50% of Your Business Could Disappear Overnight!

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The difference between marriage and this is like, you do not do till death do us part.
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Eventually you will want to split.
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Because someone gets divorced, 50% of their shares is going to the other person who's walking out the door and wants to spit all over them.
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You just don't want to ruin three, five years of your life that you've invested in this because of someone else's bad decision.
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When you lost those customers the first few months, four months, do you not have to pay for them?
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No, nope.
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If you lose them, if we lost them due to, like if our guys go there and tear property up and we lose them, that's on us.
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Yeah, yeah.
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But if they dropped us because we weren't him.
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Okay, cool.
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It was a back-end thing.
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So it was like, it was payments of 4,000.
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It was like a 4,000 at the first, like when we met him and signed the contract.
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And then it was like 8,000, 8,000, 8,000 or something like that.
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So it was anything that got totaled off came off of the later payments.
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Got it.
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So that's why I ended up being, I think we did like 4,000, 4,000, 2,000 or something like that.
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Okay, cool.
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All right, so current state of affairs, how many mowing customers do we have now?
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Like going into this spring?
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Right around $140,000, $145,000, somewhere around there.
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We still have outstanding contracts with a few places, so it could be more.
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And then there's – I mean, people are still getting back to me on, like, making sure that I've reached out and kind of up prices this year because, like you said, with the clients that were cheaper, I mean, we have the name luxury for a reason.
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Like, our product is –
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better than everybody else's in the area.
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Just from a confidence standpoint, and I mean, our reviews on our website is like, pretty much blows everybody else out of the water.
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So, and that's what we focus on is we try to get the higher end clients, but we also, you know, if you are, you know, an average house in the area, that we also, that it doesn't change product wise.
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Like we offer what we offer and we charge for that.
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So it's kinda, I mean, we, I mean,
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Think on my spreadsheet, just from the clients that we already had from the last year, it upped by $800 a week, roughly.
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And that was from 120 clients.
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We've gained about 25 already.
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Because we did raise our prices, and it has been great.
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I think we'll make more with the clients we have now than we did last year with the mess.
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Yeah.
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Because we had a lot of low, low clients.
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So, yeah, we did raise our number.
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We did raise our pricing last year.
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We didn't know our numbers, too.
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We you are big about that.
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So we had no his dad came in and his dad's a big number guy.
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My dad's a big number guy.
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we sat down and we did numbers and we kind of figured out what we need man our way.
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The problem is now is it's not really a problem, but our prices are higher.
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We're profiting good.
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And cause like,
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We know a guy that we just bid a project against.
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We didn't know he was doing it, but we came in at our number and he saw us there and he came in at his number.
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He's like, what did you guys get it for?
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Well, it was like $300 more and they're going with us.
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So like our reputation is getting out there and people are starting to go with us because who we are, which is great.
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but I don't know how much higher we can get, if that makes sense.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, like ultimately, when it comes to price increases, if you have enough leads coming in, it gives you the confidence to raise prices more.
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Yeah.
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Right, if tomorrow you had 50 leads coming in, you're like, okay, well, we're raising prices across the board so we can absorb some of these new customers.
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Yeah.
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Ultimately, in the land of leads pouring in, everything kind of gets better because you have more confidence to go raise the prices.
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Okay, cool.
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So from your perspective, where's the current constraint in the business?
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What can I help with from your perspective?
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You can go first.
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What's our strength?
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Constraint.
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Constraint.
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Yeah.
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Where's the current constraint in the business?
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And what's the goal?
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Are we trying to build a million-dollar business?
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Are we trying to become profitable this year?
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What's the current goal, too?
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This year is profit.
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Yeah.
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I think we're pretty good at where we're at.
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Yeah.
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I mean, obviously the high-end clients, we'll still pick those up.
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But, like, we don't need to get everything anymore.
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Like, before you're growing, you're taking everything you can get.
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So, I mean, there, I think with our prices being higher, we're getting leads in.
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I mean, it's steady coming in.
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So...
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I would say just become more profitable is our biggest thing that we discussed about.
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Because we don't really need anything else right now.
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We need to max out what we have.
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And that's what you're big on.
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No wasted things in the parking lot.
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So that's what we kind of did.
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Like our three trucks, they pretty much run every day.
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We stayed lean with the two mowing crews and the one property maintenance crew, landscape crew.
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So,
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Last year we kind of ran everything, you know, guys and guys and guys.
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And you look back on the labor payroll, it's like, holy cow.
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So, like, I think right now, like, learning, we have, like, the right amount of people, the right amount of trucks, the right amount of equipment.
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And going out and buying all that stuff in cash last year kind of, like,
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We bought trucks.
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We bought mowers.
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We don't have to do that no more.
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So, like, if you look at our total debt, it's not terrible.
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Yeah.
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Because we rent the shop, technically.
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Yeah.
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We owe on the Zuzu.
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We got that.
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But, I mean, you can't go out and find a truck and trailer for the same price we got that.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Or mowing.
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We do a lot of work with Bertels out in Dorsey.
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And they had it.
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And they're like, hey, I'm selling this if you guys want to.
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We do all of our business through them.
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So, we got it for, like, 20 grand.
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Oh, wow.
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And I went to the bank.
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I was like, that was the first loan we got.
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I was like, I wanted this truck, and I don't have the cash to do it.
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And it was like four hours.
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I was like, oh, yeah, you can do it.
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I was like, that's fine.
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They're like, yeah, the truck's like $30,000.
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They're like, we'll get our money out of it.
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So that's the first thing we got.
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The Dodge is paid off.
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The Ford's paid off.
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We all own one mower.
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So, like, the struggles to get to the spot, like, hurt.
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But now we're, this year we can actually become profitable because our debt is very, very low, actually.
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I think.
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Yeah.
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I did the numbers last night.
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It's roughly, debt-wise, it's roughly around $40,000.
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Cool.
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And that's mostly Isuzu, the mower, and then is it the Takuchi on that?
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No, that's a buddy of ours.
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He moved our pile.
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I wish we had that thing.
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That's huge.
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Yeah, no.
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But no, he moves the pile in the back for us sometimes, and he's going to help us with a project on Monday next week.
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Cool.
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So it's just leaving it here.
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And then what percentage of the current breakdown is like mowing versus landscape projects?
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Approximately.
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It's tough.
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I'd say mowing.
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Last year, we did a lot of big landscapes, but I'd say mowing is probably about 70%, probably 60%.
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Okay.
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Because, probably 60%.
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Yeah.
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We have a lot of fertilizer.
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Like, we focus on...
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I obviously a few of your videos, you're like, just make, try to get that customer to pay more throughout the year.
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Instead of getting more clients, try to make their annual cost that they're paying you more.
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So we focused this year on upselling, like bush trimming.
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Like we don't even, we'll send out a quote and they won't ask for it, but we'll say, hey, here's your bush trimming price.
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Here's what it would be for fertilizer, spring cleanup, fall cleanup.
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That way they have everything.
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And even if they have another guy for it, they're like, oh, why would I pay three different people for the services when I could just pay one and just say, hey, you know, you can take it over.
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So that's what we focused a lot on this year and the end of last year was like the bush trimming and the fertilizer and trying to get those up more.
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So that's another thing.
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Last year, we were so tight on the mowing.
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We didn't have time to upsell.
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Right.
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And so like the clients that we took over from that guy, I mean, we couldn't offer it.
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We couldn't do anything else for them because we were so swamped with trying to just catch up all the time.
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After that first week, Landon left.
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It was catch up all year.
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We were never ahead.
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We were never, hey, everything.
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I mean, there's not many weeks where, like, hey, everything got mowed.
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We're always trying to catch up.
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And you got six guys on payroll plus us and catching up, catching up, and Saturdays.
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But I get it because we're maxing them out.
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I mean, it sucked, but we're like, hey, we need to work.
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We need to work.
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And Saturdays come around, and they're like, hey, I want off like a day.
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And we understand because – but it was always catch up last year.
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So we never got ahead.
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Yeah, cool.
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In terms of like just knowing the numbers, are you starting to use QuickBooks now?
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So we run Jobber and we have the grow plan.
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That is where we are horrible.
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Our business IQ is so bad.
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That's where I would say our biggest constraint is.
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We're starting to get better on... Because like he said, we were both pretty much out in the field quite a bit.
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I'm the type of person which is...
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unfortunate sometimes, but if I'm working, I just want to get the work done and I'll kind of leave my phones in the truck, but I had the business phone and like, I'd get calls and calls and calls and then I'd be like, okay, I got 10 missed calls cause I was on landscapes last year.
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So I'd be there for like six hours and I'd take a break and it'd be like, I got 10 missed calls.
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I'm like, Oh my God, now I got to take,
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you know, an hour to make these phone calls back, or I can just wait till the end of the day and do that.
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So it was kind of a back and forth on that.
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But now it's like, I have taken a backseat, I would say, and more focused on this because if the office doesn't run, then it's just like bad reputation.
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Like that's my biggest thing is I will not have a bad reputation on my name.
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And Luxury Lawn Care is my name and is his name.
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So people are like, oh, Brady Schiller with Luxury Lawn Care, like he's a joke.
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It's like, that's not going to happen.
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So that's why I focus more on, you know, the phone.
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But no, finances wise, we have somebody who does our payroll and our taxes for payroll and everything like that.
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And she's also a bookkeeper.
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But I've been going back and forth on whether or not I think I can handle the QuickBooks or if I should just, you know, let her do that.
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I think personally, I would rather let her do that.
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Because I don't think to do everything the way I want to do it, I would rather delegate that to her and pay somebody to do that who is like licensed and everything.
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Who can run QuickBooks herself versus me trying to figure it out.
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Because we still have so much to figure out too.
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Like Jobber, we've gone through probably three different...
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product specialists at Jobber.
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And I'm not trying to talk bad about them, but like, they sound like robots.
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Yeah.
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They, like I asked him a question, like we'll have to talk to our supervisors, like routing.
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I can't like routing on Jobber.
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He does a lot of the, he knows the city a lot better than I do.
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So he knows, you know, the ins and the outs and like, what would be better routing?
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But like, I don't know.
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Say there's, it's called Dunlap Lake, but there's one here on Dunlap Lake, and then there's one here, and you can take a road to it, but then there's the lake right in the middle.
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Well, this one might be closer as the crow flies, so it's going to take us there.
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But then you've got to go up and around all the way up here when you could just go here, and, you know, there might be an alley that you could shoot through across the lake and get that way.
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But this is like, it'll have us literally in the same neighborhood in –
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ebbets field in edwardsville and there'll be one that might be in the next neighborhood over and that just so happens two cul-de-sacs back up to each other so if we route it through automated version it'll have us go from one cul-de-sac get out of that neighborhood go to the other neighborhood go in the so it's just it's like literally it might be better for us to do pen and paper for routes which is terrible like right now do we give the guys paper routes out in the
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They have laptops.
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iPads.
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They do, okay, so they're still on the app, they put notes in there, stuff like that.
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From the QuickBooks perspective, I would probably delegate it to her because if it's new to you and you're going into the spring rush, it's just not gonna happen.
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If you're a week behind, say, just even processing transactions, you now have 50 of them, you just forget.
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Like, oh man, why are we gonna stop at Home Depot for this?
224
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I don't remember.
225
00:12:01.577 --> 00:12:01.817
Right.
226
00:12:01.878 --> 00:12:09.087
So I would probably delegate it to her, depending on her cost, because right now the challenging part is I don't even have numbers to look at.
227
00:12:09.127 --> 00:12:14.033
I don't know what percentage is going to labor, I don't know what percentage is going to fuel, I don't know what percentage is going to your shop space.
228
00:12:14.233 --> 00:12:16.015
You're flying blind because you have no metrics.
229
00:12:16.596 --> 00:12:23.802
And so, especially when you're thinking about profitability, like if I adjust the expenses and revenue, like I am flying blind.
230
00:12:23.962 --> 00:12:32.069
Because even the fact that you did the acquisition last year and it came out of cash, if that was marked as an expense, like that probably messes up your taxes.
231
00:12:32.209 --> 00:12:33.931
It also is gonna mess up the P&L.
232
00:12:33.971 --> 00:12:36.373
It looks like you guys didn't make money, right?
233
00:12:36.413 --> 00:12:40.476
It was like 390,000 revenue, $279 in profit, according to what I saw.
234
00:12:40.717 --> 00:12:42.118
So I didn't see any breakdown.
235
00:12:42.378 --> 00:12:42.819
Exactly.
236
00:12:42.899 --> 00:12:46.885
And I have, I don't know if you want to look at it, but I do have bank statements, but that's like a lot.
237
00:12:46.985 --> 00:12:49.308
So that's, and that's pretty much how I did that.
238
00:12:49.348 --> 00:12:52.433
Cause that's the only, like I said, I have no financial background.
239
00:12:52.473 --> 00:12:56.519
So I literally took those statements tallied up like deposits and then
240
00:12:57.300 --> 00:13:02.943
you know, did expenses and that's how I got that business budget thing, which is like, not how it's supposed to go at all.
241
00:13:03.304 --> 00:13:11.168
Yeah, like the thing with bank statements is like, it's like every time you go in your car, if you have to like check the oil, check the air pressure, like you don't do that.
242
00:13:11.188 --> 00:13:14.931
You just hop in the car and you hope that the dashboard and it glimpses, you know what's going on.
243
00:13:15.471 --> 00:13:16.972
And that's why the P&L is important.
244
00:13:17.292 --> 00:13:21.334
Because even for me coming in, I can't really do much.
245
00:13:21.434 --> 00:13:23.695
Because I don't know what is your labor efficiency.
246
00:13:24.135 --> 00:13:27.536
How much are you spending on admin versus out in the field labor?
247
00:13:27.996 --> 00:13:29.297
There's no numbers.
248
00:13:29.337 --> 00:13:31.478
So you don't even know where to attack.
249
00:13:31.618 --> 00:13:33.779
And so I would definitely try to get some numbers on it.
250
00:13:33.799 --> 00:13:35.800
Do you think there's going to be like 600,000 this year?
251
00:13:35.820 --> 00:13:37.040
Is that what you're shooting for?
252
00:13:37.060 --> 00:13:40.542
Yeah, that's what we're trying to figure out.
253
00:13:42.373 --> 00:13:45.838
What profit do we want percentage-wise and how much do we want in the account?
254
00:13:45.898 --> 00:13:54.310
And what number revenue-wise would we have to do to make that possible without going out and spending more money on trucks or whatever?
255
00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:55.532
Like right now, how much is in the bank?
256
00:13:56.235 --> 00:13:56.575
14,000.
257
00:13:56.695 --> 00:13:57.015
14,000.
258
00:13:57.155 --> 00:14:04.777
Okay, so it's not like crazy bad, but squeaky going into like probably a $50,000, $60,000 a month, right?
259
00:14:05.157 --> 00:14:06.958
Like April is probably going to be a $50,000.
260
00:14:06.978 --> 00:14:08.078
Yeah, April will be, yeah.
261
00:14:08.118 --> 00:14:10.158
This month, I think we're going to do like 30.
262
00:14:10.178 --> 00:14:11.399
You're just going to ramp it up.
263
00:14:11.519 --> 00:14:11.679
Yeah.
264
00:14:11.739 --> 00:14:12.019
Okay.
265
00:14:12.379 --> 00:14:15.920
All right, so still a little bit squeaky on the cash, but you can cover payroll.
266
00:14:16.100 --> 00:14:16.660
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
267
00:14:16.680 --> 00:14:17.480
Okay, cool.
268
00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:19.761
But there's still that pressure, I'm assuming.
269
00:14:19.801 --> 00:14:20.041
Yeah.
270
00:14:20.101 --> 00:14:21.541
You kind of want to make more money in the bank.
271
00:14:21.821 --> 00:14:22.121
Yeah.
272
00:14:22.181 --> 00:14:24.502
Anything less than $50,000 is going to feel a little bit squeaky right now.
273
00:14:24.542 --> 00:14:25.622
Yeah, the...
274
00:14:26.462 --> 00:14:28.284
Our guys have never missed a paycheck, ever.
275
00:14:28.624 --> 00:14:29.845
We're the ones who missed the paychecks.
276
00:14:30.005 --> 00:14:31.706
That's why we want the profit.
277
00:14:31.786 --> 00:14:32.947
Because we have bills too.
278
00:14:33.007 --> 00:14:37.210
He has a house, I have a truck payment, I'm getting ready to get married in December.
279
00:14:37.331 --> 00:14:38.411
So it's like, yeah.
280
00:14:38.712 --> 00:14:40.173
Okay, all right, so.
