How Brian's Lawn Maintenance Would Turn $1,000 Into A $500,000 Mowing Business

Today you had absolutely nothing. You did not have your business, didn't have the, the YouTube channel, and you had a thousand dollars to start your lawn and landscape business. Walk me through maybe the first like week, month. What would you spend the money on? What would be your focus? How would you get started? For somebody like you just getting started.

Okay, good question. Give me some more info. Do I have a truck? Do I have a trailer? Do I have nothing? Do I have a license? Like give me a little bit, just a little bit more.

Yeah, I think, I think you have a vehicle, you know, to get around. Whether you have maybe a trailer or something or you know, maybe a pickup truck that you could put a hitch on or something like that. But thousand bucks. Maybe you have a mower from your neighbor that they let you borrow or something, or parents.

Yeah, good question. I would 100% spend 100 bucks on a polo with my shirt and the name of my company, whatever that is. Go to a local embroidery shop. Hey, I need a one off polo, 100 bucks. I'd go to Staples, I get a flyer made and buy somebody's template online. Go to Staples, get 500 or 2,000 maybe, you know, flyers from Staples for 7 cents a piece on lime green paper, black ink. And I get 2,000 flyers and I, I would hand build either mailboxes or canvas, you know, doors, door to door and I'd hang those flyers to get new work. I would probably knock on doors for mowing and my first thing that I would do is be upselling aerations. And then I would go rent from a Chet's rental or a sun belt, a stand on aerator, hopefully something with a cedar or go maybe rent a broadcast spreader for 20 bucks for that day. And I would go get to my local site one, try to open up a line of credit, get a couple bags of grass seed. Hey, bill me in 30 days. And I would do as many mowings and then of course aeration and overseeds as fast as possible to get revenue coming in. Mowing is fine, $50 weekly mows, but you're have to wait a month to start getting paid from some of that, right? And I would get a free CRM. Like there's a couple great ones out there. Okay, So I would start billing that way. But really if I wanted to start churning big revenue, I would start either renting things like an aerator and a broadcast spreader and doing aeration overseeds or I would rent a hedge trimmer from like a Home Depot or maybe your local dealer And I would start doing pruning work, because you can go do pruning work and make 500 to a thousand bucks in three to four hours, no problem, no doubt about it. And then also big money in aeration and overseeding. From there I would just start spiraling my profits back into mulch. I get mulch delivered on site, I'd have a 10 cubic foot wheelbarrow that I probably rent per day for 10 to $35 from my local site one or wherever. And I start doing mulch installs. And the reason I started working on the landscaping, the pruning and the aerations is because once they're completed each day, I should technically walk home with a check, you know, so I want to get that money coming in as fast as possible. So I mean, to break down that thousand bucks, oh, maybe I registered a DBA for 25 or whatever, you know, I wouldn't even worry about insurance at that point. You're a nobody. So I would, I would just immediately go get a polo with a shirt. I would immediately go get some flyers made up from my local print shop or staples. I would start renting aerators, broadcast spreaders, hedge trimmers and pole pruners. And you wouldn't see me for six weeks because I would be on deployment, not being at my house from 6:30 in the morning to 11:00 clock at night, bro. And that's exactly what I would do. I mean, I think you can quickly turn that thousand bucks into ten thousand bucks your first month pretty quickly. And I would start getting people on a schedule for a fall aeration, fall over seed, fall pruning and cut back fall cleanups. We haven't talked about mowing, you know, at this point because I would go for the bigger stuff. I would go to a site1 and ask for a lighting demo kit, start doing lighting installs. I'd buy some training course for 99 bucks online, learn how to do low voltage landscape lighting. And I would have a demo kit out there and all the subdivisions knocking on doors with my cute little polo, Do a little outdoor lighting demos for 4,000 bucks making 40, 50 margin selling those things. And I go to my local site 1 Ask for a demo kit. You're, you have no cost to that, you know, ask for a line of credit for a four thousand dollar set of lighting and dude, churn and burn. I mean it's hustle though, you know, to answer that question. If I had a thousand bucks and I was me, I would roi on that. A thousand bucks to A lazy person, they go buy a new iPhone 15. Right? So it's just, I'm thinking, how can I get this money moving?

Yeah. And I think, I think that's the difference between you and I and a lot of other people, right? Like we, we see that thousand dollars and we're like, all right, how do we add another zero to that?

Yeah, yeah.

And then it's like, how do we add another zero to that?

It's money in, money out, bro. You got to keep it moving and growing. Some people would consume it, other people would, would try to grow it. You know, what, what's the. Some people get like an apple and you know they're, they're going to consume it. Other people are going to get the 10 apple seeds out of it and plant 10 apple trees and then those 10 apple trees turn into 500 apples. Right? It's like, it's just. What's your mentality?

Absolutely, absolutely. So I know we're getting crunched here on time, so we're going to do kind of like last three fire round here, actually. Two last two fire round. So one of my biggest sayings is like to develop leaders, right? That's, I think my goal and passion, my purpose is to develop other people and bring them up and lift them up. What is that when, when you hear that? Developing leaders. What does that, what does that mean to you?

Developing leaders. What does that mean to me? Well, at the grassroots, what is leadership like? Leadership is really somebody with a following, right? That's what a leader is. So if I was going to develop other people into leadership positions, it would be somebody that has an earned position of leadership where other people would be inclined to follow those folks, whether it's a foreman on a mo crew moving into a management position in the company, like you'd want to equip and develop those folks. I think, I think that's really where legacy and fulfillment come into play, you know, for a lot of individuals, especially as you continue to grow a bigger life, grow a bigger business. Right? Developing leaders. I don't know if I'm the best one to talk exclusively about that. I know a lot about leadership, but until I have an organization of 150 plus people working for me, it's probably best that I keep those thoughts to myself. But my point is I've teach and trained tens of thousands of people because of social, I mean literally, and hundreds of people on coaching calls. And I ran two Little Caesar stores with 40 employees each. I mean, I've done my fair share of Hiring, firing, and leadership. But I'm going to answer it a different way. I think everybody wants to be a leader, and the best leaders are the biggest servers. And I get caught up on leadership only because everybody thinks or professes that they're a leader or an industry insider or an icon or an influencer. And I really struggle with that because I look at what people's followings actually are and who shows up, and it's very few people. And most people won't admit that. And people think they get some numbers on social media and that makes them a leader. But then they go do a booth takeover at an event and there's nobody there. And then I say, I'm not trying to be a leader, I'm trying to be a server. And I go to Mike Ganey's event, and like you said, there's 25 people in line that want to shake your hand, change your business, change your life. And I am humbled by that. Like, you would never even imagine. And people always say, like, there's an old one out there, like, how do you spell leadership? Example. So I don't want to sit here and profess how you're going to be a better leader or how I'm a great leader. I don't do anything like that. I want to spend a few minutes and saying, hey, I'm in it with you guys. I want to be a good example with you guys. I want to keep credibility with you guys. And for me, let me just go out and show you instead of tell you. And so anybody who says how great of a leader they are or spends 30 minutes on that question, that's probably a red flag.

Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love it.