. Because, like, is it not like, hey, if you have a fall cleanup and a spring cleanup, it's going to cost you $2,000.
Yeah.
Why not worth it usually to have the insurance for getting the scaffolding, the extra. Because that seems like a pretty low barrier to entry for winter services and.
Snow Services for 1500. And we come every two weeks. And your property looks good the entire.
Week to be able to clean gutters. But it happens at a time when we don't want to be doing it. Right around fall is when most people.
So what we do for winter services is we inspect your gutters and your downspouts.
It's not worth it to clean them.
We don't clean them. However, what we will do is we will offer an estimate. So it's like, hey, we, we're on the winter services, inspect gutters and check downspouts for. To ensure flow. And so we're going to get on a ladder, we're going to look up there like, oh, it's great. Fanter versus just twice a year.
Right.
I'm nervous about growing snow to the.
Extent of like, fantastic.
And then check it off if it's if it's all clogged up and you know, whatever, then we're going to offer a bid to do it. But that's going to require not just like 15 minute service where we're checking.
Right.
That's winter services. This would be a separate service which is to clean out the gutters. Whether you sub that out, give it to someone else or you just get.
Like we had 30 overall customers this year. Five, four or five condo accounts, one true commercial.
The value of the ones and services is the peace of mind and the insurance that they know that their property is okay.
Cannabis dispensary and then a bunch of driveways. But I mean there was times when I was out, you know, 16 hours.
Again they don't have a $30,000 leak now that caused a whole bunch of damage on the side of the house.
Right.
That's what they're protecting against.
So some of your locations do clean.
Gutters, other ones farm it out.
Oh yeah, I would say it's not usually that difficult. It also depends like this sort of a gutter for example, where it's 12ft.
Above the ground and I have hired 15, 20 people for what I think should, you know, six to eight people should be able to get.
That's difficult to clean out. If the gutter is like say 8ft now you just need a 6 foot ladder. Again I can just clean out really easily. So you could just do it based upon like is this feasible?
Right.
And so I just tell my crew like hey, on checklist item number seven of which services I want you to get up there and if it's clogged I want you to take a picture, I want you to attach to the visit. Then you're going to go through the dispatcher notes, you're going to see that like can we actually do this service?
Right.
And then if so I'm going to send an estimate. If not, you're going to send the report like it's stated in winter services and tell the customer done.
So you know, but for my current.
Customers I can see that working, you.
Know, and then, and now with their winter services you fill in all the gaps around. Otherwise would be snow events. So you can keep. Here's the three custom services we recommend doing based upon the fact that you're above 12ft. I'll just look at your insurance. So for us we can't get our guys above 12ft.
Right.
So I can't go up on the roof.
Right.
But if it's a six foot ladder I can do that no problem.
Got it.
So I'd look at your insurance and see what you're covered for and then just have more consistent crew on board.
Right.
So it's not like, oh, there's no.
All right, who's available?
It's more a matter of, like, I have my. Have the delineation on winter services. Like, which are the ones I actually offer an estimate to which are the ones I just farm out. Three, four, five guys are working full time. And now. Now there's snow. The ground. Guess what we're not doing. We're not printing or giveaway.
Got it. Got it.
Yeah. That's definitely an interesting, Interesting take.
I don't think anyone's doing that. The one hedge against no snow years is your price goes down for the following year.
So we don't want that. Right. And then what happens is then the next year you have a bunch of snow, and now you're getting way low on rates.
Right.
So what, you just. You lock it in by saying, regardless of it snows or not, we're coming to your property every two weeks. Being we're not blowing things off, it's time for snow. You just merge right into it.
Right, right.
And what we do is, like, in our snow snow markets, especially if it only snows like, four to five, six times a year, it's perfect because, okay, it's the middle of January. We've kind of got the whole property looking good. Now it snows great. We just send our crew. And if there's snow on the ground.
How do I hedge against that if it snows A bunch, please.
Plus, we're already doing visits every two weeks.
Because if there's snow on the ground, you can't do that. So what, you. You pull the four. The visits forward. So, for example, it snows. No. Last week you blew off the property. Everything looking good.
Keep track of how long that took. And then that counts against however many.
Services I would have gone.
Yeah, exactly. We just pull forward the next winter service. And so because they can't do anything else, they're coming in full time. They're coming to work like normal. I just send them out for snow.
Yep.
Right. And they're going to go. Also, when it. Usually once. It snows once or twice, there's not a lot to do on the property.
Right.
So that's why, like, usually going into winter, after 2, 3, 4 winter services, we've cut the property up. Right. Gutters are looking good. Everything's been blown off. A couple of edges are dialed in. Bushes are Trimmed off of the house. Everything's dead headed. Everything looks great. Snow comes perfect. That's what we need to pull the rest of the winter services forward and actually get their property looking good. All the winter service visits like they normally would.
Just do all the, all the, the.
Driveways and I pull that next set by.
All right, Right, okay.
And then you, we actually just, we do a price comparison. It's like look, the cost of a fall cleanup because a weekly visit forward. So if it's like, well it's supposed to be next week. Great. Well, there's snow the ground. I can't have anything. The guys do anything else. We have to do estimate fees, dump fees. We have to come, you know, look at the property. And a spring cleanup is usually around 1500-2000 dollars.
Yep.
Now you can do all the winter services, including if it's snowing or not. We come to your property for fifteen hundred dollars. But now your property looks good all year round. Right. There's going to plow everyone's driveway and pull that, that, that one visit forward.
Yeah, right. That's a good sell for sure. Gotcha. I'm trying to think which ones are these?
Yeah, I mean there was a good bit of snow on the ground. Like enough covering all the sticks and leaves and everything. Run down the list. We have an hour until my employees show up and start helping me unbox.
Okay, cool.
Um, so virtual assistant versus you know, for admin versus sales and training in house. I want to get it to a point where I can help my team grow.
That's been, you know, whether or not they're going to step into a leadership role.
Getting some of this stuff that slaps.
Me across the face every spring like offloaded onto them so they feel like they're not just part of the work production and actually take some sense of ownership. You know, I don't know much about virtual assistants and if they, they work or not at all versus trying to have somebody trained up on that aspect. But we don't have an outbuilding, we don't have an office space.
This for one employee. I could see, you know, this season.
Which is, would prevent us from doing quite a bit of, you know, what you mentioned.
But yeah, gutters are something, you know, condos are requested that usually have either.
Farmed out or just have the property maintenance company working. What are your thoughts on that? Like getting someone trained up. I want to get a second laptop with the CRM set up. Same way we use Macs. We're gonna have the cloud storage of all the customers properties and notes, videos for everybody. And then, you know, be able being.
Able to train them, you know, virtually.
Via zoom with screen shares. I. I know you've said that comes with this chatting towel. We don't clean gutters. That seems like a dead end.
Right. But what you could do is do inspections. Right.
Because like, is it not worth it usually to have this insurance for getting the scaffolding the extra. Because that seems like a pretty low.