281
00:14:41.658 --> 00:14:45.702
It's just a matter of like, do we want to scale fast or do we want to make this thing more profitable?
282
00:14:46.242 --> 00:14:50.006
And I think like getting clarity on that is important before we go into it.
283
00:14:50.026 --> 00:14:58.954
Because for example, if you had $100,000 in the bank, I'd be like, okay great, you're gonna be full-time admin, you're gonna be full-time sales, you're gonna get an operations person and we're gonna scale to a million in a year and a half.
284
00:14:59.214 --> 00:14:59.935
That's one route.
285
00:15:00.855 --> 00:15:02.977
Very risky when you only have $15,000 in the bank.
286
00:15:03.097 --> 00:15:04.478
Like, don't recommend.
287
00:15:04.898 --> 00:15:08.061
And so then it's just a function of, okay, what's the alternative look like?
288
00:15:08.081 --> 00:15:13.745
The alternative looks like, let's juice every single lead so that as the leads get in, we fill all the current trucks up.
289
00:15:13.765 --> 00:15:20.830
Like right now, if you have 180, 150 customers, how many do you get before you be like, hey, we have to buy another truck for a moment?
290
00:15:21.868 --> 00:15:29.250
Well, so this is like for a full-time crew, we try to get 75 people per crew.
291
00:15:29.870 --> 00:15:39.552
But our idea into this was is if we have me on, you know, the landscaping side, any other leads that come in, you know, we can throw them on one of those crews.
292
00:15:39.612 --> 00:15:43.433
But once it gets to a full day, then I can do a day of mowing.
293
00:15:43.593 --> 00:15:48.374
And then the other four days in the week, I can do, you know, the enhancements and the bush trimmings and everything like that.
294
00:15:48.434 --> 00:15:50.595
So that way, because we have the trucks for that.
295
00:15:50.615 --> 00:15:51.335
We have the trailer.
296
00:15:52.956 --> 00:15:53.936
Yeah, that's what we discussed.
297
00:15:53.976 --> 00:15:58.479
It's like instead of going out and trying to find, like spend more money, let's maximize what we have.
298
00:15:58.499 --> 00:16:01.280
Because we have another trailer over there and we have enough mowers to do it.
299
00:16:01.701 --> 00:16:11.426
Okay, so assuming we use those trailers, the trucks that we have and the mowers, how many mowing customers can we get before you're like, okay, we have to stop taking new customers?
300
00:16:11.666 --> 00:16:12.327
Probably about 200.
301
00:16:13.323 --> 00:16:16.965
So, well, more clients probably about 50 or 60, yeah.
302
00:16:17.265 --> 00:16:19.126
Okay, so basically 50, 60 more customers.
303
00:16:19.146 --> 00:16:24.728
You're at 150, if we hit 200, we're basically like, we're using the extra trailer, extra mode, okay, here we go.
304
00:16:25.029 --> 00:16:30.171
So like, my then philosophy is, we can grow and kind of be profitable at the same time.
305
00:16:30.191 --> 00:16:33.333
That is one, we grow as fast as possible to 200, and then we raise prices.
306
00:16:33.893 --> 00:16:35.654
Like, across the board by at least 20%.
307
00:16:36.934 --> 00:16:44.757
And so if we do that, that will give you the cash flow required and then you kind of get to scratch ditch of growing and scratch ditch of making more money.
308
00:16:45.157 --> 00:16:49.498
And so it's very rare that I actually tell someone, hey, go sprint to this and you're gonna run it pretty hot.
309
00:16:50.018 --> 00:16:52.499
But I think you can do it in six to eight weeks.
310
00:16:52.539 --> 00:16:54.779
Get 50 new customers if you juice the leads correctly.
311
00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:56.080
And I have a couple ideas around that.
312
00:16:56.340 --> 00:16:59.561
But juice it, hit that marker and then as soon as you raise
313
00:17:00.222 --> 00:17:06.291
if you had 200 customers by 20%, you're gonna literally bring six to eight grand of profit to the bottom line.
314
00:17:07.073 --> 00:17:09.376
And so it just becomes a matter of like, well then how do we get the leads?
315
00:17:10.073 --> 00:17:10.293
Right?
316
00:17:10.533 --> 00:17:13.554
And so right now, what are we doing for advertising, marketing, I don't see a breakdown.
317
00:17:13.574 --> 00:17:17.116
That's what I was gonna ask you, because we have mailers made right now.
318
00:17:17.256 --> 00:17:18.076
We haven't sent out.
319
00:17:18.396 --> 00:17:19.257
Do you have one?
320
00:17:19.337 --> 00:17:20.117
Oh yeah, you got some right.
321
00:17:20.137 --> 00:17:21.238
I was looking at them, let's go.
322
00:17:21.438 --> 00:17:21.658
Okay.
323
00:17:21.918 --> 00:17:23.639
So that's what we've been scared of.
324
00:17:24.119 --> 00:17:25.459
I mean, we've had those since last year.
325
00:17:25.479 --> 00:17:25.919
Okay.
326
00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:27.480
What are you scared of?
327
00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:31.882
We were so catching up last year, we didn't want to offer.
328
00:17:32.082 --> 00:17:35.203
So this year you feel like there's... Now we're on top of it a little bit more.
329
00:17:35.303 --> 00:17:36.964
Or all the crew members have been here since last fall?
330
00:17:37.204 --> 00:17:39.965
No, so there's two that are new.
331
00:17:39.985 --> 00:17:43.587
Two newbies, four that have been here for a while.
332
00:17:43.767 --> 00:17:45.047
And two that's been here for a while?
333
00:17:45.067 --> 00:17:45.648
Yes, yeah.
334
00:17:45.908 --> 00:17:47.168
Okay, two that's been here for a while.
335
00:17:47.248 --> 00:17:47.729
And two new ones.
336
00:17:47.749 --> 00:17:48.309
Two new ones.
337
00:17:48.389 --> 00:17:49.830
So right now there's four guys.
338
00:17:49.930 --> 00:17:51.690
Is that enough to get to 200 customers?
339
00:17:51.750 --> 00:17:52.911
Yes, with what we plus us.
340
00:17:52.931 --> 00:17:53.331
With us.
341
00:17:53.731 --> 00:17:54.311
Oh, okay, good.
342
00:17:54.512 --> 00:17:57.653
So you've really become more efficient because last year you had six guys out in the field.
343
00:17:57.673 --> 00:17:58.413
Plus us, yes.
344
00:17:58.493 --> 00:17:59.874
And that's what we kind of dropped down on.
345
00:18:00.374 --> 00:18:01.254
It's because like we were.
346
00:18:01.275 --> 00:18:02.635
Okay, that's really good.
347
00:18:02.795 --> 00:18:06.317
Because my biggest fear is that you had six guys in the field, the two of you and did 490.
348
00:18:07.197 --> 00:18:10.378
I immediately know either pricing is way off or efficiency is way off.
349
00:18:10.398 --> 00:18:15.199
So I'm assuming because of all the moving parts last year under price, you had to cut people off.
350
00:18:15.319 --> 00:18:20.940
So we raised prices, then we hop straight, because I'm on a mowing crew now, and I'm operating the mowing crew.
351
00:18:21.540 --> 00:18:25.021
He's going to do landscape side of things, just so he can keep an eye on those, make sure they're done right.
352
00:18:25.761 --> 00:18:28.381
So I mean, the mowing, we're going to be already profitable.
353
00:18:28.481 --> 00:18:31.422
We raised prices this winter, got more high end properties.
354
00:18:31.802 --> 00:18:32.843
Have you already raised those?
355
00:18:33.063 --> 00:18:33.323
Yes.
356
00:18:33.503 --> 00:18:34.865
And what percentage stayed?
357
00:18:35.445 --> 00:18:37.327
We only lost.
358
00:18:37.347 --> 00:18:39.328
We lost out of 140 people.
359
00:18:39.388 --> 00:18:41.870
We kept 126 or 128.
360
00:18:42.051 --> 00:18:43.792
So we lost like 12.
361
00:18:43.972 --> 00:18:44.212
Okay.
362
00:18:44.412 --> 00:18:45.433
So maybe 10%.
363
00:18:45.573 --> 00:18:45.854
Yeah.
364
00:18:45.874 --> 00:18:47.675
The good thing is they're all $30 yards.
365
00:18:47.695 --> 00:18:47.935
Yeah.
366
00:18:48.236 --> 00:18:48.936
Got it.
367
00:18:48.956 --> 00:18:50.818
We lost nothing that's going to affect us.
368
00:18:50.838 --> 00:18:51.498
You lost all of those.
369
00:18:51.518 --> 00:18:51.859
Yeah.
370
00:18:51.879 --> 00:18:52.099
Yeah.
371
00:18:52.199 --> 00:18:52.679
Got it.
372
00:18:52.699 --> 00:18:53.440
Okay, cool.
373
00:18:53.460 --> 00:18:55.141
Our average yard right now is about $55.
374
00:18:55.221 --> 00:18:55.422
Yeah.
375
00:18:56.102 --> 00:18:59.425
Okay, and so we still have 150 currently on the books going.
376
00:18:59.465 --> 00:19:00.406
Yes.
377
00:19:00.846 --> 00:19:01.267
All race.
378
00:19:01.407 --> 00:19:01.867
Okay, good.
379
00:19:02.148 --> 00:19:02.308
Good.
380
00:19:02.328 --> 00:19:05.431
So, like, I think you guys did a lot of the painful part last year.
381
00:19:05.451 --> 00:19:05.951
Yes, we did.
382
00:19:05.971 --> 00:19:07.092
Where to get the prices up.
383
00:19:07.532 --> 00:19:10.475
You were super inefficient because you had low-priced jobs.
384
00:19:10.795 --> 00:19:11.536
You got rid of those.
385
00:19:11.556 --> 00:19:11.956
Okay, that's good.
386
00:19:12.037 --> 00:19:12.537
It's really good.
387
00:19:12.557 --> 00:19:16.220
Because we got to a point, and after watching your videos and everything, we got to a point where it's like,
388
00:19:17.101 --> 00:19:20.903
We can't be mad at our guys for making money because we're sending them out to do 20 properties a day.
389
00:19:21.143 --> 00:19:21.783
That's our problem.
390
00:19:21.803 --> 00:19:22.543
They're not making money.
391
00:19:23.043 --> 00:19:27.565
At the end of the day, they go out and do 20 properties a day and bring home $800.
392
00:19:28.085 --> 00:19:28.806
That's our problem.
393
00:19:28.946 --> 00:19:34.688
What do you send out per day?
394
00:19:35.308 --> 00:19:36.649
What's your target hourly rate for Moen?
395
00:19:37.092 --> 00:19:38.553
150 an hour per crew.
396
00:19:38.593 --> 00:19:39.694
And how many people are on that crew?
397
00:19:39.714 --> 00:19:39.874
Two.
398
00:19:40.194 --> 00:19:41.635
Okay, cool, so 75, okay.
399
00:19:42.035 --> 00:19:44.376
And that's kinda what we base prices up to raise prices.
400
00:19:44.596 --> 00:19:48.138
So like some people that we raise prices were more than that 20%, they were way high.
401
00:19:48.699 --> 00:19:52.201
So we kinda took a route to where we're at, what they can get done in a day.
402
00:19:52.641 --> 00:19:55.863
Say, we need 150 per crew an hour.
403
00:19:56.443 --> 00:19:57.704
And that's what we got, so.
404
00:19:57.744 --> 00:20:00.886
So did you raise everyone across the board a certain rate, or did you do it based on every company?
405
00:20:01.286 --> 00:20:03.789
It was, so we broke it down to like time.
406
00:20:03.949 --> 00:20:04.950
We never did it by time.
407
00:20:05.010 --> 00:20:06.711
It's $2 and 50 cents a minute.
408
00:20:06.912 --> 00:20:07.072
Yeah.
409
00:20:07.232 --> 00:20:15.760
And like, we have some properties that like, there's this one property where we're, it's budgeted out price wise, what it's currently at for, I think an hour and 12 minutes.
410
00:20:15.800 --> 00:20:17.201
And we get it done in like 38 minutes.
411
00:20:17.822 --> 00:20:21.466
So you basically went back and said, hey, let's look at the clock in on each job.
412
00:20:21.486 --> 00:20:21.586
Yeah.
413
00:20:21.606 --> 00:20:22.186
And you kind of adjusted.
414
00:20:22.206 --> 00:20:24.549
Do you think that was approximately like a 15% to 20% price?
415
00:20:24.649 --> 00:20:25.189
I would say.
416
00:20:25.209 --> 00:20:28.373
Because some people got raised like $15 and some people got raised $5.
417
00:20:28.753 --> 00:20:36.040
There was only maybe 10 or so clients that stayed at the price they were at because we weren't losing any money, which we –
418
00:20:37.021 --> 00:20:39.843
And also there are customers that we've had for a while.
419
00:20:39.863 --> 00:20:44.045
Well, towards the end, like last fall, like we were still picking up clients in fall.
420
00:20:44.686 --> 00:20:47.187
And we're like, hey, let's try this method, see if it works.
421
00:20:47.468 --> 00:20:48.788
And, I mean, we were getting them.
422
00:20:48.928 --> 00:20:49.169
Yeah.
423
00:20:49.349 --> 00:20:53.812
So we're like, okay, now we feel a little safer knowing we can go into the spring raising our prices.
424
00:20:54.572 --> 00:20:55.012
And we did.
425
00:20:55.032 --> 00:20:57.814
And, like I said, we didn't lose anything that really affected us.
426
00:20:58.134 --> 00:21:01.076
I mean, we lost a couple small yards, but we gained.
427
00:21:01.456 --> 00:21:03.237
Like we just got all the McDonald's around this area.
428
00:21:03.257 --> 00:21:03.397
Mm-hmm.
429
00:21:04.418 --> 00:21:06.740
So, and that's, those are full property maintenance.
430
00:21:06.760 --> 00:21:10.163
So like our bigger kind of grew into a couple of commercial properties.
431
00:21:10.723 --> 00:21:12.685
So it's like down inside, we didn't lose.
432
00:21:12.845 --> 00:21:13.745
It doesn't affect us.
433
00:21:13.986 --> 00:21:14.146
Yeah.
434
00:21:14.286 --> 00:21:17.949
It sucks losing clients always, but because you want to make everyone happy, but
435
00:21:19.354 --> 00:21:23.258
I realized you get these cheaper clients and those are the most headache.
436
00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:24.279
Yeah.
437
00:21:24.319 --> 00:21:27.463
Because they always have something to complain about.
438
00:21:27.583 --> 00:21:27.723
Yeah.
439
00:21:28.124 --> 00:21:29.525
It's like find someone else.
440
00:21:29.885 --> 00:21:30.206
Yeah.
441
00:21:30.246 --> 00:21:31.727
I mean, we can't make everyone happy anymore.
442
00:21:32.328 --> 00:21:35.852
But two years ago, we would have loved a $30 yard because we were going home.
443
00:21:35.872 --> 00:21:36.012
Yeah.
444
00:21:36.433 --> 00:21:39.075
But now our guys, we just don't have the time for them.
445
00:21:39.316 --> 00:21:39.476
Yeah.
446
00:21:39.800 --> 00:21:41.542
Okay, right now, last thing.
447
00:21:41.582 --> 00:21:48.589
So from an equity perspective of the two of you, have you solidified that, made sure it's really solid, everything's in place there?
448
00:21:48.609 --> 00:21:54.655
Because what we don't want to happen is anything with their relationship and their partnership than do a repeat of 2024.
449
00:21:55.175 --> 00:21:55.395
Right.
450
00:21:55.796 --> 00:22:02.760
So right now, as far as where the contract with the new LLC is, that it's just pretty much a 50-50.
451
00:22:02.780 --> 00:22:04.902
Equity split?
452
00:22:04.962 --> 00:22:05.322
Yeah.
453
00:22:05.702 --> 00:22:08.084
And then 50-50 split of power too?
454
00:22:08.204 --> 00:22:09.004
Yeah, pretty much.
455
00:22:09.205 --> 00:22:17.330
So, I mean, there's not really many things that we necessarily disagree on.
456
00:22:17.911 --> 00:22:20.772
But I get where that can be a little bit funky.
457
00:22:20.792 --> 00:22:21.013
Yeah.
458
00:22:22.348 --> 00:22:24.470
As of right now, and obviously it's a year.
459
00:22:24.530 --> 00:22:32.635
We've known each other for a while, but it's something to where I don't really think it's an issue.
460
00:22:33.396 --> 00:22:36.478
Like as far as like somebody being 51, 49 or whatever like that.
461
00:22:36.598 --> 00:22:37.459
But I mean, it's...
462
00:22:38.683 --> 00:22:47.470
One thing you might want to do, and it's basically like a prenup for the business partnership, because the difference between marriage and this is you do not do till death do a spark.
463
00:22:47.510 --> 00:22:49.491
Eventually you will want to split.
464
00:22:49.511 --> 00:22:52.073
You'll get married, you have kids, you want to move, whatever.
465
00:22:52.374 --> 00:22:56.457
So instead of thinking about it as a negative thing, like, hey, let's figure out how this is gonna end.
466
00:22:56.517 --> 00:22:58.018
I would write that story out now.
467
00:22:58.698 --> 00:23:00.300
It's like, okay, so we're 50-50, great.
468
00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:03.823
What does that mean if I wanna step back within the business and only work two days a week?
469
00:23:04.043 --> 00:23:05.584
Do I give out a portion of equity?
470
00:23:06.625 --> 00:23:07.726
How do we do distributions?
471
00:23:08.307 --> 00:23:12.130
Right now we don't have a lot of money in the bank, but if we start becoming profitable, how do the distributions work?
472
00:23:12.150 --> 00:23:13.111
Does it happen quarterly?
473
00:23:13.131 --> 00:23:14.292
Do we split it 50-50?
474
00:23:14.312 --> 00:23:15.933
Is it based on how many hours we worked?
475
00:23:16.254 --> 00:23:17.475
What are the responsibilities?
476
00:23:17.655 --> 00:23:19.396
What happens if I get divorced?
477
00:23:19.437 --> 00:23:21.538
It's a real big problem, I see it all the time.
478
00:23:21.799 --> 00:23:22.679
If someone gets divorced,
479
00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:28.221
50% of their shares is going to the other person who's walking out the door and wants to spit all over them.
480
00:23:28.602 --> 00:23:32.283
And that can get torn up and now some of the businesses get sold because someone else got divorced.
481
00:23:32.323 --> 00:23:32.843
It's weird.
482
00:23:33.383 --> 00:23:41.826
So I would really, really think about, okay, can we add an addendum, it can be a three or four page document, and just think about every bad thing that can happen and then what's supposed to happen therefore.
483
00:23:42.346 --> 00:23:43.066
Right?
484
00:23:43.746 --> 00:23:46.727
Even with the gentleman last year, the man, and it's like, okay, he wanted out.
485
00:23:47.127 --> 00:23:48.848
Great, fortunately we weren't making money.
486
00:23:49.448 --> 00:23:53.370
Because if we were making money and he's like, oh, I think the business is worth $500,000.
487
00:23:53.690 --> 00:23:54.631
You'd have to buy him out.
488
00:23:54.831 --> 00:23:55.091
Yeah.
489
00:23:55.211 --> 00:23:56.532
Or he'd have to come to some agreement.
490
00:23:56.952 --> 00:24:01.915
So you can even determine in the partnership agreement, like what, how do we value the business?
491
00:24:02.535 --> 00:24:09.859
Right, so is it like, you can just already set an arbitrary valuation so that if someone wants to out, it's like we already know what it is to buy them out.
492
00:24:10.419 --> 00:24:16.743
And then there's always the agreement of like, okay, we know what the value of the business is and if I ever want to buy them out or I need to leave,
493
00:24:17.875 --> 00:24:19.777
I know what I'm gonna be getting out of this.
494
00:24:20.297 --> 00:24:29.105
Instead of it becoming down the road, you're kind of thinking about for six months, and then you're really getting pooled, and you're kind of checking out, and another person's starting to resent you, and then it becomes messy.
495
00:24:29.405 --> 00:24:32.388
Versus just like, here's what happens when this business relationship ends.
496
00:24:33.309 --> 00:24:35.551
You will not be for 80 years, won't even work together.
497
00:24:36.011 --> 00:24:36.772
And that's fine.
498
00:24:38.048 --> 00:24:40.350
Like in 10 years, 15 years, you're going to want to sell.
499
00:24:40.590 --> 00:24:42.051
You're going to want to grow it more.
500
00:24:42.131 --> 00:24:42.952
One of you will want to grow.
501
00:24:42.972 --> 00:24:44.933
One of you will want to like cash out.
502
00:24:45.053 --> 00:24:45.754
Yeah.
503
00:24:45.934 --> 00:24:48.156
And I would just like put it all in writing.
504
00:24:48.176 --> 00:24:48.436
Okay.
505
00:24:48.876 --> 00:24:49.697
It's like super healthy.
506
00:24:49.937 --> 00:24:50.177
Yeah.
507
00:24:50.518 --> 00:24:51.118
That's smart now.
508
00:24:51.258 --> 00:24:51.879
Why we're good.
509
00:24:51.999 --> 00:24:52.299
Yeah.
510
00:24:52.379 --> 00:24:57.083
Because our pretty much, I mean, this is like future.
511
00:24:57.323 --> 00:24:57.523
Yeah.
512
00:24:57.923 --> 00:25:02.667
But our goal is to have like a supply yard pretty much.
513
00:25:02.867 --> 00:25:03.347
And so –
514
00:25:05.097 --> 00:25:07.080
It's, I mean, I don't know if you know.
515
00:25:07.100 --> 00:25:07.741
I don't know.
516
00:25:08.221 --> 00:25:08.742
With Alto?
517
00:25:08.822 --> 00:25:09.143
Yeah.
518
00:25:09.203 --> 00:25:11.125
I want to open up a retail store.
519
00:25:11.526 --> 00:25:14.670
I want to make this profitable first to kind of feed into that.
520
00:25:15.231 --> 00:25:19.136
But I watched one of your videos and someone else was doing material on site and you're like,
521
00:25:20.035 --> 00:25:20.155
No.
522
00:25:20.975 --> 00:25:23.496
But we're really good in Bethalto, we're really good in Eversville.
523
00:25:23.777 --> 00:25:25.477
And you know cut costs low.
524
00:25:26.017 --> 00:25:29.419
We're gonna have materials on site anyways for the landscape crew, like the mulch and everything.
525
00:25:30.159 --> 00:25:31.920
So why not offer it to the public?
526
00:25:33.120 --> 00:25:37.602
You know and I don't want to get like too carried away with it but I want our shop behind it.
527
00:25:37.942 --> 00:25:40.563
So like when Susie comes in wants a yard of mulch.
528
00:25:41.324 --> 00:25:41.904
Well we do that.
529
00:25:42.484 --> 00:25:44.505
And we got big into the Christmas sites and
530
00:25:46.080 --> 00:25:47.681
We can't display them out here, no one can see them.
531
00:25:47.841 --> 00:25:54.983
So if we're there, it's just, I think it would kind of scale up the business, but at the same time, put a lot of debt on the business.
532
00:25:55.744 --> 00:25:57.945
So I don't know the opinion on that or.
533
00:25:58.245 --> 00:26:05.888
And this is the thing too, in a partnership agreement, you can set out what we think the goals of the business are gonna be in one year, three year, five year, and 10 year.
534
00:26:06.288 --> 00:26:10.669
That way, hey, we have directional alignment with where we're going, but then doing that is important.
535
00:26:10.689 --> 00:26:14.351
So that way in five years, you're like, hey, I didn't really want that.
536
00:26:14.971 --> 00:26:15.992
I don't want to do a supplier.
537
00:26:16.492 --> 00:26:17.652
Do we have agreement on that?
538
00:26:17.752 --> 00:26:18.953
If so, let's put it in writing.
539
00:26:19.313 --> 00:26:25.695
And then this is the direction the business is going, and then here are all the things that could go wrong, and if they happen, here's exactly how we're going to handle it.
540
00:26:26.415 --> 00:26:30.577
It will prevent six to 12 months of resentment when you want to leave, because it will happen.
541
00:26:31.177 --> 00:26:34.298
It's okay to realize that business partnerships don't last forever.
542
00:26:34.338 --> 00:26:36.339
Everyone looks like Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett.
543
00:26:36.399 --> 00:26:37.820
That hardly ever happens.
544
00:26:38.600 --> 00:26:42.841
And so I would just put it all in writing so that we both know what's supposed to happen.
545
00:26:43.121 --> 00:26:53.184
Like, you might want to have the retail yard now, but if he does it in three to four years, and now, listen, this is really profitable, he's like, hey, I want a larger portion of the landscaping thing, and then you can have 100% of the retail.
546
00:26:53.584 --> 00:26:54.484
How is that going to work?
547
00:26:55.264 --> 00:27:00.986
Right, and having the conversation now when things are good, and it's not a bunch of money on the line, is really healthy.
548
00:27:01.266 --> 00:27:06.147
So I would really recommend that to avoid what happened last year, and as you saw last year, it can really put you behind.
549
00:27:06.804 --> 00:27:07.965
Yeah, it really hit hard.
550
00:27:08.125 --> 00:27:14.389
Is that something that we do on our own, or is that something we have to go to the lawyer and get it?
551
00:27:14.609 --> 00:27:17.311
I would literally ask you at GBT, hey, I'm in a partnership.
552
00:27:17.391 --> 00:27:18.651
This is what we're doing in revenue.
553
00:27:18.832 --> 00:27:19.732
We're thinking about the future.
554
00:27:19.752 --> 00:27:21.013
This is what I think we want to do.
555
00:27:21.573 --> 00:27:27.597
What are the questions we should be ironing out right now in our partnership agreement to ensure that down the road, when we split ways, everything goes to mid?
556
00:27:28.157 --> 00:27:29.738
And it's going to give you like 20 questions.
557
00:27:29.818 --> 00:27:30.859
Can you answer every single one?
558
00:27:31.099 --> 00:27:31.920
You put those in a document.
559
00:27:31.940 --> 00:27:32.560
You take it to a lawyer.
560
00:27:32.580 --> 00:27:34.721
We want this in our articles of incorporation.
561
00:27:34.821 --> 00:27:34.962
Okay.
562
00:27:34.982 --> 00:27:35.262
Okay.
563
00:27:36.222 --> 00:27:38.944
And then it's just all super straightforward.
564
00:27:39.164 --> 00:27:43.086
You just don't want to be investing in your time, energy, money into this thing.
565
00:27:43.546 --> 00:27:45.907
And then it just takes one weird thing.
566
00:27:45.927 --> 00:27:51.550
And as you said last year, great guy, working hard, but it's an exterior thing that pulls him away from the business.
567
00:27:51.930 --> 00:27:57.753
And then you just don't want to ruin three, five years of your life that you've invested in this because of someone else's bad decision.
568
00:27:58.873 --> 00:28:05.855
And when you both love each other, want each other to be on the same page, that's when you make the quote unquote prenup.
569
00:28:06.476 --> 00:28:12.558
And so I think no one wants to talk about it because we're on the same page and if we do that, we're going to end.
570
00:28:12.778 --> 00:28:14.038
It's going to end.
571
00:28:14.098 --> 00:28:16.039
It could be in five years, it could be 10 years, it could be 30 years.
572
00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:17.839
But figure out what it's going to look like now.
573
00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:19.520
And what's cool is you can always edit that.
574
00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:23.761
So in 10 years, you guys are still on the same page, you're doing multiple locations, the retail yard.
575
00:28:24.222 --> 00:28:25.102
Now we readdress it.
576
00:28:25.862 --> 00:28:27.943
You almost want to look at an amendment.
577
00:28:28.183 --> 00:28:31.283
You can just keep adding to it in your LLC as the business changes.
578
00:28:31.523 --> 00:28:33.984
So if one person's like, hey, I want to step back a little bit more.
579
00:28:34.004 --> 00:28:35.024
I want to take a couple days off a week.
580
00:28:35.284 --> 00:28:37.744
I'm willing to give a little more of the equity or distributions to you.
581
00:28:37.965 --> 00:28:41.405
So for example, you can have 50-50 equity, but then change your distribution schedule.
582
00:28:42.185 --> 00:28:48.527
Right, so if one person's going to take a little more time off, great, let's figure out what's the equitable split of distributions.
583
00:28:48.867 --> 00:28:52.867
So if there's $50,000 of distributable cash in the quarter, okay, is it 50-50 at the beginning?
584
00:28:52.908 --> 00:28:55.008
Great, but as time goes on, you might want to move that around.
585
00:28:55.528 --> 00:28:55.648
Right?
586
00:28:55.668 --> 00:28:58.029
From the landscape business, they have different divisions, et cetera.
587
00:28:58.049 --> 00:28:59.890
So I would really encourage that.
588
00:29:00.210 --> 00:29:00.430
Yeah.
589
00:29:00.590 --> 00:29:05.932
Especially right now when there's like the stakes are relatively low and we just don't want to repeat 2024 again ever.
590
00:29:06.072 --> 00:29:06.453
Yeah.
591
00:29:06.993 --> 00:29:10.935
So that would be kind of like from a leadership perspective, I'd really recommend that.
592
00:29:11.075 --> 00:29:11.355
Okay.
593
00:29:12.235 --> 00:29:19.505
Alright, so from my perspective, if this year we can get to 200 mowing customers, we can raise prices, that's going to really help with cash flow.
594
00:29:20.005 --> 00:29:23.490
So my main focus is like, how can we get there as fast as possible?
595
00:29:23.930 --> 00:29:25.352
These are the things that have come up right now.
596
00:29:25.412 --> 00:29:26.754
So is this what you're doing for marketing?
597
00:29:26.774 --> 00:29:26.894
Yeah.
598
00:29:27.470 --> 00:29:28.671
Yeah, that's our plan.
599
00:29:28.951 --> 00:29:30.472
We have, obviously, a website.
600
00:29:30.492 --> 00:29:35.736
And we used to have a marketing guy who was supposed to make, you know, TikToks, Facebook posts.
601
00:29:35.896 --> 00:29:37.377
He was supposed to edit our website.
602
00:29:37.417 --> 00:29:40.339
But like you said already, Landon's still on the website.
603
00:29:40.399 --> 00:29:41.940
So that was kind of the breaking point.
604
00:29:41.960 --> 00:29:42.600
That's kind of why.
605
00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:43.021
Yeah.
606
00:29:43.281 --> 00:29:44.742
We had like two months to fix that.
607
00:29:44.982 --> 00:29:45.122
Yeah.
608
00:29:45.142 --> 00:29:46.763
We had him in here to have a meeting with him.
609
00:29:46.803 --> 00:29:47.564
The website was broken?
610
00:29:47.964 --> 00:29:48.244
No.
611
00:29:48.704 --> 00:29:49.245
Two months.
612
00:29:49.525 --> 00:29:52.547
We had him in here to like, hey, we want these changed.
613
00:29:53.287 --> 00:29:54.088
Landon's not here.
614
00:29:54.168 --> 00:29:55.129
He knows Landon's not here.
615
00:29:55.309 --> 00:29:55.509
Yeah.
616
00:29:56.297 --> 00:29:58.699
Can we have this about us changed a little bit?
617
00:29:58.799 --> 00:29:59.339
Yeah.
618
00:29:59.580 --> 00:30:01.221
Her address isn't even the right address.
619
00:30:01.381 --> 00:30:02.642
I was gonna say, dude.
620
00:30:02.902 --> 00:30:03.663
Okay, okay.
621
00:30:03.743 --> 00:30:05.344
So have you guys locked out of your site?
622
00:30:05.804 --> 00:30:09.768
He has pretty much all access as far as I know.
623
00:30:09.788 --> 00:30:11.289
Landon or the SEO guy?
624
00:30:11.389 --> 00:30:12.270
No, the website guy.
625
00:30:12.290 --> 00:30:14.431
And so why isn't he giving it to you?
626
00:30:14.651 --> 00:30:19.055
He literally, I asked him, cause I was trying to, you know, obviously Spring's coming in.
627
00:30:19.335 --> 00:30:22.097
I texted him, I was like, hey, you wanna like come in and
628
00:30:24.056 --> 00:30:29.702
Like, take a look, make a plan for what we want, how many Facebook posts, you know, change a little bit of stuff on the website.
629
00:30:30.022 --> 00:30:31.524
And he was like, yeah, I'll come in.
630
00:30:31.744 --> 00:30:34.146
And then I text him like, hey, are you coming in this weekend?
631
00:30:34.166 --> 00:30:34.627
And he's like, no.
632
00:30:34.727 --> 00:30:35.828
He's like, he didn't even answer.
633
00:30:36.028 --> 00:30:36.729
Are you just paying him?
634
00:30:37.169 --> 00:30:37.370
No.
635
00:30:38.070 --> 00:30:38.731
Not right now.
636
00:30:38.751 --> 00:30:40.453
But he basically controls the site.
637
00:30:40.673 --> 00:30:40.913
Yes.
638
00:30:41.134 --> 00:30:41.374
Yeah.