Barrier to end challenges when you're not in the same room. Can't bounce ideas off each other, talk to each other, see each other, what you're doing in real time.
What's the best move there right now? If you look at your profit margin and what you're taking out of the business. If we hired someone like full time here, for example, that would wipe all of that out. So we can't afford that. I also am wary about you focusing on training someone else besides your team right now.
Right.
And growing that side like the operation side.
Yeah.
I would be looking at someone that can work two to four hours a.
Day to be able to clean gutters. But it happens at a time when we don't want to be doing it. Right around fall is when most people.
So what we do that can handle like a whole litany of little tasks for you.
Yeah.
Invoicing, dispatching, scheduling, all the little stuff that can kind of done throughout any of the day. But you're kind of managing yourself texting, phone calls, voicemail, etc. Right. They can just knock out. And I pay them significantly for winter services. If we inspect your gutters and your.
Downspouts, it's not worth it to clean them.
We don't clean them. However, what we will do is we will offer an estimate. So it's like, hey, we we're on the winter services saying inspect gutters and check anymore but for two to four hours a day.
Yeah.
And you probably only need them for five months a year.
Right, right.
Because in the off season, like you just don't need them that much. Yeah. And so I'd be willing to pay someone either by the minute or much higher rate per. Per hour. There's people who are already know your CRM. Yeah. They're very well versed in it. You're going to pay more than this.
This is the virtual assistant.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah. I 100% go virtual. You do not want to have to have an office downspouts for to ensure flow. And so we're going to get on a ladder. We're Going to look up there like, oh, it's great fantasy. You will end up getting sucked in your time here.
Right.
They will burn most of their day. As an office person is, is just in between time. Like a really efficient office worker is working 50% of their time actually doing the work.
Right.
Because there's so much in between stuff happening. And then your current size, there's just not enough to do. Like there might be days where there's three calls.
Right.
And four emails.
Yeah.
And now you're paying someone $200 for the. Fantastic. And then check it off if it's, if it's all clogged up and you know, whatever, then we're going to offer a bid. Like in wages. I'd rather pay someone way more. But they only work two to four hours. They knock out. Here's a list of stuff you do, here's the stuff that I'm going to do. And then you're not like tied to them as an employee perspective where they have questions and you're back and forth. You end up just spending more time doing their job than just doing so to do it. But that's going to require not just like 15 minute service. We're checking.
Right.
That's one of your services. This would be a separate service which is to clean out the gutters. Whether you sub that out, give it to someone else, or you just get like.
So you've had luck with, with companies that, I mean, how does it not.
Get fragmented when someone else from some.
Other market that isn't part of your business picks up the phone and it tries to, you know, request an estimate and then, you know, says when can you come? And they don't know your schedule like you already have to have today.
They should be able to look inside your serum and see your schedule.
Yeah, right.
And you, when you put an estimate on your schedule, you're gonna put it on at a certain time.
Right.
And the value of the winter services is the peace of mind and the insurance that they know that their property is okay. They're gonna know, okay, he can do four estimates a day or these are the days he's available. It's like this is all like a virtual assistant knows how to like figure this part out, right? Yes. Is it difficult to manage a virtual person? Yes. But it's also difficult to have a person in house that you're paying full time. You know, they're not doing anything job. They, you're not doing estimates and you're just like, oh my word.
What about like my Current, you know, foreman or ops manager taking off.
They don't have a $30,000 leak. Now that cause a whole bunch of damage on the side of the house.
Right.
That's what they're protecting.
Some of that, you know, to be trained up to become like step into a general manager role and paying them as it.
So some of your locations do clean.
Gutters, other ones farm it out.
Oh yeah, I would say really good.
Wage, but only four hours a week to do this admin training. That's kind of what I promised some of one of them who I just brought on as, you know, foreman, ops manager in training, you know, to do some of this admin stuff.
The alternative is the general manager or ops person could go out in the field and make 80 to $100 an hour. It's not usually that difficult. It also depends like this sort of a gutter, for example, where it's 12ft above the ground, that's difficult to clean out. If the gutter is like say 8ft now you just need a 6 foot ladder. Again, I can just clean out really.
Right.
So why am I going to have them do a twenty to thirty dollar an hour task, which is admin.
Right.
And so there's no point in hire. If someone has the skill set to make $100 an hour, why am I making them do a $30 an hour task?
Right.
And so I would, I would highly recommend not move it. Like I did that at the beginning. Yeah, I was like, oh, I'll teach them like four hours a day doing admin stuff. It's like that's a $20, 30 task. They can make 100. They have the skills, they will make a hundred. And furthermore, as a general manager they should have leveraged labor, which means easily. So you could just do it based upon like is this feasible?
Right.
And so I just tell my crew like, hey, on checklist item number seven of winch services, I want you to get up there and if it's clogged, I want you to take a picture, I want you to attach to the visit. Then you're going to go through the dispatcher notes. You're going to see that like can we actually do this service?
Right.
And then if so, I'm going to send an estimate. If not, you're going to send the report like it's stated in which services and tell the customer, here's the three custom services we recommend doing based upon the fact that you're above 12ft. I'll just look at your insurance. So for us, we can't get our guys above 12ft.
Right.
So I can't go up on the roof.
Right.
But if it's a six foot ladder, I can do that no problem.
Got it.
So I look at your insurance and see what you're covered for and then just have the delineation on winter services. Like which are the ones I actually offer an estimate to, which are the ones I just farm out. They can manage a crew of five or six or seven people now. Their time is not worth 100, it's worth 150.
Right.
And so having them answer the phone is like crazy. You want to get the outsourced. Yeah. And I'm willing to pay significantly more for coming that knows the CRM is inside of there. I mean they're paying them by the minute or, or like a couple hours a day to knock out a series of tasks. So I can stay focused on. Because the thing that you'll need the admin person for is you don't want to be reactive or give away.
Got it, Got it.
Yeah, that's definitely an interesting, interesting take.
I don't think anyone's doing it. The one hedge against no snow years is your price goes down for the following year.
So we don't want that. Right. And then what happens is then the next year you get a bunch of snow. And now you're getting way low on rates. Right. So what you just, you lock it in by saying, regardless if it snows or not, we're coming to your property every two weeks. And if there's snow on the ground.
How do I hedge against that if it snows a bunch?
Plus we're already doing two visits every two weeks.
Because if they're snowing the ground, you can't do that. So what you pull for the visits forward. So for example, it snows now. Last week you blew off the property. Everything looking good.
Keep track of how long that took and then that counts against however many.
Services I would have gone.
We look at. Yeah, exactly. We just pull forward the next winter service. And so. Yeah. And you're actually really good. Like even today, like I notice you're not constantly getting text messages and phone calls, like in emails. You're not constantly being diverted. That's gonna, you're gonna feel that way more and more in spring. Yeah.
Within two weeks it'll be different.
Yeah. So what you want to do is you want to create. Hey, here's a list of 20 things that I do that someone can do on their own time. Okay. Look at the dispatch notes from the day before, close out the jobs and invoice them, charge the cards if they don't have the chart. Is it a card also when it. Usually when it snows once or twice, there's not a lot to do on the property.
Right.
So that's why, like usually going into winter, after 2, 3, 4 winter services, we've cut the property up.
Right.
Gutters are looking good. Everything's been blown off. A couple edges are dialed in. Bushes are trimmed off of the house. Everything's deadheaded. Everything looks great. Snow comes. Perfect. That's what we need to pull the rest of the winter services forward and actually get their property looking good.
Right. Right. Okay.
And then you. We actually just. We do a price comparison. It's like, look, the cost of a fall cleanup because we have to do estimate fees, dump fees, we have to come look at the property. And a spring cleanup is usually around 1500-2000 dollars. Yep. Now you can do all the winter services, including if it's snowing or not. We come to your property for fifteen hundred dollars. But now your property looks good all year round.
Right.
It doesn't go through. Send this. Email the customer. Okay. Go through the voicemail. If there are estimates that need to be set up, set them up on these times. Like, you just start to hear the 20 things that I know I can ship off to someone, and then they're doing it on a permanent or a very consolidated period of time where they're actually going to go through tasks.
Right. Right. Wow. Okay. So the virtual is. Does seem really.
Be very careful about putting in what. Yep. Right.
That's a good sell for sure. Gotcha. I'm trying to think which ones are these?
Let's run down the list. We have an hour until my employees show up and start helping me unbox.
Okay, cool.
So virtual assistant versus, you know, for admin versus sales and training in house. I want to get it to a point where I can help my team grow.
That's been, you know, whether or not they're going to step into a leadership.
Role getting some of this stuff that.
Slaps me across the face every spring, like offload it onto them so they feel like they're not just part of the work production and actually take some sense of ownership. You know, I don't know much about virtual assistants and if they. They work or not at all versus trying to have somebody trained up on that aspect. But we don't have an outbuilding. We don't have an office space.
This for one employee, I could see Working.
What are your thoughts on that? Like getting someone trained up. I want to get a second laptop with the CRM set up, same way we use Macs. We're going to have the cloud storage of all the customers, properties and notes, videos for everybody. And then, you know, be able being.
Able to train them, you know, virtually.
Via zoom with screen shares. I know you've said that comes with its challenges when you're not in the same room. Can't bounce ideas off each other, talk to each other, see each other, what you're doing.
Someone is capable of an ops position into admin.
Yeah.
So you think about like from, you know, you have sales, operations and admin for the business.
Right.
That is the order in which the value of their time is someone who can sell millions of dollars worth of landscaping jobs higher value than someone who just install the work. That's operations. The operations person, like they're a whole lot more valuable than someone who can like answer the phone, answer texts.
Yeah. Real time. What's the best move there?
Like right now, if you look at your profit margin and what you're taking out of the business, if we hired someone like full time here, for example, that wipe all of that out.
Right.
So we can't afford that. It's not say anything about bad about those people. They can move up in the organization, they can gain skills. Right. But the value of their time is significantly more leverage the higher you go up. That so admin, operations, sales. So I'm never going to take an operations person that can lead a crew of five, 10 people and all. We make it 80 to $100 an hour and put them into a role. Right. I also am wary about you focusing on training someone else besides your team right now.
Right.
And growing that side like the operations side. Yeah. I would be looking at someone that can work two to four hours a day, that can handle like a whole litany of little tasks for you. Yeah. Invoicing, dispatching, scheduling, all the little stuff that can kind of done throughout any of the day. But you're kind of managing yourself. Texting, phone calls, voicemail, etc.
Right.
They can just knock out and I pay them significantly more, but for two to four hours a day.
Yeah.
And you probably only need them for five months a year.
Right.
Because in the office I can have someone texting someone.
Right. And I thought, I mean, because so.
Oftentimes people are burnt out after six.
Or seven years in ops, they want a chance to move into admin or sales, but it ends up being too.
Much he's like, you just don't need them.
Yeah.
And so I'd be willing to pay someone either by the minute or a much higher rate per hour. There's people who are already know your CRM. They're very well versed in it. You're going to pay more juggle for. And so you say hey look, I can do that. But realize that that's a $25 an hour task. I want you to be like more money than. Than that.
Yeah.
In order to do that I need you to manage a team.
Right.
And that's a different like a totally different skill set. Yeah. So if you want to make more than.
This is the virtual assistant.
Yes. Okay. Yeah. I 100 go virtual. You do not want to have to have an office person. You will end up getting sucked in your time here.
Right.
They will burn most of their day. As an office person is is just in between time. Like a really efficient office worker is working 50% of their time actually doing the work.
Right.
Because there's so much in between stuff happening. And then your current size, there's just not enough to do. Like there might be days where there's three calls.
Right.
And four emails.
Yeah.
And now you're paying someone 200 for the day money. Then you do this route. If you want to make less money and get out of the off get out of the field, I can put you in that day. Like in wages. I'd rather pay someone way more. But they only work two to four hours. They knock out all the admin rule. Sure. You're gonna make less money. Right.
Right. So interesting.
It is a less leveraged skill. Yep.
Right. And that way the virtual assistants, as you grow with them, they learn better and better and they have more and more people dedicated to your account.
Yeah. And if you go get to 800,000amillion, you will want then be able to afford a full time person here. And here's the list of stuff you do. Here's the stuff that I'm gonna do. And then you're not count like tied to them as an employee perspective where they have questions and you're back and forth. You end up just spending more time doing their job than just doing it.
So you've had luck with with companies that I mean how does it not.
Get fragmented when someone else from some.
Other market that isn't part of your business picks up the phone and it tries to, you know, request an estimate and then you know, says when can you come? And they don't know your schedule like you Already have to have.
So they should be able to look inside your serum and see your schedule.
Yeah.
Right. And you, when you put an estimate on your schedule, you're put it on at a certain time, right. And then they're gonna know, okay, he can do four estimates a day or these are the days he's available. It's like this is all like a virtual assistant. No, Keep them busy all day long.
Yeah.
But until that point, I gotta be very careful at 4 or 5, 600,000. Get a full time person. Because now you get a full time person here, Internet, computer, your time training them. Like everyone underestimates how much it costs to train the person. It'll take you three months to get this person like understanding how you run this business.
Right.
And then you, that entire time is going to be your, during your spring rush. By the time you literally have them trained up. You like figure this part out, right? Yes. Is it difficult to manage a virtual person? Yes. But it's also difficult to have a person in house that you're paying full time. You know, they're not doing anything. They, you're doing estimates and you're like.
Oh, what about like my current, you know, foreman or ops manager taking on.
Some of that, you know, to be trained up to become like step into a general manager role and paying them.
As a really good wage, but only.
Four hours a week to do this admin training. That's kind of what I promised some of one of them who I just brought on as, you know, foreman, ops manager in training, you know, to do some of this admin stuff.
The alternative is the general manager or ops person could go out in the field and make eighty to a hundred dollars an hour.
Right.