639
00:30:41.414 --> 00:30:42.435
And you have no access to that.
640
00:30:43.068 --> 00:30:44.909
I... Not right now, no.
641
00:30:44.969 --> 00:30:48.490
If we wanted to get in and change a photo, no.
642
00:30:48.510 --> 00:30:50.810
So, we pay him...
643
00:30:50.830 --> 00:30:51.671
He owned a domain?
644
00:30:51.971 --> 00:30:53.231
Yes.
645
00:30:53.471 --> 00:30:55.552
So, that's the thing is... You pay him what, sorry?
646
00:30:55.592 --> 00:30:57.732
We pay him like a... 50 bucks a month.
647
00:30:57.833 --> 00:30:59.493
50 bucks a month or something like that.
648
00:30:59.593 --> 00:31:00.293
Yeah, exactly.
649
00:31:00.353 --> 00:31:01.814
So, that's all that it is.
650
00:31:01.914 --> 00:31:02.894
And he... Is it on WordPress?
651
00:31:02.914 --> 00:31:04.314
Is that how he built it?
652
00:31:04.495 --> 00:31:05.435
I had no idea.
653
00:31:06.135 --> 00:31:12.704
So that part is like, I would like to find somebody who can do our website because...
654
00:31:13.972 --> 00:31:24.357
He's really good at the editing and making posts and stuff like that, but we don't know really much about, I don't know if you have to code the website to change it or what you have to do as far as the website goes.
655
00:31:24.417 --> 00:31:25.517
Pull it up real quick.
656
00:31:25.557 --> 00:31:30.099
There's a few things, like, you can't really execute them right now.
657
00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:31.080
Yeah.
658
00:31:31.300 --> 00:31:33.641
Do you actually have access to the domain, though?
659
00:31:33.701 --> 00:31:36.382
Like, if you built another site, you could rip it out from underneath them?
660
00:31:36.662 --> 00:31:37.283
I think so, yeah.
661
00:31:37.403 --> 00:31:37.804
Okay, good.
662
00:31:37.984 --> 00:31:39.265
But he's the one that got it for us.
663
00:31:39.886 --> 00:31:40.407
Oh, snap.
664
00:31:40.447 --> 00:31:41.048
He has access.
665
00:31:41.288 --> 00:31:43.731
But if I called him right now, he, like... Is it GoDaddy?
666
00:31:43.751 --> 00:31:45.554
Do you know where you bought it through?
667
00:31:45.574 --> 00:31:46.054
I have no idea.
668
00:31:46.074 --> 00:31:46.234
Okay.
669
00:31:47.276 --> 00:31:49.519
Because it turned out to be a pretty decent website.
670
00:31:49.639 --> 00:31:49.979
Yeah.
671
00:31:51.101 --> 00:31:51.301
Okay.
672
00:31:54.644 --> 00:31:58.926
Yeah, so there's a few things on here I think we could really improve the conversion.
673
00:31:59.146 --> 00:32:02.127
So I know you're big about getting rid of stock images.
674
00:32:02.287 --> 00:32:02.467
Yeah.
675
00:32:02.527 --> 00:32:04.628
Maybe getting a video of our guys in the background.
676
00:32:04.768 --> 00:32:07.629
Yeah, or even like your trucks, like the Asuza is really nice.
677
00:32:08.009 --> 00:32:12.331
If it was you and like your crew just standing up against that in front of the shop space, I think it'd be great.
678
00:32:12.791 --> 00:32:17.053
Like that picture here would do a lot better than just random stuff in the background.
679
00:32:17.313 --> 00:32:22.315
Also with this, like the text is hard to read because there's so much busyness happening.
680
00:32:22.895 --> 00:32:27.177
So a couple things you could do, almost immediately double the conversion on the site.
681
00:32:27.197 --> 00:32:30.358
So how I think about it, these will drive traffic to the website.
682
00:32:30.718 --> 00:32:32.419
Running Facebook ads will drive traffic to the website.
683
00:32:32.439 --> 00:32:34.340
Getting better SEO will drive traffic to the website.
684
00:32:34.360 --> 00:32:36.881
But if the website doesn't convert them into leads, I could care less.
685
00:32:37.541 --> 00:32:40.302
And so it's like, what's the lever of the business?
686
00:32:40.382 --> 00:32:47.925
If I can figure out how to take this website and instead of one out of 50 people that get to the site, ask for an estimate, and we get that one out of 25, we double the business.
687
00:32:48.425 --> 00:32:52.848
So actually looking here first, because if we, how do we get 50 new customers is the problem to solve.
688
00:32:53.148 --> 00:32:55.670
In the next six weeks, how do we get 50 more mowing customers?
689
00:32:55.690 --> 00:33:01.634
Because I know if we do that and then we raise prices, we are going to draw $5,000 to $8,000 straight to the bottom line.
690
00:33:01.694 --> 00:33:04.416
That will solve a lot of the pressure financially.
691
00:33:05.056 --> 00:33:07.578
So when I look at this, there's a few things I would do.
692
00:33:07.598 --> 00:33:10.120
And this is challenging because right now we can't make these changes.
693
00:33:10.740 --> 00:33:14.803
But the financing tab, how many people actually use WiseTap on your project?
694
00:33:15.003 --> 00:33:16.764
We had one person.
695
00:33:16.824 --> 00:33:17.845
And it was like $38,000.
696
00:33:17.865 --> 00:33:24.509
So we're wasting our highest converting CTA, call to action spot, for financing that one customer used.
697
00:33:24.630 --> 00:33:26.471
And basically for another service, WiseTap.
698
00:33:26.671 --> 00:33:27.652
I don't care about WiseTap.
699
00:33:27.672 --> 00:33:28.792
I want you guys to make money.
700
00:33:28.972 --> 00:33:32.075
So this is where I would say request an estimate.
701
00:33:32.095 --> 00:33:33.736
So this button goes up here.
702
00:33:34.756 --> 00:33:36.818
We want it to be wherever they are on this page.
703
00:33:37.278 --> 00:33:39.499
It doesn't say financing, it says get an estimate.
704
00:33:40.520 --> 00:33:44.963
He has the CTA thread here, that's fine, but this floats up top, I would change it to get it.
705
00:33:46.004 --> 00:33:49.526
The whole point of getting the website is that they ask for an estimate.
706
00:33:49.966 --> 00:33:56.630
And then the next thing is, 90% of people that will see this page right here will not go to a different page or scroll down.
707
00:33:57.111 --> 00:33:58.271
They're just gonna stay here.
708
00:33:58.792 --> 00:34:03.775
And so I want them to be able to submit their information without scrolling down, without clicking here,
709
00:34:04.687 --> 00:34:06.268
So the contact us page.
710
00:34:07.008 --> 00:34:12.890
So in order to give you guys information, I have to leave the homepage, and then I have to scroll down.
711
00:34:13.591 --> 00:34:23.535
I want to be where as soon as I get here, if I'm going down the road and I see Luxury Longer and I type in Luxury Longer to Google, and I click on your site, right from here I want to have a fillable form.
712
00:34:24.932 --> 00:34:32.697
And so even if you moved this over, you had one third of this just being, I want your name, your contact information, and what service you want.
713
00:34:33.117 --> 00:34:35.538
Just get their information so then you can capture the lead.
714
00:34:36.019 --> 00:34:43.943
If that will take you from a one out of 50 conversion, right now we have no math on this, because he's, but you will be able to see eventually, okay, here's how many people come to our site.
715
00:34:44.003 --> 00:34:50.147
And I can guarantee you right now, you're probably getting three, 400 people to this site every month, and a small fraction of them are actually converting.
716
00:34:50.687 --> 00:34:57.388
because they have to click on the other things and you'll be able to see down the road page views and you'll see less than 10% of people are going to other pages.
717
00:34:57.969 --> 00:34:59.169
They're just staying right here.
718
00:34:59.249 --> 00:35:02.049
And if they can't get their information to you, you don't get a lead.
719
00:35:02.569 --> 00:35:10.831
And so we can pay for this, we can pay for Facebook ads, we can do Google ads, we can do SEO, and people get to the site, but if they're not converting to a lead, it's useless.
720
00:35:11.711 --> 00:35:19.253
So I would really encourage, for my, this is tough, we can't do anything, but change the CTA to request an estimate
721
00:35:19.853 --> 00:35:24.335
Change the photo to being you guys in your uniform out here with the truck.
722
00:35:24.375 --> 00:35:25.396
This usually looks great.
723
00:35:25.816 --> 00:35:27.537
Make that the main image.
724
00:35:27.917 --> 00:35:33.180
And then up here in the top, above the fold, so you don't have to scroll, there's your request form.
725
00:35:34.401 --> 00:35:36.422
And I don't care if it's tied in a job or not.
726
00:35:36.522 --> 00:35:41.724
I just want the higher conversion of people getting here and immediately sending the information.
727
00:35:43.593 --> 00:35:47.537
Because that alone will increase, I would say, at least double your conversion.
728
00:35:48.417 --> 00:35:49.538
You have really good reviews.
729
00:35:50.019 --> 00:35:51.840
You also have this address verified, right?
730
00:35:52.841 --> 00:35:53.521
This one, no.
731
00:35:53.882 --> 00:35:58.205
Our, the shop that we rented, that's where technically our address is.
732
00:35:59.918 --> 00:36:05.481
I know the guy that owns it, and we talked about moving it, but it's in our service area.
733
00:36:05.501 --> 00:36:20.189
So I was like, let's keep it there until, like we're here, I mean, people know we're here, the people that need to know we're here, we're here, but I don't wanna have this service address pop up when people are searching us out here, because we don't service out here, that's what sucks.
734
00:36:20.229 --> 00:36:21.830
We don't wanna go that way.
735
00:36:22.310 --> 00:36:24.211
So keep that verified address, that's good.
736
00:36:24.271 --> 00:36:26.092
You guys have like 75 of these, very good.
737
00:36:26.933 --> 00:36:30.235
But right now the site's not ranking on a native.
738
00:36:30.376 --> 00:36:36.661
It's being decent on Google listing, but to get, right now, if you guys, your service area is what?
739
00:36:37.382 --> 00:36:38.002
Edwardsville.
740
00:36:38.082 --> 00:36:39.463
Pretty much Edwardsville, but the Alto.
741
00:36:39.804 --> 00:36:40.364
Edwardsville?
742
00:36:40.464 --> 00:36:40.724
Yeah.
743
00:36:42.346 --> 00:36:44.708
Edwitt, one, two, oh.
744
00:36:45.927 --> 00:36:49.728
So we basically got, let's just say again, you're ranking really, oh, not 41, sorry.
745
00:36:50.328 --> 00:36:53.329
41 Google reviews, you're ranking first on there.
746
00:36:53.749 --> 00:36:55.549
When I swore, yours are first there too.
747
00:36:55.609 --> 00:36:58.790
From a ranking perspective, not horrible.
748
00:37:00.450 --> 00:37:00.910
Really good.
749
00:37:01.490 --> 00:37:02.851
This is a conversion issue.
750
00:37:03.611 --> 00:37:11.433
The fact is, the fact that you're ranking first on Google and you're ranking first on Google listing, and we're not getting, like how many leads are we getting right now?
751
00:37:11.633 --> 00:37:12.833
We got one this morning.
752
00:37:13.615 --> 00:37:13.935
or calls?
753
00:37:14.095 --> 00:37:15.035
Or last night.
754
00:37:15.235 --> 00:37:17.776
We get more calls than lead forms.
755
00:37:17.836 --> 00:37:18.116
Yeah.
756
00:37:18.296 --> 00:37:20.637
Okay, I'm saying just leads in general.
757
00:37:20.757 --> 00:37:22.758
Like, so whether, just how many estimates sent?
758
00:37:23.998 --> 00:37:24.158
So far.
759
00:37:24.178 --> 00:37:26.459
Can you look at a job or just see how many estimates you've sent?
760
00:37:26.579 --> 00:37:27.079
Here, go ahead.
761
00:37:27.379 --> 00:37:28.439
I don't know if this one is.
762
00:37:28.479 --> 00:37:29.500
Oh yeah, it's right here.
763
00:37:31.860 --> 00:37:34.081
I will say it's the most we've sent off in
764
00:37:34.922 --> 00:37:40.487
Yeah, we've approved since January 1st, we've approved $100,000 so far this year.
765
00:37:40.547 --> 00:37:40.847
Okay.
766
00:37:41.227 --> 00:37:43.329
That's property maintenance and everything like that.
767
00:37:43.409 --> 00:37:46.412
So I just- Because basically 14 cent in the past 30 days.
768
00:37:47.693 --> 00:37:53.958
Let's apply this to like the past year, not this year, I wanna do the last 12 months.
769
00:37:57.584 --> 00:37:58.204
Oh, sorry.
770
00:37:58.244 --> 00:37:58.644
This one.
771
00:37:59.245 --> 00:38:01.525
Whoa, where are you going folks?
772
00:38:01.625 --> 00:38:04.246
See, he's done more job or so far than I know how to do.
773
00:38:05.486 --> 00:38:05.987
There you go.
774
00:38:06.027 --> 00:38:06.347
Okay.
775
00:38:06.407 --> 00:38:11.368
So convert draft.
776
00:38:12.389 --> 00:38:13.629
Let's fill this out.
777
00:38:13.649 --> 00:38:14.069
Here we go.
778
00:38:14.449 --> 00:38:14.809
Okay.
779
00:38:14.829 --> 00:38:15.790
Let's see how we got.
780
00:38:15.830 --> 00:38:20.511
So about 49% are converting and you sent out
781
00:38:30.038 --> 00:38:30.478
Oh, 95.
782
00:38:31.379 --> 00:38:34.579
Yeah, so right now we've done 95 estimates in the past year.
783
00:38:34.599 --> 00:38:36.560
Does that sound right to you?
784
00:38:37.060 --> 00:38:39.521
No, I mean, through Jobber, yeah.
785
00:38:39.541 --> 00:38:47.363
But as far as like, we do, the problem was is last year, we would just be like, hey, you know, your price is 50 bucks or whatever.
786
00:38:47.903 --> 00:38:49.163
They wouldn't even get put into here.
787
00:38:49.503 --> 00:38:54.344
So like, me and him would know, but write it down on a piece of paper, be like, hey, you know, this has to be added to the route.
788
00:38:54.364 --> 00:38:56.525
But it wouldn't even get into here because the routing,
789
00:38:57.538 --> 00:39:00.721
is so bad that we were like, we're not even gonna waste our time.
790
00:39:01.381 --> 00:39:04.584
And then they'd be like, well, I'm paying by check anyway.
791
00:39:04.644 --> 00:39:05.945
So we're like, okay, we'll just pick up a check.
792
00:39:05.965 --> 00:39:07.386
It was just kind of, we were just going with the flow.
793
00:39:07.406 --> 00:39:11.149
Like whatever we could get and however we could get it, we were just kind of like doing that.
794
00:39:11.229 --> 00:39:16.413
But now obviously this year we're trying to get card on file, no matter what.
795
00:39:16.733 --> 00:39:25.060
And then, I mean, we have some people who are older that we've had that, you know, we understand that it's checked, but it has to be, we're trying out seeing if we could do like
796
00:39:25.632 --> 00:39:27.353
a month in advance for check that way.
797
00:39:27.373 --> 00:39:28.494
Cause we pay our guys weekly.
798
00:39:28.574 --> 00:39:29.435
We don't do biweekly.
799
00:39:29.475 --> 00:39:34.038
So it's like the cashflow perspective is where we struggle a little bit, especially last year.
800
00:39:34.198 --> 00:39:34.378
Yeah.
801
00:39:34.959 --> 00:39:36.960
But it's like cashflow.
802
00:39:37.240 --> 00:39:40.843
I mean, our bills are roughly like 4,500 bucks a month.
803
00:39:40.883 --> 00:39:41.143
Yeah.
804
00:39:41.223 --> 00:39:42.124
Like 4,500 a month.
805
00:39:42.344 --> 00:39:43.104
Just like fixed.
806
00:39:43.124 --> 00:39:47.227
So like the shop, the payments on trucks, like, yeah, insurance, everything like that.
807
00:39:47.247 --> 00:39:55.253
So, um, but like payroll for six guys is if they work eight hours a week, I mean, 40 hours a week at roughly around 20 grand a month.
808
00:39:55.893 --> 00:39:57.974
So that's when it gets us five grand a week.
809
00:39:57.994 --> 00:39:59.034
That's including us.
810
00:39:59.674 --> 00:40:10.677
So it's like, well, we have to at least do roughly 15 to $20,000 at a 20% margin to have that covered and everything like that.