So why am I going to have them do a 20 to $30 an hour task which is admin.
Right.
Don't need them because it's after the spring rush hour. So that's why I'm willing to pay a premium. And it's going to be a painful like ask to someone charging by the minute or per hour, very, very high. Like I get I, I for my gym, I pay someone $6aminute to answer the phone when we miss the phones. Because like I know that I'm only going to need them a few times a day. Yeah, I'd rather do that than hire someone. And so there's no point in hire. If someone has the skill set to make $100 an hour, why am I making them do a $30 an hour task?
Right.
And so I would, I would Highly recommend not move it. Like, I did that at the beginning. Yeah. I was like, oh, I'll teach them like four hours a day doing admin stuff. It's like, that's a 20, $30 test. They can make a hundred. They have the skills to make a hundred. And furthermore, as a general manager, they should have leveraged labor, which means they can manage a crew of five or six or seven people. Now their time is not worth a hundred. It's worth 150.
Right.
And so having them answer the phone is like, crazy. You want to get the outsourced. Yeah. And I'm willing to pay significantly more for coming that knows the CRM is inside of there. I'm either paying them by the minute or like a couple hours a day to knock out a series of tasks so I can stay focused on. Because the thing that you'll need the admin person for is you don't want to be reactive. Even 20 bucks an hour in the office.
Which virtual assistant company, I mean, knows.
Do I have to look around and see who has.
Everyone's going to tell me they have.
Experience with service autopilot. They say that they. They have. They know all of our systems already.
Yeah. So what's nice.
I get phone calls from folks in.
India that claim that they do. You know, I mean, I'm not sure what route to.
Yeah. And you're actually really good. Like, even the day, like, I notice you're not constantly getting text messages and phone calls, like in emails. You're not constantly being diverted. That's going to. You're going to feel that way more and more in spring.
Within two weeks, you'll be there you go.
Yeah. So I would go. I would actually go more premium at the beginning because it's going to be less of your time training them. Yeah. So what you want to do is you want to create. Hey, here's a list of 20 things that I do that someone can do on their own time. Okay. Look at the dispatch notes from the day before. Close out the jobs and invoice the them. Charge the cards if they don't have the char. If the card doesn't go through, send this email the customer. Okay. Go through the voicemail. If there are estimates that need to be set up. Set them up on these times. Like, you just start to hear those 20 things that I know I can ship off to someone and then they're doing it.
Right.
The person in India. First off, you're going to explain to every single customer. Yep. You're going to have to teach them on like what GR per minute or a very consid period of time where they're actually going to go through tasks.
Right, right. Wow. Okay. So the virtual is.
Does seem really be very careful about putting in what ass is. Literally. Yep. You're going to have to treat them about winter services, snow, etc. Well, I would go with more premium at the beginning. As you get more. As the business gets bigger and you have the bandwidth, be able to train someone who's capable of an ops position into admin.
Yeah.
So you think about like from, you know, you could do it overseas and go more full time or just bring them in house. Right. And everyone thinks going overseas the immediately cheaper sales, operations and admin for the business.
Right.
That is the. The order in which the value of their time is someone who can sell millions of dollars worth of landscaping jobs higher value than someone who can just install the work. That's operations. The operations person, like they're a whole lot more valuable than someone who can like answer the phone, answer texts.
Yeah.
It's not say anything about bad about those people. They can move up in the organization, they can gain skills.
Right.
But the value of their time is significantly more leverage the higher you go up that so admin, operations, sales. So I'm never going to take an operator option, but the amount of training that goes in that is so much more.
Right.
Tracking, etc. I actually think what usually will end up happening is you scale your admin once you be overseas, once you have someone in house that can keep them accountable all the time. Right. Tracking them, you track their phone, they track their device, everything person can lead a crew of five, 10 people and all we make an $80, $100 an hour and put them into a role where I can, you know, have someone texting someone.
Right. And I thought, I mean, because so.
Oftentimes people are burnt out after six.
Or seven years in ops. They want a chance to move into admin or sales, but it ends up.
Being too much to move because otherwise people can go off, off the rails very quickly.
Right.
So if you want to say Jill's.
Off it juggle for anything.
And so you say, hey, look, I can do that. But realize that that's a $25 an hour task. I want you to be more money than that.
Yeah.
In order to do that, I need you to manage a team.
Right.
And that's a different, like a total different skill set.
Yeah.
So if you want to make more money, then you do this route. If you want to make less money and get out of the off, get out of the field. I can put you in admin role. Sure. But you're making less money.
Right?
Right.
So interesting.
It is a less leverage skill. Yep. This or Ruby or call boss. They all do service autopilot. They would know what you're wanting. You're going to pay a very high premium. We're talking like between two to four dollars a minute. Very high.
Right. And that way the virtual assistants, as you grow with them, they learn better and better and they have more and more people dedicated to your account.
But it's like hey, here's the task I'm going to have. If you even pay them a thousand or $2,000 a month, it's cheaper.
Yeah.
And if you go get to 800,000amillion, you will want then be able to afford a full time person here and keep them busy all day long.
Yeah.
But until that point, I gotta be very careful at 4 or 5, 600,000 having a full time person here, that more importantly sucks your time. Right. Everyone takes into account that what they're paying like full time person because now you get a full time person here, Internet, computer, your time training them. Like everyone underestimates how much it costs to train the person. It'll take you three months to get this person like understanding how you run this business.
Right.
And then you that entire time is going to be your during your spring rush. By the time you really have them trained up, you won't need them because it's after the spring rush.
Right, Right.
So that's why I'm willing to pay a premium. And it's going to be a painful per minute to say Jill's office versus hiring someone. What they're not accounting for is the fact that they're trained and you have nothing to do with them. And so yes, they're going to be 80, 90% of your efficiency. Like ask to someone charging by the minute or per hour. Very, very high. Like I get. I see. But you're like, these are the tasks I want you guys to do. Here's the I do the people who hate those services are typically for my gym, I pay someone $6aminute to answer the phone when we miss the phones because like I know that I'm only going to need them a few times a day.
Yeah.
I'd rather do that than hire someone at even 20 bucks an hour in the office.
Which virtual assistant company, I mean knows.
Do I have to look around and.
See the ones that have a very blurry Schedule, they don't know what they're assigning. Like what am I doing? What are you doing?
Who has.
Everyone's going to tell me they have.
Experience with service autopilot. They say that they, they have, they know all of our systems already.
Yeah.
So what's nice, phone calls from folks in India that claim that they do. You know, I'm not sure what route to go.
Yeah. So I would go, I would actually go more premium at the beginning because it's going to be less of your time training them.
Right.
So the person in India, first off, you're going to explain to every single customer. Yep. You're going to teach them on like what. Just be very, very clear. These are the tasks you're doing. These are the tasks I'm doing.
Right.
And then I would be really trying to get like ass is literally. Yeah. You're going to treat them about winter services, snow, etc. Well, I would go with more premium at the beginning. As you get more, as the business gets bigger and you have the bandwidth, be able to train, you could do it overseas and go more full time or just bring them in house.