811
00:40:12.457 --> 00:40:16.458
No, and like I said, Jobber, most of these numbers are
812
00:40:17.158 --> 00:40:18.719
Because you haven't been putting everything in here?
813
00:40:18.739 --> 00:40:19.880
Yeah, that's the problem.
814
00:40:19.900 --> 00:40:21.060
Are we trying to do that this year?
815
00:40:21.160 --> 00:40:22.021
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
816
00:40:22.101 --> 00:40:27.685
So far this year, literally every single person that has called, I'm like, hey, what's your name?
817
00:40:27.745 --> 00:40:32.127
Obviously, it's the best phone number, email address, and then what is your actual property address?
818
00:40:32.207 --> 00:40:33.768
And I type it in automatically.
819
00:40:33.828 --> 00:40:40.392
The other thing, too, about the website is right now people are calling because it's the easiest way to just tap this up here, right?
820
00:40:40.432 --> 00:40:43.574
I want to make the S2 request form just as easy if not easier.
821
00:40:44.775 --> 00:40:52.240
Because if they send an S request form, it means you don't have to respond when you're out in the field and you're not getting all these missed calls.
822
00:40:52.580 --> 00:41:01.125
Where you come back to the office and there's 10 S request forms, instead of 10 people calling you, you then call them back, you get their voicemail back and forth.
823
00:41:01.505 --> 00:41:03.367
I want their information here as fast as possible.
824
00:41:03.767 --> 00:41:08.150
A lot of times if they're on their mobile device and they click on the S request form, it pre-populates everything.
825
00:41:08.550 --> 00:41:09.751
There's no way they have to type it all in.
826
00:41:10.011 --> 00:41:12.532
It pre-populates their name and their phone number and their address.
827
00:41:12.632 --> 00:41:13.453
It knows that stuff.
828
00:41:13.893 --> 00:41:16.617
And so they can do it relatively quickly and not bother you.
829
00:41:16.717 --> 00:41:18.679
And then you can stay out doing your thing on the field.
830
00:41:18.699 --> 00:41:18.819
Yeah.
831
00:41:18.879 --> 00:41:30.194
And it's a bad look, obviously, like if somebody is trying to call a business and they don't answer and they go to voicemail and it's like, I mean, sometimes, you know, like spring last year, I had like 30 calls within two or three days.
832
00:41:30.434 --> 00:41:30.734
And then,
833
00:41:31.675 --> 00:41:35.118
They all leave a voicemail, and then a voicemail box gets full pretty quick.
834
00:41:35.158 --> 00:41:37.620
And then you get back to them, they hit voicemail, and they get back to forth.
835
00:41:37.640 --> 00:41:38.321
It's too late, yeah.
836
00:41:38.741 --> 00:41:45.426
I think just from a website perspective, if we can just increase the conversion there, I think we ask people to get double our lead by doing this.
837
00:41:45.827 --> 00:41:51.872
We can also double our leads by simply making sure when people get to the site, more of them convert to a lead.
838
00:41:53.053 --> 00:42:05.380
So I don't know how you're going to rip this out of this guy's hands and get access or be able to edit it, or if you can pay him to do it, but there's just a few little things that have changed and really, really improve it.
839
00:42:07.342 --> 00:42:13.666
So even this part, this confuses people with the whole or thing.
840
00:42:13.866 --> 00:42:14.786
I just make it very clear.
841
00:42:14.886 --> 00:42:16.908
People come to your website to ask for an estimate.
842
00:42:17.288 --> 00:42:17.648
Period.
843
00:42:17.948 --> 00:42:20.250
They know that if they call you, they can ask for an estimate.
844
00:42:20.550 --> 00:42:21.850
I want to make it where it's really clear.
845
00:42:21.870 --> 00:42:25.691
It's like when you get here, if you request an estimate, it's free, boom, I'm putting my information in.
846
00:42:26.311 --> 00:42:27.952
If I scroll, I'm losing people.
847
00:42:28.072 --> 00:42:29.812
If I go to a different page, I'm losing people.
848
00:42:30.172 --> 00:42:35.894
And so we're already, I think we can literally increase the conversion of this site by double, by simply just doing that.
849
00:42:36.594 --> 00:42:38.634
Put the S request form right there.
850
00:42:38.675 --> 00:42:43.436
Change the image to be about you and your brand and the truck, this usually looks great.
851
00:42:43.516 --> 00:42:48.397
So put all six of you in front of that, in your uniforms, and you separate yourself a lot.
852
00:42:49.178 --> 00:42:54.902
So, I almost don't even need to put luxury here because it's in the brand name.
853
00:42:55.362 --> 00:42:58.745
Just do like long-term landscape serving Edwardsville and Illinois, that's beautiful.
854
00:42:58.765 --> 00:43:05.710
To even take this part out, just make it super, to get out established 2020, no one cares, do the S&M request form right there.
855
00:43:05.730 --> 00:43:08.672
You know, it'll convert twice as much.
856
00:43:08.912 --> 00:43:09.192
Okay.
857
00:43:09.552 --> 00:43:15.216
And what's nice, right now I have no numbers to work with, but like I'm just going based on like assessing all the sites, you'll double your ambition.
858
00:43:15.236 --> 00:43:15.937
Yeah, so,
859
00:43:17.691 --> 00:43:22.232
Would you recommend us, you know, obviously trying to get control of this?
860
00:43:22.252 --> 00:43:25.733
Because I'd like to see, you know, how many clicks we're getting, how many are, yeah.
861
00:43:25.993 --> 00:43:26.213
Yeah.
862
00:43:26.694 --> 00:43:38.917
Because that's like, you talk about KPIs all the time and we're like, our close ratio right now, if we had to guess, we have no numbers to base off of, but if like an educated guess, like it was probably around 70%, 70, 80%.
863
00:43:38.937 --> 00:43:46.239
So that tells me just if you were trying to optimize for profit, you could raise your prices by 30% and probably still be fine.
864
00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:52.033
Because if you're above 70% close ratio, the customers are screaming at you to raise prices.
865
00:43:53.129 --> 00:43:58.252
Now, if we're trying to grow and expand, and like right now, my thing is, let's get to 50 more customers as fast as possible.
866
00:43:58.532 --> 00:44:03.255
We then are at capacity for the trucks and the equipment, and then we raise prices by 20%.
867
00:44:03.295 --> 00:44:04.215
I don't think people are gonna leave.
868
00:44:04.295 --> 00:44:08.037
And that's gaining those 50 or 60 clients at the numbers we're already at?
869
00:44:08.177 --> 00:44:08.677
Correct.
870
00:44:08.857 --> 00:44:12.459
Yeah, like right now it's like what we're comfortable with, we know those numbers, we know what the pricing is.
871
00:44:12.719 --> 00:44:18.382
So like I just say, let's get to 200 customers, and we just all agree, when we hit 200, we're immediately raising prices by 20%.
872
00:44:19.563 --> 00:44:22.004
And I don't care if we raised prices on them two or three months ago.
873
00:44:22.524 --> 00:44:25.965
It's a matter of now we cannot take more customers on.
874
00:44:26.005 --> 00:44:29.466
Like we have to either turn the leads off or we have to get rid of customers.
875
00:44:29.746 --> 00:44:33.448
Yeah, and that's what I was telling him is I never want to turn the leads off because people are going to sell their houses.
876
00:44:33.468 --> 00:44:34.048
They're going to like,
877
00:44:34.828 --> 00:44:37.931
leave for, you know, hey, I lost my job, or however it goes.
878
00:44:37.971 --> 00:44:41.434
Like, people are going to leave, so I want leads constantly.
879
00:44:41.574 --> 00:44:51.062
Even if we necessarily can't take them on, to a certain extent, it's like, I still want to know that our business is, you know, funneling in clients the way we want it to.
880
00:44:51.542 --> 00:44:56.324
And the fact that you do more of the big project stuff is like, as you're super busy with milling, don't take on big projects.
881
00:44:56.724 --> 00:45:04.906
Schedule those off into the off-season, whether that be July, August when it slows down a little bit because of the sun, or just even like as you go into fall cleanups.
882
00:45:05.306 --> 00:45:09.928
Focus all the time and energy on getting the recurring customers, and push the project off in December and January.
883
00:45:10.288 --> 00:45:10.568
Okay.
884
00:45:10.968 --> 00:45:13.349
And I guess what a…
885
00:45:15.070 --> 00:45:21.676
big projects, what would you consider that as far as like how many hours a week that would be for those projects?
886
00:45:21.736 --> 00:45:32.004
Cause right now we have some projects, uh, we have three bigger projects that would take about two days a piece at most, but that would also, they're,
887
00:45:33.694 --> 00:45:35.295
skilled applications.
888
00:45:35.355 --> 00:45:38.276
So it's like I would need somebody who knows what they're doing out there.
889
00:45:38.296 --> 00:45:48.040
And the problem is every time we've, like we literally just did an Indeed job, like a job listing, and we had 45 people apply and that's the best,
890
00:45:49.020 --> 00:45:57.684
applications I've seen, because we've just been like Facebook, like now hiring blah blah blah, and like, you know, people who are reaching out, but we have gotten burnt so many times on trashy.
891
00:45:58.304 --> 00:46:00.865
Like, they're just, it's just not good work ethic.
892
00:46:00.885 --> 00:46:02.085
That's what we're tracked out here too.
893
00:46:02.546 --> 00:46:02.886
Yeah.
894
00:46:02.906 --> 00:46:07.488
So that's what I was going to ask you too, with being out here, like our target area is Eddardville.
895
00:46:07.888 --> 00:46:09.148
It's like 25 minutes away.
896
00:46:10.169 --> 00:46:13.890
It's hard to get guys that want to drive here to work.
897
00:46:14.590 --> 00:46:16.971
Here, I mean, we're not in the best area.
898
00:46:17.031 --> 00:46:18.212
I mean, we're not a bad area, but
899
00:46:19.097 --> 00:46:20.758
We've had no good luck out here with guys.
900
00:46:21.679 --> 00:46:22.360
So I don't know.
901
00:46:22.620 --> 00:46:25.202
So like the lower cost of living out here compared to in there, right?
902
00:46:25.803 --> 00:46:26.463
Oh, way.
903
00:46:26.523 --> 00:46:29.726
Probably by about 60 or 70%.
904
00:46:29.746 --> 00:46:35.010
Because if you offer the same wage in there versus here, very different type of candidate as well.
905
00:46:35.411 --> 00:46:37.552
And I'm assuming $20 an hour is almost what you have to pay.
906
00:46:37.773 --> 00:46:39.334
That's roughly where we're at, yeah.
907
00:46:39.594 --> 00:46:39.854
Yeah.
908
00:46:40.034 --> 00:46:42.356
So I assume $20 an hour there, it's very competitive.
909
00:46:42.897 --> 00:46:44.098
$20 an hour here is pretty good.
910
00:46:44.558 --> 00:46:45.799
Really good, really good.
911
00:46:45.839 --> 00:46:47.561
Right, so it's a double-edged sword.
912
00:46:47.601 --> 00:46:54.146
Yes, you have a smaller fuller pool from out here, but if you can be the highest paying landscaping company, you can kind of control the market.
913
00:46:54.286 --> 00:46:54.527
Yeah.
914
00:46:54.887 --> 00:46:55.688
The other thing is just,
915
00:46:57.105 --> 00:47:01.048
I know a 25 minute drive is not terrible, terrible.
916
00:47:01.148 --> 00:47:07.333
But if we were in closer to our service area, we're, I mean, this might, this wouldn't be this year thing.
917
00:47:07.433 --> 00:47:09.735
But right now our rent is $1,500 a month here.
918
00:47:10.195 --> 00:47:11.556
And we have a great spot, obviously.
919
00:47:11.797 --> 00:47:18.922
But roughly we waste in labor and fuel like for, what was it, $4,300 a month?
920
00:47:19.903 --> 00:47:20.923
Do they drive back and forth?
921
00:47:21.063 --> 00:47:22.243
Yeah, because it's, I mean.
922
00:47:22.283 --> 00:47:25.044
Because they're in Maryville, they're 45 minutes away.
923
00:47:25.084 --> 00:47:26.504
Yeah, our furthest drive is like 40 minutes away.
924
00:47:26.624 --> 00:47:28.925
Are all of your current crew driving the 25 minutes?
925
00:47:29.145 --> 00:47:30.145
Like no ones from out here?
926
00:47:32.665 --> 00:47:33.885
No, one's out here.
927
00:47:34.265 --> 00:47:36.866
Our closest one's what, 15 minutes?
928
00:47:36.926 --> 00:47:38.426
Are you talking about employees or customers?
929
00:47:38.466 --> 00:47:38.926
Employees.
930
00:47:39.246 --> 00:47:39.966
Oh, employees?
931
00:47:39.986 --> 00:47:40.226
Yeah.
932
00:47:40.527 --> 00:47:42.887
We have one that drives about 45 minutes.
933
00:47:43.047 --> 00:47:45.047
One, my cousin, he works here.
934
00:47:45.367 --> 00:47:45.947
He lives with me.
935
00:47:46.127 --> 00:47:48.028
We're basically 10 minutes down the road.
936
00:47:49.188 --> 00:47:50.829
He's almost 40 minutes.
937
00:47:51.169 --> 00:47:52.830
They're all pretty much 30, 40 minutes.
938
00:47:53.030 --> 00:47:55.292
Out towards where all your customers are.
939
00:47:55.312 --> 00:47:55.432
Yeah.
940
00:47:56.072 --> 00:48:02.256
So, because one's in Granite City, he could literally hit the highway and be in Bethalto probably 20 minutes faster than here.
941
00:48:03.016 --> 00:48:05.858
And then, I mean, your drive would get maybe,
942
00:48:07.144 --> 00:48:08.526
Your drive would probably be 15 minutes.
943
00:48:08.586 --> 00:48:10.428
Around the same minute.
944
00:48:10.448 --> 00:48:11.489
So, just that way.
945
00:48:11.669 --> 00:48:12.390
Yeah, pretty much.
946
00:48:12.470 --> 00:48:17.676
Cause every, like we're so north that we're far away from everything that's west as well.
947
00:48:18.197 --> 00:48:23.323
So if we move a little bit more south to where Bethalto is, it would make that, yeah.
948
00:48:23.683 --> 00:48:24.504
It's a way less drive.
949
00:48:24.604 --> 00:48:26.426
Yeah, I mean, you hit the highway cause
950
00:48:27.147 --> 00:48:28.907
Go the routes on Jabber.
951
00:48:29.107 --> 00:48:30.108
Major high-raiser.
952
00:48:30.208 --> 00:48:33.928
The thing is you kind of have like a perfect spot here in terms of just like lay outside.
953
00:48:33.948 --> 00:48:35.469
Location, yeah, that's the problem.
954
00:48:35.649 --> 00:48:36.649
That's where the issue is.
955
00:48:37.009 --> 00:48:48.891
But, because if we waste, you know, $4,000 and we're already paying 1,500, we could spend 3,500 on a shop that's roughly, we won't find nothing this nice.
956
00:48:48.951 --> 00:48:49.371
Yeah.
957
00:48:49.711 --> 00:48:53.472
And that's why he wasn't here at the time when we got this, but,
958
00:48:54.425 --> 00:48:56.666
I'm sure you passed through Bunker Hill on the way through here.
959
00:48:57.006 --> 00:48:57.626
That's where I live.
960
00:48:57.686 --> 00:48:58.407
I live in Bunker Hill.
961
00:48:58.847 --> 00:49:01.688
I just moved out there a couple years ago with my girlfriend.
962
00:49:02.669 --> 00:49:03.629
And this place was available.
963
00:49:04.149 --> 00:49:06.390
So we're like, holy cow, it's five minutes from my house.
964
00:49:07.351 --> 00:49:08.612
So for me, it's great.
965
00:49:08.812 --> 00:49:09.032
Right.
966
00:49:09.272 --> 00:49:19.056
But from a business side of things, like if you just look up here, we're basically, I hate how they do this, this is all the jobs.
967
00:49:19.236 --> 00:49:22.058
But we're basically here in Royal Lakes.
968
00:49:23.292 --> 00:49:25.833
all of our businesses down there.
969
00:49:25.933 --> 00:49:26.593
Yeah.
970
00:49:27.814 --> 00:49:29.915
And that's where a lot of your employees are coming from too.
971
00:49:29.935 --> 00:49:31.555
But yeah, that's a way more expensive area.
972
00:49:31.816 --> 00:49:35.257
Our employees are like right here.
973
00:49:36.337 --> 00:49:39.999
There's two from right there, and then there's one right here.