Right.
And everyone thinks going overseas is the immediately cheaper option. But the amount of training that goes in that is so much more.
Right.
Tracking, etc. I actually think what usually will end up happening is you scale your admin once you via overseas, once you have someone in house that can keep them accountable all the time. Right. Like tracking them, you track their phone, they track their device, everything. Because otherwise people can go off, off the rails very quickly.
Right.
So if you want say Jill's office or Ruby or call boss, they all do service autopilot. They would know what you're. Everything that is reactive to them. Right. Just everything. Like checking the dispatch board from the day before, they can go through automations and approve the ones that need you out the collection. From a collections perspective, answering the phones, sending out text messages, all that stuff should be reactive on them. And it's going to cost you a thousand, $2,000 a month.
Yep.
Right. Everyone's like, oh it should be like 500. Like no, if you hired someone here, you'd be paying four to five grand a month plus taxes, plus you'd keep them during the offseason, then you'd feel bad when you can't get them and then if you can't get them to come back, you're going to train someone else, you're going to pay a very high premium. We're talking like between two to four dollars a Minute, very high. But it's like, hey, here's the task I'm going to have. If you even pay them a thousand or $2,000 a month, it's cheaper than having a full time person here. That more importantly sucks your time.
Right.
Everyone takes into account that what they're paying like per minute to say Jill's office versus hiring someone, what they're not accounting for three months, don't deal with that. We need to grow the business.
Yeah.
Admin does not grow a business. It is defense sales or it's the fact that they're trained and you have nothing to do with them. And so yes, they're going to be 80, 90% of your efficiency. But you're like, these are the tasks I want you guys to do. Here's the I do. The people who hate those services are typically the ones that have a very blurry schedule. They don't know what they're assigning. Like, what am I doing? What are you doing? Just be very, very clear. These are tasks you're doing. These are the tasks I'm doing.
Right.
And then I would be really trying to get like, you just need to get taken care of so you can grow the business to the point when you get 800,000 revenue, you will be able to afford a person full time.
Go ahead, let's go.
Underestimated how long they would take. It's like a 24 hour ordeal.
24 hour beans.
Let's go, green pea.
Everything that is reactive to them, right? Just everything. Like checking the dispatch work from the day before.
Not gonna lie. The truck. Look, they can go through automation and approve the ones that indeed go out. Collection from a collections perspective, answering the phones, sending out text messages, all that stuff should be reactive on them. And it's going to cost you a thousand, $2,000 a month.
Yep.
Right. Everyone's like, oh, it should be like $500. Like no, if you hired someone here, you'd be paying four to five grand a month plus taxes, plus you'd keep them during the offseason. Then you'd feel bad when you can't get them. And then if you can't get them to come back, you're going to train someone else. Nice.
Much as it hurts my soul to say it. Is that a Breville? Yeah, that's right. I'm here learning my coffee lingo.
For three months. Don't deal with that. We need to grow the business.
Yeah.
Admin does not grow a business is defense sales. You just need to get taken care of. So you can grow the business to the point when you get 800,000 in revenue, you will be able to afford a person full time. Go ahead.
I got some beans on the stove.
Let's go.
Underestimated.
How long? All right.
You guys all doing okay?
Oh, yeah, we're cracking.
How long they would take? It's like a 24 hour ordeal.
24 hour beans. Let's go.
Green peas.
Thanks. So I gotta take this, right?
You're good.
Good morning, Eco Valley.
Long bees, I guess.
Not gonna lie, the truck looks nice.
As much as it hurts my soul to say it. Is that a Breville? Yeah, that's right. I'm here learning my coffee lingo.
All right.
You guys all doing okay?
Oh, yeah, we're crashing. All right.
Okay. This is Cyrus.
Hello.
You got a lot of those spam calls. Yeah, I'm not too sure. All right, see, that's.
That's the thing that goes to someone else. Right answer, and they pay. Charge it for five seconds.
Thanks. So I gotta take this. Right?
Go ahead. You're good.
Good morning. Eco Valley Lawn Care. This is Cyrus.
Hello.
You got a lot of those spam calls. Yeah, not too sure.
Right.
See, that's.
That's the thing that goes to someone else. Right answer, and they pay. Charge it for five seconds. So cool.
Okay, I'm glad I asked that one. Yeah. Because I was really weary about that. Of, like, man, I really need positions for my folks.
Cool.
Okay. I'm glad I asked that one. Yeah. Because I was really weary about that. Like, man, I really need positions for my folks to be able to move.
Into to get away out of the field, yada, yada. And it seems like you would still.
Have to train virtual assistants to be.
Able to move into to get out of the field, yada, yada. And it seems like you would still.
Have to train virtual assistants, and I guess it just requires you getting your.
Own schedule and every task list for the entire day and week.
Very detailed. Yeah, very detailed. So I would. I would audit your current week. Like, you have a couple more weeks till spring rush. I would audit this.
And I guess it just requires you getting your own schedule and every task.
List for the entire day and week.
Very detailed. Yeah, very detailed. So I would. I would audit your current week. Like you have a couple more weeks till spring rush. Yeah, I would audit this week.
Yeah.
Like, what are the tasks I do from an admin perspective? There's gonna be 20 or 30 of them. Everything from checking for this week, like, what are the tasks I do from an Admin perspective. There's gonna be 20 or 30 of them. Everything from checking for dispatcher note, checking for pictures, invoicing, scheduling estimates. Like whole nine yards. Yeah, just go through every single one of those dispatcher notes, checking for pictures, invoicing, scheduling estimates. Like whole nine yards. Yeah, just go through every single one of those. Which are the ones that they're going to do. Which the ones I'm going to do.
Right.
And then just as you go into off season, you have more time, you could take more off their plate.
Right.
Okay. This month I'm going to take these three things back because I want to save a little more money.
Interesting.
Okay, so that'd be money well spent standardizing pricing and pre selling spring cleanups. Right. I would love to not have to get on site to do 100 property inspections, but you know, I think in.
Our industry, which are the ones that.
They'Re going to do, which ones I'm going to do.
Right.
And then just as you go into offseason, you have more time, you could take more off their plate.
Right.
Okay. This month I'm going to take these three things back because I want to save a little more money.
Interesting.
3. When pruning is included, which edges really.
Need re edging it?
It's a. It's a necessary evil.
Right. I have to do those. Customers want to see pictures with the little text box. We're gonna.
Okay, so that'd be money well spent standardizing pricing and pre selling spring cleanups. Right.
Edge this bed, not this bed. We're gonna prune this shrub in such and such a way that's worth my time. Right.
15 minutes of visit. Do a video walk around right out of the truck, explain everything we're gonna.
Do and then I get a better sense.
I would love to not have to get on site to do 100 property inspections, but you know, I think in.
Our industry of what can we actually charge them for this service?
We can't say this is going to.
Be 500 bucks this year, Ms. Jones. But then it ends up being $1,000 worth of work and we're screwed.
Right? Well, ideally I've run the winter services.
On them all winter when pruning is included, which edges really need re edging. It's a. It's a necessary evil.
Right. I have to do those Customers want.
To see pictures with the little text.
Box we're going to write.
And I don't need to do property inspections because I've been to their property every two weeks doing a property instant.
And so my goal, edge this bed, not this bed. We're going to prune this shrub in such and such a way that's worth my time. Right.
Well, I go into winter and I'm taking on new customers, not servicing my existing ones.
I can't offer winter services to everyone.
Fifteen minutes a visit, do a video, walk around right out of the truck, explain everything we're going to do, and.
Then I get a better sense do mowing or spring and fall cleanup for it. It would be like when the snow came, we would be. We would never be able to survive. I don't think we have enough equipment. It would require like 40 staff plus two newtons of what can we actually charge them for this service? We can't say this is going to be 500 bucks this year, Ms. Jones, but then it ends up being a thousand dollars worth of work and we're screwed. Right?
Well, ideally, I run the winter services on them all winter.
Right.
And I don't need to do property inspections because I've been to their property every two weeks doing a property engine. And so my goal, trucks, plus another.
Sidewalk snow vehicle to really, you know, be able to clear snow for that many people.
How many people on snow do you have now?
30, including five condos, so about 25 residents.
Well, I go into winter and I'm taking on new customers, not servicing my existing ones.
I can't offer winter services to everyone with. And that was a comfortable number. I wasn't even here for all the storms. But we didn't get a massive storm either. Like, if it snows two feet, you.
Know, if we could triple our offseason revenue would be a.14 more trucks.
We do mowing or spring and fall cleanup for it would be like when the snow came, we would be. We would never be able to survive. I don't think we have enough equipment. It would require like 40 staff, plus two new trucks, plus another sidewalk snow vehicle to really, you know, be able to clear snow.
Maybe that's what I'm thinking. Like if we can go from 30 to 90.
Yep.
And now all of a sudden, our offseason revenue goes from seven to ten grand a month to. To thirty or forty thousand a month.
Right. And we were able to that many people.
How many people in do you have now?
30, including five condos.
So about 25 residents keep four or.
Five guys on full time. So it's not much as much of a scramble.
Right.
I'm willing to get a couple extra trucks.
Yeah, right, right.
People do that.
I mean, it's a fast way to grow for specials. And that was a comfortable number. I wasn't even here for all the storms, but we didn't get a massive storm either. Like, if it snows two feet, you.
Know, if we could triple our offseason revenue would be a four.
Two more trucks, maybe.
That's what I'm thinking. Like if we can go from 30 to 90.
Yep.
And now all of a sudden, our off.
Especially the guys already in, you know.
That have like dump trucks. You can throw big salters on them and get commercial accounts and have the V plows.
Well, even if you don't do the. The plowing thing, you just stick with. Okay. For example, if people are using revenue goes from seven to ten grand a month to thirty or forty thousand a month.
Right.
And when you're able to do which services. And I can triple my revenue services don't go after plowing. Just go after. Like, how do I do their walkways? I do small driveways. So I don't need a massive plow. I don't need a massive truck. I'm just doing the winter services. Keep four or five guys on full time. So it's not much as much of a scramble.
Right.
I'm willing to get a couple extra trucks.
Yeah, right, right.
People do that.
I mean, it's a fast way to grow for.
For especially the guys already in, you.
Know, that have like dump trucks. You can throw big salters on them and get commercial accounts and have the V's. Right.
And this is what you could do too. Cyrus is like, as you go into next fall, you'd sell winter services. You'd have a really good understanding. Okay, did 90 of people stick with me? Because that's what your goal would be the same with plows. Well, even if you don't do the plowing thing, you just stick with. Okay. For example, if people are. You did like 90 of people that, hey, the snow is. Has to be. You know, I thought it's in. 90% of your customers chose snow.
No, we have a very limited doing which services.
And I can triple my revenue. Which services. Don't go after plowing. Just go after. Like, how do I do their walkways? I do small driveways. So I don't need a massive plow. I don't need a massive truck. I'm just doing the winter services.
Right.
And this is what you could do too. Cyrus is like, as you go into next fall, you'd sell one.
Just number of customers that we do snow work for.
So out of the hundred only 20 residentials.
Because I've done that by design because it is. I mean you, you do not want to bite off more than you can chew in snow, right?
Because it's such a services.
You have a really good understanding. Okay, did 90% of people stick with me because that's what your goal would be. The same.
It comes all at once. You have 12 hours to get it done.
If you don't have the crew and the equipment to do it, you're screwed.
And the equipment's expensive. Sidewalk snow vehicles.
We have like the intro level model, it's ten grand. The next one, the boss, you know.
You did like 90% of people, they hey, the snow is. Has to be, you know, I thought it's in. 90% of your customers chose snow.
No, we have a very limited number.
Of customers that we do snow work for. So out of the hundred, only 20 residentials.
Because I've done that by Toro Snow raters.
Like 26 if you want a beast of a machine. So it's like I do not want.
To, but the death of winter is the past three years. Why would I want to spend a.
Ton of money on that?
Right?
It's like a design.
Because it is. I mean you, you do not want to bite off more than you can chew in snow, right?
Because it's such a. I don't know if winter's going to be around much longer. Here was my thought, Right?
Yeah. That's why I think going after winter services is the move. Right. And so India, even going into the spring, if you change your estimate description.
For mowing, it comes all at once. You have 12 hours to get it done.
If you don't have the crew and the equipment to do it, you're screwed.
In the equipment, there's a year round service we do win service at that line of the. You'll get one question every like 50s, no one bats an eye at it. But then you come a month before the fall end of the mowing season, you say, hey, this is what equipment's expensive, right?
Sidewalk snow vehicles.
We have like the intro level model. It's ten grand. The next one, the boss, you know, Toro Snow Raiders. Like 26 if you want a beast of a machine. So it's like I do not want.
To, but the death of winters the past three years, why would I want.
To spend a ton of money on that?
Right? It's like R is what it includes and you go for it, right? And now 80, 90% of people accept that. Now you can with confidence go out and get other equipment because now you know you're going to triple your revenue.
Right. I don't know if winter's going to be around much longer here. It was my thought.
Right. Yeah. That's why I think going after winter service.
Right. Interesting.
Because the goal is that you also make your spring so much more efficient, you're able to actually grow and expand in versus right now you're doing 20, 30, 40 spring cleanups for existing customers three weeks. This is the move. Right. And so India, even going into the spring, if you change your estimate description for mowing that, hey, there's a year round service we do into service, add it line in there, you'll get one question every like 50s, no one bats an eye at it. But then you come a month before the fall end of the mowing season, you say, hey, this is what winter services.
Everyone wants it done before mowing.
You get it all done prior.
Yeah.
And now when we go into spring, we're actually able to take on the new customers and not book ourselves out two months.
Right. Which is impossible for spring cleanups. Most people just aren't having that.