974
00:49:41.159 --> 00:49:43.020
So, and I'm over here.
975
00:49:43.620 --> 00:49:45.201
As you scale, what happens is
976
00:49:45.760 --> 00:49:48.682
that number becomes more and more blatantly obvious.
977
00:49:48.822 --> 00:49:52.365
If you have 10 guys driving on this far, now all of a sudden it's costing you a lot more.
978
00:49:52.665 --> 00:49:54.006
So I would just keep growing here.
979
00:49:54.166 --> 00:49:54.907
It's a great spot.
980
00:49:54.927 --> 00:49:56.948
You're also renting it so you're not tied down to it.
981
00:49:57.188 --> 00:50:04.414
But if you start getting 10, 15, 20 employees and every day they're driving 25 minutes in and 25 minutes out, that becomes a real hard cost.
982
00:50:04.674 --> 00:50:06.735
Unless you do pay for performance, which I'm a fan of.
983
00:50:06.755 --> 00:50:07.916
That's what we were going to ask you about.
984
00:50:08.116 --> 00:50:11.199
Yeah, because I want to know what it...
985
00:50:11.259 --> 00:50:12.940
I listen to the videos, but I just want...
986
00:50:13.380 --> 00:50:16.161
Well, because it was paid for performance, you're only paying them a percentage of the labor revenue.
987
00:50:16.181 --> 00:50:19.162
So drive time doesn't really actually play into it at all.
988
00:50:19.342 --> 00:50:22.623
They're just incentivized to get here as fast as possible and get out of here as fast as possible.
989
00:50:22.723 --> 00:50:23.483
Okay.
990
00:50:23.963 --> 00:50:28.844
I don't think we're set up yet for my numbers program and actually like having all the data to actually do P for P. Okay.
991
00:50:28.864 --> 00:50:33.146
Where you guys can confidently tell your crew this is how much we're making and like the budgeted hours.
992
00:50:33.306 --> 00:50:38.067
It's also a little difficult to do budget hours in drivers, so you really have to like really govern it a little bit more.
993
00:50:38.527 --> 00:50:39.869
So I would probably wait on that.
994
00:50:39.909 --> 00:50:49.018
I think there's a lot of lower hanging fruit, like fixing the website, like a lot of other aspects of the business to like get to profitability by raising prices at 200 customers.
995
00:50:49.218 --> 00:50:53.462
I think there's a lot of lower hanging fruit, but then like I would say next spring, really think about,
996
00:50:54.112 --> 00:50:54.753
pay for performance.
997
00:50:54.773 --> 00:50:57.235
Because if you do that, you literally don't care about drive time.
998
00:50:57.996 --> 00:51:07.065
You say, hey, you're a greater percentage of labor revenue, we've raised the prices now, everyone's really profitable, you can make good money, and they're just like, great, I'm gonna get in here in five minutes, I'm out, because I'm not getting paid when I'm here.
999
00:51:07.966 --> 00:51:18.316
But it is definitely, I think we have a layer of knowing our numbers, having metrics and data before we commit to that, because if you mess that up with the crew, you lose all confidence.
1000
00:51:19.022 --> 00:51:20.984
I was going to ask you another question.
1001
00:51:21.665 --> 00:51:23.867
So we strongly dislike Jobber.
1002
00:51:24.447 --> 00:51:25.168
That's a fact.
1003
00:51:25.308 --> 00:51:27.330
We had nothing but problems with it.
1004
00:51:28.070 --> 00:51:33.335
Say you switch over, because everyone's already so skeptical about putting credit cards on file.
1005
00:51:33.415 --> 00:51:33.816
Yeah, yeah.
1006
00:51:34.256 --> 00:51:38.280
So say we switch over to another, trying to get those people to...
1007
00:51:39.145 --> 00:51:39.625
do it again.
1008
00:51:39.725 --> 00:51:44.629
Because a lot of people are like, oh, like the older community, they're like, oh, no, no, no.
1009
00:51:44.649 --> 00:51:48.111
Yeah, I just put my card on file, now you want it again for a different thing.
1010
00:51:48.251 --> 00:51:50.413
Yeah, I wouldn't worry about switching softwares now.
1011
00:51:50.693 --> 00:51:51.213
Okay.
1012
00:51:51.354 --> 00:51:57.578
Again, I really think about this next year, what's the major big dominant that affects the whole business is raising prices.
1013
00:51:58.138 --> 00:52:02.664
So yes, we can optimize this better, and yes, we can make things a little bit better on the bookkeeping.
1014
00:52:02.904 --> 00:52:10.172
The ultimate thing that changes this business is getting 200 customers, raising prices by 20%, and immediately drawing six, seven grand to the bottom line.
1015
00:52:10.593 --> 00:52:13.576
If you do that, we can now figure out a lot of other little stuff.
1016
00:52:13.656 --> 00:52:15.098
And so I'm mostly focused on that.
1017
00:52:15.138 --> 00:52:15.538
However,
1018
00:52:17.578 --> 00:52:21.159
I think right now I just want you getting habit of like, every estimate goes in here.
1019
00:52:21.380 --> 00:52:23.100
Every call note goes into here.
1020
00:52:23.160 --> 00:52:24.541
And if you don't like it, that's fine.
1021
00:52:24.561 --> 00:52:27.062
But like, we need a central source of truth.
1022
00:52:27.462 --> 00:52:38.006
And then when it comes to getting card information, like when you move to a different CRM, is just send them the first invoice, and say action required, and then they have to put a card in the file then.
1023
00:52:38.406 --> 00:52:41.690
If you ask for card information with a random email, you'll get like 5% of people.
1024
00:52:41.710 --> 00:52:43.012
Yeah.
1025
00:52:43.152 --> 00:52:43.692
And they hate it.
1026
00:52:43.712 --> 00:52:44.694
They think it's scammy.
1027
00:52:44.954 --> 00:52:48.718
If you say, hey, here's your invoice for the year, it's coming from your email address, so it looks the same as everything else.
1028
00:52:48.939 --> 00:52:52.543
And you say, hey, action required, first invoice of the year, you gotta put your card on file.
1029
00:52:52.923 --> 00:52:54.625
Like you'll get 80 to 90% compliance.
1030
00:52:54.905 --> 00:52:57.028
And then you just have an automation that cleans up after you.
1031
00:52:57.208 --> 00:52:58.550
So if no card on file,
1032
00:53:00.011 --> 00:53:03.434
they're going to be getting repeated texts and emails to get set up.
1033
00:53:03.954 --> 00:53:05.035
So it's not a big deal.
1034
00:53:05.095 --> 00:53:09.559
I would not switch to something else now and be like, oh man, we're going to have to switch down the road, we won't have our car information.
1035
00:53:10.079 --> 00:53:11.540
Just focus on anything.
1036
00:53:11.560 --> 00:53:12.901
I don't care what you use right now.
1037
00:53:13.262 --> 00:53:19.106
Get all the estimates in here, every job note on here, getting used of just the crew putting information on the job.
1038
00:53:19.246 --> 00:53:22.129
Do one year of that and then think about if you have to switch.
1039
00:53:22.469 --> 00:53:22.729
Okay.
1040
00:53:22.989 --> 00:53:31.153
But the only reason I would say is like, the budget hours part, having that for P4P is like crucial.
1041
00:53:31.533 --> 00:53:39.816
And that's the biggest beef I have with jobbers, like our users that want to do P4P have to manually create custom fields for budgeted hours and it's a lot more difficult.
1042
00:53:40.256 --> 00:53:40.476
Yeah.
1043
00:53:40.516 --> 00:53:41.917
But I would not worry about that right now.
1044
00:53:41.937 --> 00:53:42.157
Okay.
1045
00:53:42.177 --> 00:53:49.100
Like right now just get used to putting numbers in here, have a bookkeeper to give you a clean set of metrics so you can actually run the business based upon the metrics.
1046
00:53:49.440 --> 00:54:00.698
because like I we want to know like what percentage of revenue is going to ages right now we have no idea that's our problem money comes money goes it disappears like it's like oh we had you know 15 like we got up to $24,000 last year and then like
1047
00:54:03.274 --> 00:54:06.535
Well, then we bought the truck for cash, which was like six grand.
1048
00:54:06.735 --> 00:54:09.196
And then it was like, okay, we're still at 18, we're fine.
1049
00:54:09.316 --> 00:54:10.017
Like we're set.
1050
00:54:10.537 --> 00:54:13.918
And then probably within two weeks, we were like, oh my God, we're at eight.
1051
00:54:14.098 --> 00:54:15.059
Yeah.
1052
00:54:15.099 --> 00:54:18.680
The goal is like, how can we keep one month of revenue in the bank?
1053
00:54:19.080 --> 00:54:23.682
So if you're doing on average of the past three months of 40, 50 grand, we just have 40, 50 grand in the bank.
1054
00:54:23.922 --> 00:54:27.744
Cause that can go one payroll, one truck going down and one job going wrong.
1055
00:54:28.124 --> 00:54:28.924
That's 40 grand.
1056
00:54:29.084 --> 00:54:30.525
That's what happened.
1057
00:54:30.665 --> 00:54:32.106
When he was talking about those $70,000 worth of jobs,
1058
00:54:33.615 --> 00:54:38.397
I had a guy come in that was a landscaper and he like cost me probably five or $6,000 worth of material.
1059
00:54:38.417 --> 00:54:39.118
It drained us.
1060
00:54:39.198 --> 00:54:44.560
It was like the job that we were supposed to be profitable and kind of push us over the edge is what drained us.
1061
00:54:44.680 --> 00:54:44.900
Yeah.
1062
00:54:44.920 --> 00:54:54.485
So even like in your articles in corporation or your partnership agreement, you want to distinguish, okay, what dollar amount do we need to get over before we actually take owner distributions?
1063
00:54:54.765 --> 00:54:58.167
And what I like to think of is, okay, I take the average of the past three months of revenue.
1064
00:54:58.187 --> 00:55:00.428
So it's 40 grand, 50 grand, and 60 grand.
1065
00:55:00.668 --> 00:55:02.569
Okay, the average of that, 50 grand.
1066
00:55:03.009 --> 00:55:06.311
Anything over 50 grand in the bank, we get as split as distributions.
1067
00:55:06.611 --> 00:55:08.232
And you can always play with those numbers down the road.
1068
00:55:08.252 --> 00:55:09.813
Like, if it's 50-50 now, great.
1069
00:55:10.433 --> 00:55:14.295
But then what happens is, like, anything less than that, we need to get money in the bank account.
1070
00:55:14.495 --> 00:55:16.356
Because, like, that is what is healthy for the business.
1071
00:55:16.656 --> 00:55:19.538
In my opinion, if you're less than two weeks, it's, like, 911 status.
1072
00:55:20.358 --> 00:55:22.600
And so this month we're saying it's gonna be 40 grand.
1073
00:55:22.920 --> 00:55:26.542
If we don't have 20 grand in the bank, this is like 911 says we need money in the bank right now.
1074
00:55:26.903 --> 00:55:30.685
Because the 14 grand is one payroll and one truck going down and we're down to zero.
1075
00:55:31.206 --> 00:55:32.327
And that's like a really scary spot.
1076
00:55:32.347 --> 00:55:34.068
And so there's two ways to fix that.
1077
00:55:34.288 --> 00:55:38.331
One, we immediately raise prices and we just stay at like 550,000 this year, maybe 500, no, no, like 450 this year.
1078
00:55:41.553 --> 00:55:46.294
I think the approach that you both want is like, let's just gas it for the next six weeks.
1079
00:55:46.814 --> 00:55:53.456
Get 200 customers, raise prices then, and then we get to 600,000 this year, but do it profitably.
1080
00:55:53.776 --> 00:55:55.776
But it's going to be skinny for the next eight weeks.
1081
00:55:56.457 --> 00:56:00.898
Until you collect on that first price increase, you're still going to be really skinny on cash.
1082
00:56:01.378 --> 00:56:01.618
Damn.
1083
00:56:03.078 --> 00:56:09.821
And so, I think there's just so much we can do in the next six weeks, though, to, like, get to that stage, organize the business.
1084
00:56:09.841 --> 00:56:14.742
Like, give one phone call away and probably a week of, like, backup with the accountant to actually know your numbers.
1085
00:56:15.283 --> 00:56:16.283
Have a solid P&L.
1086
00:56:16.643 --> 00:56:17.663
Know what your balance sheet is.
1087
00:56:18.003 --> 00:56:21.705
It's gonna take one evening for you guys to go over, like, what is the prenup of this business?
1088
00:56:21.925 --> 00:56:22.605
How does that work?
1089
00:56:22.745 --> 00:56:24.246
So we both can, like, pour 100% into it.
1090
00:56:25.566 --> 00:56:29.948
knowing that if and when things happen, that I'm not gonna get screwed again.
1091
00:56:30.088 --> 00:56:32.428
Because that's in the back of both of your heads.
1092
00:56:32.869 --> 00:56:40.191
After last year, there's no, I've had partnerships before they go bad, and then you just eventually suck it up and you pay out.
1093
00:56:40.311 --> 00:56:43.792
And it's a horrible feeling to have when you are pouring in and someone else isn't.
1094
00:56:44.112 --> 00:56:45.113
And then what happens is,
1095
00:56:45.813 --> 00:56:47.635
Don't pour in because you're like, well they're not.
1096
00:56:48.095 --> 00:56:48.956
And then we're 50-50.
1097
00:56:48.976 --> 00:56:51.318
So like, have it all spelled out now.
1098
00:56:52.179 --> 00:56:52.979
Like that's one evening.
1099
00:56:53.660 --> 00:57:00.285
In six weeks, a lot of this stuff can be cleaned up so that this year can be super profitable, you're both on the same page, and then you know your numbers.
1100
00:57:01.006 --> 00:57:03.388
Like to be able to know your close ratio is so important.
1101
00:57:03.788 --> 00:57:06.731
Because that's the distinguishing factor of whether or not we raise prices down the road.
1102
00:57:07.111 --> 00:57:11.115
Like if it's at 70 to 80%, you can raise prices tomorrow, and you'll be just fine.
1103
00:57:11.889 --> 00:57:16.470
But if it's at 30% and we raise prices, we could be not enough work for the crew.
1104
00:57:17.571 --> 00:57:20.251
Right, and then knowing what's the close rate for landscaping versus mowing.
1105
00:57:21.011 --> 00:57:24.372
Because one of these might be way overpriced, the other one we're not priced enough.
1106
00:57:24.873 --> 00:57:28.494
Averaging out is 50%, but one's 70%, one's 30% close ratio.
1107
00:57:28.514 --> 00:57:31.174
Right, and one's just funding the other.
1108
00:57:31.274 --> 00:57:31.814
Exactly.
1109
00:57:32.175 --> 00:57:35.055
And that's why you'll hear people like, yeah, we make all the money on the landscaping side.
1110
00:57:35.295 --> 00:57:38.196
What they're really saying is, that's the one that's priced appropriately.
1111
00:57:38.456 --> 00:57:41.117
The other part of our business, we haven't raised prices.
1112
00:57:42.282 --> 00:57:50.970
And so knowing that sort of stuff is what next year you'll be able to look at and be like, Hey, do we want to spend more of our marketing now on lawn care?
1113
00:57:51.130 --> 00:57:52.312
Do we want to spend more on landscaping?
1114
00:57:52.652 --> 00:57:53.793
What timing of the year?
1115
00:57:53.913 --> 00:57:55.755
Oh, hey, last year we had a dip in revenue here.
1116
00:57:56.015 --> 00:57:57.356
Let's focus on landscaping then.
1117
00:57:57.516 --> 00:58:00.599
Let's push all of any projects that come in during April, May, and June.
1118
00:58:00.779 --> 00:58:02.021
We're going to put them in July and August.
1119
00:58:02.341 --> 00:58:03.982
And so, for example, like, you can say, hey,
1120
00:58:04.703 --> 00:58:07.224
a two or three day job with a little bit of a larger project.
1121
00:58:07.504 --> 00:58:08.524
Like, hey, here's your prices.
1122
00:58:08.784 --> 00:58:11.625
This would be the pricing for doing your project in August.
1123
00:58:11.945 --> 00:58:12.925
It's time insensitive.
1124
00:58:13.025 --> 00:58:14.405
It's a paver patio.
1125
00:58:14.445 --> 00:58:15.626
It's a retaining wall, something like that.
1126
00:58:16.086 --> 00:58:17.726
And you know, I need it done in like the next week or two.
1127
00:58:17.906 --> 00:58:20.707
Great, that's going to go into our surge for our spring rush.
1128
00:58:21.087 --> 00:58:22.427
So there's an extra cost for that.
1129
00:58:22.787 --> 00:58:23.448
Or you can be out here.
1130
00:58:23.668 --> 00:58:25.868
Or you give pricing and then someone's like, I want it cheaper.
1131
00:58:26.048 --> 00:58:26.828
Great, we can do that.
1132
00:58:27.049 --> 00:58:30.629
We're going to book for you in three months from now in December because you know you get slower.
1133
00:58:31.029 --> 00:58:32.850
And you give them a discount, 10% off.
1134
00:58:33.750 --> 00:58:37.432
I'm willing to lower my price as long as you're willing to meet my terms.
1135
00:58:37.912 --> 00:58:40.393
Which is like, it might be five months from now that I'll get that project done.
1136
00:58:40.453 --> 00:58:40.713
Yeah.
1137
00:58:41.794 --> 00:58:44.155
So it'll help with your off-season cash flow too.
1138
00:58:44.635 --> 00:58:45.095
Totally.
1139
00:58:46.136 --> 00:58:46.396
Yeah.
1140
00:58:46.996 --> 00:58:53.959
Because Christmas lights is like a huge investment for the guy, or like actually getting the materials for the people.
1141
00:58:54.019 --> 00:58:59.822
And we did really well on Christmas lights, but the problem is like, it was kind of break even on the Christmas lights.
1142
00:58:59.842 --> 00:59:01.483
Was it your first year with Christmas lights?
1143
00:59:02.383 --> 00:59:03.323
Yeah, it was...
1144
00:59:03.563 --> 00:59:04.284
I started last year.
1145
00:59:04.344 --> 00:59:05.024
Yeah.
1146
00:59:05.104 --> 00:59:08.685
First year going all out like on commercial style landscape.
1147
00:59:08.705 --> 00:59:11.065
Did you have to buy all of the lights last year?
1148
00:59:11.265 --> 00:59:11.565
Yeah.
1149
00:59:11.705 --> 00:59:14.146
So then it's like, that's when you start making money is year two and be cool.
1150
00:59:14.166 --> 00:59:14.426
Yeah.
1151
00:59:14.666 --> 00:59:14.946
Right?
1152
00:59:15.346 --> 00:59:16.347
So that's a good thing.
1153
00:59:17.327 --> 00:59:19.247
We did roughly around 30 jobs.
1154
00:59:19.607 --> 00:59:19.787
Okay.
1155
00:59:19.807 --> 00:59:20.008
Yeah.
1156
00:59:20.088 --> 00:59:21.128
And we store the lights up.
1157
00:59:21.208 --> 00:59:21.388
Yep.
1158
00:59:21.968 --> 00:59:23.690
And I'm assuming you lease something and you get them out next year.
1159
00:59:23.750 --> 00:59:23.950
Yeah.
1160
00:59:24.030 --> 00:59:25.893
So it'll be really much better cash flow next year.
1161
00:59:25.973 --> 00:59:26.193
Yes.
1162
00:59:26.213 --> 00:59:28.115
Because if it's 30, like, you know, they're up there.
1163
00:59:28.135 --> 00:59:28.896
That's what I'm saying.
1164
00:59:28.916 --> 00:59:33.922
It's like last year was extremely tough, but we learned so many lessons.
1165
00:59:34.262 --> 00:59:36.204
And it's like... And it was our first year coming together.
1166
00:59:36.225 --> 00:59:36.825
Yeah, together.
1167
00:59:37.106 --> 00:59:37.846
We got thrown in.
1168
00:59:37.906 --> 00:59:42.091
I was like, okay, we're going to have, you know, I'm going to have him and Landon and then...
1169
00:59:42.792 --> 00:59:46.234
Like, I'm going to be – I'm going to put everything I can into the office site.
1170
00:59:46.714 --> 00:59:50.236
And then that ended, and it was like, okay, well, I guess it's just me and you now.
1171
00:59:50.377 --> 00:59:51.557
So let's figure this out.
1172
00:59:51.997 --> 00:59:53.098
I was supposed to run the mowing.
1173
00:59:53.138 --> 00:59:56.120
He was landscaping, and he was supposed to just – Office.
1174
00:59:56.160 --> 00:59:56.440
Yeah.
1175
00:59:56.700 --> 01:00:00.022
So I was still going to mow, run the mowing.
1176
01:00:00.042 --> 01:00:02.764
He was going to landscape, run the landscape, and he takes care of this.
1177
01:00:02.844 --> 01:00:05.846
Because that's what me and Landon struggled on the year before is this.
1178
01:00:06.186 --> 01:00:06.366
Yeah.
1179
01:00:06.686 --> 01:00:06.886
Yeah.
1180
01:00:07.006 --> 01:00:07.927
So we just –
1181
01:00:08.971 --> 01:00:11.412
backbone of the business is what we struggled on.
1182
01:00:11.712 --> 01:00:13.833
Going out and doing the work work, it's amazing.
1183
01:00:14.213 --> 01:00:19.775
But if we can't, we just learned how to send emails that melted.
1184
01:00:19.795 --> 01:00:21.055
Oh, the campaigns, yeah.
1185
01:00:21.275 --> 01:00:23.216
We just ran our first one in the fall last year.
1186
01:00:23.516 --> 01:00:24.176
And it did well.
1187
01:00:24.576 --> 01:00:25.416
Yeah.
1188
01:00:25.476 --> 01:00:26.397
So it's just stuff like that.
1189
01:00:27.453 --> 01:00:32.095
The upselling's there, the more money's there, it's just like, we just learning curve to get there.
1190
01:00:32.936 --> 01:00:34.477
Cool, do you have a pen by chance?
1191
01:00:34.577 --> 01:00:34.797
Yeah.
1192
01:00:35.137 --> 01:00:40.720
Just to kinda like put everything together, I was here, I just kinda give it a little more granularity.
1193
01:00:40.760 --> 01:00:43.721
So, do you guys know what the 4-0 framework is?
1194
01:00:43.902 --> 01:00:45.762
I've heard of it like, yeah.
1195
01:00:46.003 --> 01:00:51.325
So basically it's like, hey, we have liquidity at the top, and that's just money, right?
1196
01:00:51.345 --> 01:00:52.706
So cash in the bank.
1197
01:00:52.806 --> 01:00:55.748
We turn that cash usually into leads, we go out on Facebook ads,
1198
01:00:56.808 --> 01:00:58.789
postcards, et cetera, so that's leads.
1199
01:00:59.169 --> 01:01:02.410
Then we usually get enough leads, you get a bunch of customers, what do you need?
1200
01:01:02.430 --> 01:01:04.651
You need laborers, right, so that's labor.
1201
01:01:05.051 --> 01:01:07.552
And then if you get a bunch of laborers, eventually you need leadership.
1202
01:01:07.812 --> 01:01:11.214
And fortunately, both of you are the leaders, so leadership.
1203
01:01:13.087 --> 01:01:15.049
So that's like the 4.0 framework.
1204
01:01:15.069 --> 01:01:22.176
So what I like to do is over the next six weeks, before we touch base with you, kind of give you assignments for, okay, these are the things we're doing in each of these areas.
1205
01:01:22.556 --> 01:01:28.141
So from a liquidity perspective, we've really got to get above two weeks' worth of revenue in the bank.
1206
01:01:28.521 --> 01:01:31.364
And that's like $25,000, $30,000.
1207
01:01:31.704 --> 01:01:33.606
So I'm going to put a target on it at $30,000.
1208
01:01:34.607 --> 01:01:37.672
30K cash in the bank.
1209
01:01:38.272 --> 01:01:42.739
The other thing is, from a liquidity perspective, we've got to get to be able to raise prices.
1210
01:01:43.480 --> 01:01:45.803
In six weeks, I think we can get 50 more customers.
1211
01:01:46.023 --> 01:01:46.664
That's about...
1212
01:01:47.918 --> 01:01:48.659
one customer a day.
1213
01:01:49.840 --> 01:01:54.703
Now, that's gonna hinge a lot on the leads part, which we'll get to, but we gotta do a price increase.
1214
01:01:55.204 --> 01:02:02.950
So if we need a price increase in six weeks on 200 customers, that's the goal, then we will literally solve our liquidity crunch problem.
1215
01:02:03.430 --> 01:02:12.718
And the difference between being 1 or 2% profitable versus 10 or 15% profitable this year, actually, that you guys get in distributions is whether or not you raise prices during the spring rush.
1216
01:02:13.258 --> 01:02:19.283
And because you have the truck, you have the equipment, it's sitting here, like get to capacity and then just raise prices on those.
1217
01:02:19.684 --> 01:02:22.747
So from a liquidity perspective, six weeks, I think we get 30K cash.
1218
01:02:23.945 --> 01:02:26.666
trying to get a price increase on existing mowing customers.
1219
01:02:27.067 --> 01:02:29.548
From a leads perspective, we've gotta get control of the site.
1220
01:02:30.088 --> 01:02:31.649
We've gotta be able to make those changes.
1221
01:02:31.689 --> 01:02:43.374
So it's like changes to site, that includes the estimate request form, that includes the homepage, having the picture of the crew and the brand, much more in that regard.
1222
01:02:43.394 --> 01:02:44.935
I think we'll increase conversion a lot.
1223
01:02:45.275 --> 01:02:48.417
Now, whether or not we spend money on ads, did we spend money on ads last year?
1224
01:02:49.237 --> 01:02:49.838
Not really.
1225
01:02:49.858 --> 01:02:51.518
We're just always catching up.
1226
01:02:51.538 --> 01:02:52.039
Yeah.
1227
01:02:52.179 --> 01:02:57.802
Our agreement with the marketing guy was like 500 a month, but that happened maybe three times last year.
1228
01:02:57.822 --> 01:02:58.943
Because he wasn't even producing.
1229
01:02:59.703 --> 01:03:02.284
So really from a leads perspective, we just need control of the site.
1230
01:03:02.344 --> 01:03:02.625
Yeah.
1231
01:03:02.885 --> 01:03:06.227
Like whether you pay him or you ask him, hey, can we get the domain?
1232
01:03:06.307 --> 01:03:10.189
Or if he has access to like a website builder, it looks like he's using WordPress.
1233
01:03:10.309 --> 01:03:11.990
And then you go get someone else to do it.
1234
01:03:12.030 --> 01:03:15.572
Like we just need control of it because it is literally the reason that you're paying
1235
01:03:16.352 --> 01:03:21.135
If you're not advertising, the reason you're getting those leads is because you're ranking well on Google listing and you're ranking well on Google.
1236
01:03:21.155 --> 01:03:26.018
So not having control of that lead source is very...
1237
01:03:26.378 --> 01:03:29.660
It is a tomorrow you can pull that card and you guys don't have a business.
1238
01:03:29.680 --> 01:03:36.264
Because the big thing that he was nice to have was that he had the drone and he had the nice cameras.
1239
01:03:36.324 --> 01:03:39.546
So it was good for the shots, but when he doesn't make a post, it doesn't matter.
1240
01:03:39.646 --> 01:03:42.767
Well, the posts are fine, the social media.
1241
01:03:43.007 --> 01:03:45.288
I also think you guys could do a decent job of that.
1242
01:03:45.468 --> 01:03:46.449
Once a week post something.
1243
01:03:46.909 --> 01:03:48.289
I'm mostly worried about the website.
1244
01:03:48.329 --> 01:03:50.070
Because this is where all of your leads are coming.
1245
01:03:50.150 --> 01:03:50.950
They're calling me.
1246
01:03:51.190 --> 01:03:52.371
They're coming from the website.
1247
01:03:53.091 --> 01:03:54.652
If we had Metric, I could show you.
1248
01:03:54.672 --> 01:03:56.712
Oh, they click on the call button 20 times.
1249
01:03:58.753 --> 01:04:04.678
All your leads are coming for that, and the reason I know is because we're not doing door hangers, we're not doing yard signs, we're not doing Facebook ads, we're not doing any of that stuff.
1250
01:04:05.138 --> 01:04:07.961
It is simply people are calling us, people are showing up to our website.
1251
01:04:08.281 --> 01:04:09.502
It's because you're ranking well on Google.
1252
01:04:09.802 --> 01:04:18.129
And I think your biggest asset, I say, of the whole business, is the fact that you're ranking really high, you're getting leads coming in probably 34 years a month for doing no advertising.
1253
01:04:18.796 --> 01:04:19.976
That's what we were talking about.
1254
01:04:20.197 --> 01:04:21.417
It's just word of mouth.
1255
01:04:21.437 --> 01:04:22.197
Two or three a day.
1256
01:04:22.497 --> 01:04:23.158
Yeah.
1257
01:04:23.218 --> 01:04:27.860
Yeah, and so if we can get from two to three a day to just five or six a day, we immediately double the business.
1258
01:04:28.480 --> 01:04:35.663
And so if we can get control in the next six weeks and then make those changes, the S&M request form, and if you need help from my team, feel free to reach out and I can help you.
1259
01:04:35.863 --> 01:04:39.764
Even if you have a WordPress thing and they can hop on there for 30 minutes and I can walk you through some stuff.
1260
01:04:40.125 --> 01:04:46.067
But get the S&M request form above the fold, on the homepage, you don't have to go somewhere else, and who cares about Sninkin' Wise Tag?
1261
01:04:46.487 --> 01:04:48.709
Get that button, that tab changed out.
1262
01:04:48.729 --> 01:04:50.670
That's your highest converting call to action tab.
1263
01:04:51.471 --> 01:04:52.592
You want them to get a quote.
1264
01:04:52.852 --> 01:04:53.132
Okay.
1265
01:04:53.573 --> 01:04:55.314
So that'll help with leads.
1266
01:04:55.554 --> 01:04:58.016
I think, like, yes, we could go do pump money into it.
1267
01:04:58.116 --> 01:04:58.917
I don't think we need to.
1268
01:04:59.057 --> 01:05:00.178
We're close to capacity.
1269
01:05:00.198 --> 01:05:01.079
Let's get the last 50.
1270
01:05:01.119 --> 01:05:06.123
Let's take something that's free, which is just changing our website out, to convert higher.
1271
01:05:06.443 --> 01:05:06.963
Okay.
1272
01:05:08.024 --> 01:05:11.649
Do you think he's gonna have a problem with giving you guys control?
1273
01:05:11.689 --> 01:05:11.869
No.
1274
01:05:11.889 --> 01:05:13.051
No, he's a friend.
1275
01:05:13.071 --> 01:05:14.092
I know where he lives.
1276
01:05:14.112 --> 01:05:15.834
Yeah, I know where he lives.
1277
01:05:15.854 --> 01:05:17.056
We're knocking on the door.
1278
01:05:17.136 --> 01:05:18.137
Okay, cool.
1279
01:05:18.197 --> 01:05:22.883
If we just get control, and even if you give him some money, be like, hey, can you just help us make these changes?
1280
01:05:23.363 --> 01:05:23.764
Ideal.
1281
01:05:24.084 --> 01:05:25.826
But I really want you to have control of it.
1282
01:05:26.668 --> 01:05:33.480
And especially because a friend relationship, kinda like what happened last year, he could just go out of business, not disappear.
1283
01:05:33.941 --> 01:05:36.967
All of a sudden he doesn't pay for the domain and your site is blank.
1284
01:05:37.588 --> 01:05:39.071
If that happens, your leads stop.
1285
01:05:39.816 --> 01:05:42.018
And that's like an existential crisis for the business.
1286
01:05:42.438 --> 01:05:43.860
It's a huge threat in my opinion.
1287
01:05:44.540 --> 01:05:50.105
This is why eventually I always try to do something like third party, I have the keys to it, I have the keys to the domain.
1288
01:05:50.365 --> 01:05:54.088
Even the people that build my sites, like employees, they do not have access to the domain.
1289
01:05:54.489 --> 01:05:58.892
Because someone will pull that domain out from them and you are toast, you are at ransom.
1290
01:05:59.633 --> 01:06:03.897
And so I'm always very careful with the keys to that because it is literally where all your leads are coming from.
1291
01:06:04.473 --> 01:06:06.073
I think it's the biggest value of this business.
1292
01:06:06.093 --> 01:06:10.014
You're ranking well on Google, you have all the reviews, you have a listing that's really, really good.
1293
01:06:10.794 --> 01:06:13.915
And so if we can just increase the conversion and have control of that, I'd feel better.
1294
01:06:13.935 --> 01:06:15.255
Especially if it happened last year.
1295
01:06:15.535 --> 01:06:18.696
You're just always looking for like, okay, what could potentially put me out of business tomorrow?
1296
01:06:18.936 --> 01:06:19.216
Yeah.