There's bigger R is what includes. And you go for it. Right. And now 80, 90 of people accept.
Companies that will come in two weeks.
Yeah.
That's interesting. Yeah. All right.
Continuing my own accounting or hiring out for that. I've done my own books up till now.
It's been that.
Now you can with confidence go out and get other equipment because now you know you're going to triple your revenue.
Right, Right. Interesting.
Because the goal is that you also make your spring so much more efficient, you're able to actually grow and expand in versus right now you're doing 20, 30, 40 spring cleanups for existing customers three weeks.
And you know, quite a learning process and it's been good. But the discrepancy in, you know, what my net profit is on this versus.
What it shows with my person who handles my taxes based on, you know, the tax strategy. Everyone wants it done before mowing, you.
Get it all done prior. And now when we go into spring, we're actually able to take on the new guy.
You said we have different depreciation schedules.
I heard when you want to build enterprise value, never do, you know, get big enough to sell. People aren't going to want to see someone who handles their own books.
It doesn't take a ton of time.
But I don't see not book ourselves out too months.
Right. Which is impossible for spring cleanups. Most people just aren't Having that there's bigger companies that will come in two weeks. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Right.
Continuing my own accounting or hiring out for that. I've done my own books up till now. It's been how they're going to be any more accurate. When I'm doing all the purchasing, I.
Can add everything into, you know, the, you know, the expenses in right at the time of invoice, save that to the end to my like desktop or.
Whatever, you know, quite a learning process.
It's been good.
But the discrepancy in, you know, what my net profit is on this and.
Then do pay, you know, I do P and L every two weeks to a month, depending on how much revenue we're bringing in throughout the year. And that goes on the, you know, the income.
But I'm still seeing a discrepancy of.
Around $10,000 up or down in reconciliation in terms of the bank has 10,000 more, 10,000 less. Even though I think I'm doing everything by the book. So I don't know, you know, versus what it shows with my person who handles my taxes based on, you know, the tax strategy we want to do, you know, from that perspective to keep it more accurate or by the book.
Yes. Like the account is going to reconcile things out better. So for example, that's probably caused from payments.
Yeah, right.
In terms of like the difference, you've.
Said we have different depreciation schedules.
I heard when you want to build enterprise value and ever do, you know, get big enough to work, to sell, people aren't going to want to see someone who handles their own books.
It doesn't take a ton of time, but I don't see how they're going.
To be any more accurate.
When I'm doing all the purchasing, I.
Can add everything into, you know, the, you know, the expenses in right at the time of invoice, save that to the end to my like desktop or.
Whatever, what's in the bank account versus what's on the P L. Right. But like they'll reconcile that out. Only interest expense should be on the P L. So like that. Then that should affect the balance sheet. I'm assuming the balance sheet. You don't have touch as much.
Right. I don't look at those.
That's where. That's where the discrepancy.
And then do pay, you know, I do P L every two weeks to a month, depending on how much revenue we're bringing in throughout the year. And that goes on the, you know, the income.
But I'm still seeing a discrepancies coming from.
Yeah.
But again, it's a matter of like, I think your books are actually really good. If you're doing yourself, you're actually doing really, really good. So it's a matter of like, are you okay with someone else doing it at 90% of what you're doing now? But more important, you get your time.
See of around $10,000 up or down in reconciliation. In terms of the bank has 10,000 more, 10,000 less. Even though I think I'm doing everything by the book. So I don't know, you know back. Right.
Because like if it's taking you an hour a week, we have a big problem. Because that hour a week times four is four hours a week of you out going out and selling jobs and training people and hiring and selling winter services. That's a higher level what to do.
You know, from that perspective. To keep it more accurate or buy the book.
Yeah. Like the accountant's gonna reconcile things out better. So for example, that's probably caused from payments.
Yep. Right.
In terms like the difference in which task then categorizing expense. Right. And so I'm willing to take a hit on something like accuracy or being perfect because I want someone else to do it so I can do a higher leverage task than bookkeeping.
And I don't even know their pricing.
What'S in the bank account versus what's on the P and L. Right. But like they'll reconcile that out. Only interesting expense should be on the P and L. So like that then it should affect the balance sheet. I'm assuming the balance sheet. You don't touch as much.
Right? I don't look at those.
That's where, that's where the discrepancy.
But I bet it's good.
My accountant, you know, they're doing right.
Now just the state and federal taxes.
For me and then the payroll at the end of every month and then my end of year taxes.
And it's 1200 for these coming from. Yeah. But again, it's a matter of like. I think your books are actually really good. If you're doing yourself, you're actually doing really, really good.
Thanks.
So it's a matter of like, are you okay with someone else doing it at 90% of what you're doing now? But more importantly, you get your time of the year.
They have a little shop in the basement and Hadley, they've been there 70 years. Dude's a like multi nat, like conglomerate. Owns 500 properties. Still works from like 7am to 7pm and he's 70 years old. So it's like. Right.
Because like if it's taking you an hour a week, we have a big problem because that hour a week times four is four hours a week of you out going out and selling jobs and training people and hiring and selling winter services. That's a higher leverage. 1200 is a steal. You, you pay that just for your tax return.
Right.
So if you're able to get more out of them and you pay fifteen hundred dollars and they take over all your bookkeeping, I'd do it.
Yeah. I think this might be the year to try that.
Yeah. It doesn't task then categorizing expense.
Right.
And so I'm willing to take a hit on something like accuracy or being perfect because I want someone else to do it so I can do a higher leverage task than bookkeeping.
And I don't even know their price comes down to.
Every moment you spend on any task.
Has a certain amount of leverage.
Yes. And you getting out and managing Your crew of 5, 10, 15 people is higher leverage than bookkeeping. Like the current constraint of the business is not.
But I bet it's good.
My accountant, you know they're doing right.
Now just the state and federal taxes.
For me and then the payroll at the end of every month and then my end of year taxes and it's.
1200 for the fact that we don't know our numbers. You actually have a really good grasp of them. It's like focus on the thing that the current constraint which to my opinion is getting so many leads that you need to raise prices.
Right.
So focusing all those door hangers year.
They have a little shop in the basement. And hadley been there 70 years. Dudes are like multi like conglomerate. Owns 500 properties. Still works from like 7am to 7pm He's 70 years old.
So it's like $1200 is a steal. You, you pay that just for your tax return.
Right.
So if you're able to get more out of them then you pay 50.
As well as the every door, direct mail, doubling down, doing a lot of the routes that we've already done three years ago. But now they know our service, they've seen our trucks, we have better branding.
Just $700 and they take over all your bookkeeping. I'd do it. Yeah.
I think this might be the year to try that.
Yeah.
It just sending them out to the same customers again already in the neighborhoods.
I would go back even further. So like if you, whenever you drive attention to your, to your business Yep. There's a certain conversion. So for example, if you have door hang, it comes down to every moment you spend on any task has a certain conversion.
You have to think about the leverage.
Yes. And you getting out and managing Your crew of 5, 10, 15 people is higher leverage than bookkeeping. Like the current constraint of the business is not the fact that we don't know our numbers. You actually have a really good grasp of them. It's like focus on the thing that's a current constraint. Which to my ears, we run Facebook ads, you're on Google Ads or whatever.
I haven't done a good job of keeping track. How do you keep track of that?
Well, before I even keep track of it, I want to make sure that when they come to my website, I actually convert them into customers. And so that's where I opinion is getting so many leads that you need to raise prices.
Right.
So focusing all those door hangers, the.
Biggest, highest leverage point of is right now like getting discovered on Google. Great. Getting Facebook ads, getting door great. But once they get to my site, if 1 out of 50 convert, great. But if I can make that 1 out of 10 i5x as well as.
The every door, direct mail, doubling down, doing a lot of the routes that we've already done three years ago. But now they know our service, they've seen our trucks, we have better branding.
Just the number of customers I get. So like that's why I look at your website and say, okay, we should have an estimate request form on the.
Top of the front page. Yeah.
Homepage there. Like there's a lot of aspects of just tightening that site up, sending them.
Out to the same customers again already.
In the neighborhoods, I would go back even further. So like if you, whenever you drive attention to your, to your business.
Yep.
There's a certain conversion. So for example, if you have door.
Hang, that was the original WIX site.
And I definitely not done a good job of updating with new video, you know, pictures and things.
But you said, I mean, what else could we do for the site besides.
A full redesign, you know, to get it better?
Yeah. Like from a social media perspective, top tying into the website is important too. Even from a talent attraction perspective, if I'm an employee and I can't find you on Facebook, I can't find you on Instagram, I can't see pictures of your jobs. Like that truck would get employees here.
Right, Right.
It's like I want to share that everywhere.
Right.
Then tying that to your website improves the SEO of that as well.
Right.
Facebook ads. You're on Google Ads or whatever.
I haven't done a good job of keeping track. How do you keep track of that?
Well, before I even keep track of it, I want to make sure that when they come to my website, I actually convert them into customers. And so that's where I actually think the biggest, highest leverage point of is right now. Like getting discovered on Google, great. Getting Facebook ads, getting door great. But once they get to my site, if 1 out of 50 convert, great. But if I can make that 1 out of 10, i5x the number of customers I get. So like that's why I look at your website and say, okay, we should have an estimate request form on the.
Top of the front page. Yeah.
Homepage. They're like, there's a lot of aspects of just tightening that site up. And so the site like the fact that you, you couldn't everything in the business, which is phenomenal. What takes you from 400,000, which is what a highly skilled juggler can do.
Right, right.
That was the original Wick site.
And I definitely not done a good job of updating with new video, you know, doing everything.
What takes you from 400,000 to a million is the person that starts learning the skill of delegation.
Right.
The person that can learn how to delegate bookkeeping, the person who can learn how to delegate answering their phones and dispatching. And the admin side, the person that.
Comes pictures and things.
But you said, I mean, what else could we do for the site besides.
A full redesign, you know, to get it better.
Yeah. Like from a social media perspective, tying into the website is important too. Even from a talent attraction perspective, if I'm an employee and I can't find you on Facebook, I can't learn how to get someone else to do the website. And that does take money. But it's also thing that allows you to focus on the higher leverage stuff, which is sales and training your team. Anything outside those two things, I went off your plate. Right. So they're not as high value. Instagram, I can't see pictures of your jobs. Like that truck would get employees here.
Right, right.
It's like I want to at this.
Point, I'm just going to hire someone to boost the website and get it looking better with some of the videos we already have.
You know, like if you want we could build like that longer web design. I just give you like the first six months share that everywhere.
Right.
Then tying that to your website improves the SEO of that as well. Right. And so the site like the fact that you, you can everything in the business, which is phenomenal. What takes you from 400,000 which is what a highly skilled juggler can do.
Right.
And even if you just take that design and you want to build your own thing, I could care less. But like it's simply a matter of like a site that's going to be actually built for conversion instead of just like a business card.
Right.
Like that, that trick doing everything. What takes you from 400,000 to a million is the person that starts learning the skill of delegation.
Right.
The person truck should have pictures and video about it and should be on the very front. Right on the front of that is SM request form. It is then tied to your social media. Then you have like at least 30 Google reviews tied to it. You have a address verify and learn how to delegate bookkeeping, the person who can learn how to delegate answering their phones and dispatching. And the admin side, the person that can learn how to get someone else to do the website. And that does take money. But it's also thing that allows you to focus on the higher leverage up which is sales and five Google listing.
Right.
Those things alone you'll get to the top of Google in this market within a matter of two to three months. Training your team. Anything outside those two things I went off your plate. Right. So they're not as high value at.
This point I'm just going to hire someone to boost the website and get it looking better with some of the videos we already have. Right.
And that, that is going to double the leads. Yes. You go do door hangers and you'll get leads tomorrow. But in if you can go slow so that you can go fast is we take six months, we nail the website, we get ranking well on Google, we get the Google reviews, we get the listing ranking high and then in six months you're getting, you know like if you want we could build like that longer web design. I just give you like the first six months free. And even if you just take that design, even if you want to build your own thing, I could care less. But like it's simply a matter of like a site that's going to be actually built for conversion instead of just like a business card.
Right.
Like that, that true to three times amount of leads and you're not spending any money on ads.
Yeah, right.
The long term goal is always to rank, should have pictures and video about it and should be on the very front. Right on the front of that is request form. It is then organically. But we're on the second page of Google we die, no one sees us.
Right.
But you triple your traffic just because you start rank well on Google. Yes, we could do door hangers tomorrow and get customers, but in six months I could be getting three times many leads and not doing door hangers.
Right, Right.
Best time to send out price raise mowing. You know, for mowing do you wait.
Tied to your social media, then you have like 30, at least 30 Google reviews tied to it. You have a address verified Google listing.
Right.
Those things alone you'll get to the top of Google in this market within a matter of two to three months.
Right.
And that, that is going to double the leads. Yes, you go do door hangers and you'll get leads tomorrow. But in if you can go slow some so that you can go fast is we take six months, we nail.
The website until closer to the season start.
Or do you say, look, we're thinking about raising your price this year before you know, our start is April, end of April here.
So with the current truck setup, so we have two trucks and then this one. So three trucks.
Yep.
How many mowing customers could we approximately hit without needing a fourth truck? Right.
One of them. You know, our, our F250 is our project trailer.
Two trucks. We get ranking on Google, we get the Google reviews, we get the listing ranking high and then in six months you're getting two to three times leads and you're not spending any money on ads.
Yeah, right.
The long term goal is always to rank organically. But we're on the second page of Google, we die, no one sees us.
Right.
But if you triple your traffic just because you started to mowing trucks, how many mowing customers could we serve with those two trucks before you like I need another mowing truck.
Right.
Rank ball and Google. Yes, we could do door hangers tomorrow and get customers but in six months I could be getting three times many.
Leads and I've estimated probably I think like 150 to 200 accounts.