1297
01:06:19.596 --> 01:06:25.257
You know, and he is one click away on HostGator or GoDaddy from like, okay, their site's off.
1298
01:06:25.637 --> 01:06:26.877
I need five grand from you.
1299
01:06:27.358 --> 01:06:29.318
And he would pay it because leads would be
1300
01:06:30.059 --> 01:06:30.781
Grind the old.
1301
01:06:30.901 --> 01:06:31.082
Yeah.
1302
01:06:31.403 --> 01:06:31.644
Right?
1303
01:06:32.045 --> 01:06:33.650
So I would definitely figure out on the lead side.
1304
01:06:33.870 --> 01:06:37.120
From a labor perspective, um...
1305
01:06:38.450 --> 01:06:40.551
You obviously have a couple good guys from last year still.
1306
01:06:40.831 --> 01:06:41.051
Yeah.
1307
01:06:41.452 --> 01:06:43.212
You got a couple new guys getting trained.
1308
01:06:44.733 --> 01:06:46.454
Finding them seems to be easier this year.
1309
01:06:46.694 --> 01:06:47.255
Way easier.
1310
01:06:47.295 --> 01:06:47.855
Way easier.
1311
01:06:47.995 --> 01:06:48.135
Yeah.
1312
01:06:48.195 --> 01:06:48.675
Way easier.
1313
01:06:48.795 --> 01:06:56.879
And so from a training perspective, as we get the new customers, it sounds like I haven't even heard of a lot of complaints, callbacks, nothing like that.
1314
01:06:57.040 --> 01:07:00.401
The biggest complaints we had was not answering the phone.
1315
01:07:00.441 --> 01:07:01.302
Communication was...
1316
01:07:01.962 --> 01:07:03.063
terrible last year.
1317
01:07:03.123 --> 01:07:04.843
That was our base complaint by far.
1318
01:07:04.923 --> 01:07:15.568
Okay, so then we could technically say if you were freed up to be able to handle that communication, we could, okay, so then what can our team do to keep you from having to be on job sites?
1319
01:07:16.148 --> 01:07:18.789
Do we need to have a better trained project manager?
1320
01:07:18.929 --> 01:07:20.190
I'm extremely picky.
1321
01:07:20.590 --> 01:07:20.930
Okay.
1322
01:07:21.330 --> 01:07:23.431
On the project base.
1323
01:07:23.471 --> 01:07:30.434
So, can we take the 20 jobs that we currently do on project side and cut out the top five or six that you know you only can be there?
1324
01:07:31.603 --> 01:07:36.304
Probably, yeah.
1325
01:07:37.704 --> 01:07:42.025
I micromanage big time on the quality side of things.
1326
01:07:42.265 --> 01:07:44.926
So that's a personal issue that I like.
1327
01:07:45.066 --> 01:07:45.546
Projects.
1328
01:07:45.566 --> 01:07:48.687
That's why we do so well together because project-based work, we don't work together.
1329
01:07:50.427 --> 01:07:53.848
He's so fast at mowing and his quality is good on mowing, but like...
1330
01:07:54.448 --> 01:07:56.490
I have to make sure grade is perfect.
1331
01:07:56.550 --> 01:08:03.378
I have to make sure that everything is code, which obviously you should, but there's so many people around here that don't do it that way.
1332
01:08:03.858 --> 01:08:08.704
But that's also why we're higher priced because I do it step by step.
1333
01:08:09.004 --> 01:08:10.266
No steps get missed.
1334
01:08:10.306 --> 01:08:10.526
And...
1335
01:08:10.866 --> 01:08:14.369
I've never had a complaint on any project based work in my life.
1336
01:08:14.389 --> 01:08:15.911
Work-wise, we really don't get complaints.
1337
01:08:15.991 --> 01:08:16.191
Yeah.
1338
01:08:16.231 --> 01:08:16.431
No.
1339
01:08:16.731 --> 01:08:23.157
So what I would say then is like, if the constraint in the business is you being able to communicate better with customers, we need to free you up.
1340
01:08:23.597 --> 01:08:25.479
So then this question is like, why are you not freeing up?
1341
01:08:25.499 --> 01:08:26.420
Well, I have to be on the job.
1342
01:08:26.440 --> 01:08:27.201
They have to be perfect.
1343
01:08:27.301 --> 01:08:27.721
Okay, great.
1344
01:08:28.061 --> 01:08:33.126
What are the things that if you're not there fall through the cracks and then eliminate those services?
1345
01:08:34.570 --> 01:08:40.952
There's also reason why having a good P&L, and even you could use Java for this, figuring out which services you're making revenue from.
1346
01:08:41.192 --> 01:08:48.454
Because I happen to believe you could cut out 20% of your project revenue, but cut out 60, 70, 80% of the amount of time you must be on the job site.
1347
01:08:48.794 --> 01:08:51.375
So for example, a molten stall, they can do it probably without you.
1348
01:08:51.695 --> 01:08:54.816
They have simple installation of plants, they can do it without you.
1349
01:08:54.876 --> 01:08:57.377
Grading and creating and doing a grade
1350
01:08:57.861 --> 01:09:00.642
and doing a ditch and excavation, I'm assuming you're having to be there.
1351
01:09:00.822 --> 01:09:01.122
Yeah.
1352
01:09:01.762 --> 01:09:04.944
And so it's a matter of like, how much of the project revenue is that actually?
1353
01:09:06.764 --> 01:09:07.684
Landscape, not a lot.
1354
01:09:07.705 --> 01:09:15.027
Yeah, I'd say hardscapes and like, probably maybe 10, 15% of like total annual revenue.
1355
01:09:15.087 --> 01:09:25.871
Yeah, so it's a matter of like, can we count 10 or 15% of revenue, but by doing that increase our communication and double the other parts of the business because we just have better close ratio, better communication, better collections,
1356
01:09:26.298 --> 01:09:30.219
Yeah, because we really don't want to do hardscapes anymore.
1357
01:09:30.239 --> 01:09:32.120
Because we got burnt last year.
1358
01:09:32.140 --> 01:09:33.360
Yeah, because we got burnt on employees.
1359
01:09:33.480 --> 01:09:35.321
I don't want to have to be out there.
1360
01:09:35.641 --> 01:09:36.101
I don't.
1361
01:09:36.561 --> 01:09:39.802
I want this to be my, like, I want the communication.
1362
01:09:39.862 --> 01:09:42.083
I want everything like that, the maintenance side.
1363
01:09:42.903 --> 01:09:49.868
Because, plus, if we get burnt and we lose a lot of money, it's easy to lose money on hardscapes if something goes wrong.
1364
01:09:50.048 --> 01:09:50.168
Yeah.
1365
01:09:50.308 --> 01:09:51.309
So, maintenance side, like, oh.
1366
01:09:51.329 --> 01:09:52.490
And if someone doesn't pay you once.
1367
01:09:52.590 --> 01:09:53.090
Exactly.
1368
01:09:53.250 --> 01:09:53.931
Two months.
1369
01:09:54.071 --> 01:09:56.813
It's like, oh, we messed up by four or five yards of mulch.
1370
01:09:56.833 --> 01:09:58.094
Okay, that's $150.
1371
01:09:58.374 --> 01:09:59.135
Yeah.
1372
01:09:59.415 --> 01:10:03.118
But it's like, oh, I missed, like, seven tons of, you know, great base.
1373
01:10:03.138 --> 01:10:04.158
So, okay, that's $500.
1374
01:10:04.178 --> 01:10:04.819
Yeah.
1375
01:10:05.319 --> 01:10:07.120
Then you have to rip everything out and do it again.
1376
01:10:07.180 --> 01:10:07.821
So, yeah.
1377
01:10:08.001 --> 01:10:09.022
Hardscapes are not...
1378
01:10:09.502 --> 01:10:11.723
We made a decision to cut them out.
1379
01:10:12.204 --> 01:10:13.284
So that's healthy.
1380
01:10:13.345 --> 01:10:14.385
I just keep doing that.
1381
01:10:14.545 --> 01:10:19.528
Because if the constraint of a business exists, all resources are going to be put into it.
1382
01:10:19.889 --> 01:10:26.693
And if the constraint is we don't communicate fast enough, we have a whole bunch of missed calls, a bunch of leads we don't get back to, that should be the thing we sell for.
1383
01:10:26.973 --> 01:10:32.357
And if that means cutting out 10% to 15% of revenue so we can attack the other 80% of revenue, good idea.
1384
01:10:32.517 --> 01:10:32.737
Yeah.
1385
01:10:33.198 --> 01:10:37.827
Because I think we cut out – we made an agreement to cut out the hardscapes last year.
1386
01:10:37.968 --> 01:10:38.429
Yeah.
1387
01:10:38.469 --> 01:10:41.795
More difficult services because it was hard for us to find guys last year.
1388
01:10:41.815 --> 01:10:42.116
Yeah.
1389
01:10:42.905 --> 01:10:45.867
Our goal is to basically just build up the maintenance side.
1390
01:10:46.367 --> 01:10:50.749
Instead of selling just bigger projects, I mean just focus on upselling what we have.
1391
01:10:51.470 --> 01:10:53.431
And we'll make the same amount of money, if not more.
1392
01:10:54.031 --> 01:10:58.394
And I think that's the route we're going to focus on this year.
1393
01:10:58.474 --> 01:11:00.094
And we can always just have it where it's okay.
1394
01:11:00.295 --> 01:11:07.919
We're okay with a 50% closure ratio on our maintenance, but we only want a closure ratio of like 25% to 30% on projects because we're going to price it so high.
1395
01:11:08.779 --> 01:11:13.482
And so that if we do get a project and you have to be there, you know, you're making such a killing, you would care less.
1396
01:11:13.582 --> 01:11:13.803
Yeah.
1397
01:11:14.063 --> 01:11:14.243
Right.
1398
01:11:14.403 --> 01:11:19.627
So that's what I would probably do right away is just raise your prices dramatically on land on projects.
1399
01:11:19.667 --> 01:11:19.787
Yeah.
1400
01:11:19.807 --> 01:11:26.011
Because we literally have those three jobs left over from last year that are like going through that we're going to finish.
1401
01:11:26.211 --> 01:11:28.413
And they're, like I said, two day jobs max.
1402
01:11:28.453 --> 01:11:30.394
They're really not like hardscape hardscapes.
1403
01:11:30.534 --> 01:11:32.415
It's not that difficult.
1404
01:11:32.456 --> 01:11:34.557
So the challenge for us to be saying no to those jobs.
1405
01:11:34.617 --> 01:11:35.899
Because you can kind of do them.
1406
01:11:35.939 --> 01:11:38.422
This is the hardest part when you cut the services out.
1407
01:11:38.902 --> 01:11:40.845
And this is why having control of the site is important.
1408
01:11:40.865 --> 01:11:49.035
Because if you're saying that you're doing that type of stuff, and even the picture on the front is very landscape-driven, and it has walls and patios and the whole nine, it...
1409
01:11:49.776 --> 01:11:53.058
Confuses customers and you're gonna have to say no more and more on the phone, right?
1410
01:11:53.078 --> 01:12:04.664
So like getting that top of the funnel the website because like hey, we're maintenance we do mowing we do Malt install we do bush trimming We do the basic stuff and then if they ask for a landscape job, you're it's a premium price, right?
1411
01:12:05.065 --> 01:12:05.485
Right
1412
01:12:06.025 --> 01:12:06.986
But saying no is tough.
1413
01:12:07.186 --> 01:12:07.466
Yeah.
1414
01:12:08.107 --> 01:12:12.050
Especially knowing how much money there is available in the hardscapes when you do them right.
1415
01:12:12.111 --> 01:12:16.154
But it's like the stress versus the money, I'd rather maintenance.
1416
01:12:16.294 --> 01:12:18.576
Well, it's also a matter of just like leverage of your time.
1417
01:12:18.616 --> 01:12:21.919
Like your time out doing projects, you're probably making $100 an hour for the business.
1418
01:12:21.959 --> 01:12:22.219
Yeah.
1419
01:12:22.319 --> 01:12:30.627
But if you're able to get five new jobs and communicate with customers and have a better retention of your maintenance, and then one time you raise a price increase and make $8,000 a month,
1420
01:12:31.167 --> 01:12:32.448
That's what you can't do with landscaping.
1421
01:12:32.468 --> 01:12:32.668
Yeah.
1422
01:12:32.888 --> 01:12:36.350
You can't go back in time like, all right, all these customers, I now make money on you.
1423
01:12:36.730 --> 01:12:39.832
With the maintenance, we can get 200 and use all these trucks and equipment.
1424
01:12:40.172 --> 01:12:49.237
I happen to believe that you could also, down the road, if you really wanted to go for it, that other trucks start to do some projects, but then also more maintenance during the spring rush.
1425
01:12:49.497 --> 01:12:50.818
You might get 250 customers.
1426
01:12:51.078 --> 01:12:51.258
Damn.
1427
01:12:51.458 --> 01:12:58.062
And all of a sudden, like, raising prices, we just left our location, like, he's going to raise prices, and $10,000 extra profit, which is like pushing a button.
1428
01:12:59.227 --> 01:13:01.951
And that's where the money is good.
1429
01:13:02.172 --> 01:13:02.452
Right.
1430
01:13:02.692 --> 01:13:05.276
And more importantly, it's not dependent on you being there.
1431
01:13:05.797 --> 01:13:06.558
Yeah, yeah.
1432
01:13:07.079 --> 01:13:07.600
So, okay.
1433
01:13:07.840 --> 01:13:14.390
Leadership side, I think we want to do an amendment and figure out what is the partnership agreement.
1434
01:13:15.100 --> 01:13:18.945
and just really nail down rules, responsibilities, what is the future gonna look like?
1435
01:13:19.285 --> 01:13:21.307
And more importantly, how does distributable cash work?
1436
01:13:21.508 --> 01:13:22.889
Like when do we take money out of the business?
1437
01:13:23.550 --> 01:13:24.792
When does our salary go up?
1438
01:13:25.052 --> 01:13:32.260
Like a lot of times what I like to do, even since equity is 50-50, is like salaries depend on how much you work here, like your roles and responsibilities.
1439
01:13:32.621 --> 01:13:33.902
Ownership, different than that.
1440
01:13:34.843 --> 01:13:45.552
Because you can be 50-50 and always split equity or distributable cash by 50%, but if one person's working 80 hours a week and the other one's now only taking some time off, they don't get a salary.
1441
01:13:45.945 --> 01:13:46.465
For example.
1442
01:13:46.845 --> 01:13:49.366
So figuring all that out now would be really important.
1443
01:13:49.926 --> 01:13:51.826
I think there are two major threats to the business right now.
1444
01:13:52.146 --> 01:13:54.427
One, your lead flow, website, you don't have control of it.
1445
01:13:54.567 --> 01:13:55.427
It could be shut down tomorrow.
1446
01:13:55.667 --> 01:13:57.347
The second is like the partnership agreement.
1447
01:13:57.367 --> 01:13:59.127
So what happened last year never happens again.
1448
01:13:59.568 --> 01:14:00.928
And if it does happen, it's very clear.
1449
01:14:00.948 --> 01:14:02.588
It's like, okay, so we don't agree on stuff.
1450
01:14:02.808 --> 01:14:04.588
Great, let's go, what's supposed to happen now?
1451
01:14:05.029 --> 01:14:06.329
Okay, you're getting divorced.
1452
01:14:06.449 --> 01:14:07.069
We never want that.
1453
01:14:07.089 --> 01:14:07.909
We don't want to think about it.
1454
01:14:08.029 --> 01:14:09.429
You're doing that now.
1455
01:14:09.469 --> 01:14:11.290
25% of the business is in jeopardy.
1456
01:14:11.790 --> 01:14:12.590
What's supposed to happen?
1457
01:14:13.210 --> 01:14:14.130
Oh, we're supposed to liquidate.
1458
01:14:15.311 --> 01:14:16.071
I have to be bought out.
1459
01:14:16.111 --> 01:14:17.111
And here's the valuation.
1460
01:14:17.131 --> 01:14:19.632
OK, we're going to get three independent valuators.
1461
01:14:19.892 --> 01:14:21.893
And then the average of those that we use.
1462
01:14:22.393 --> 01:14:24.614
Some people use profit, and we add the assets.
1463
01:14:24.834 --> 01:14:27.275
Well, that requires having a good balance sheet.
1464
01:14:27.515 --> 01:14:30.856
So I think even from a leadership perspective, having numbers.
1465
01:14:31.916 --> 01:14:33.077
of the business, i.e.
1466
01:14:33.117 --> 01:14:35.378
an account like the bookkeeper would be super positive.
1467
01:14:35.498 --> 01:14:36.579
Yeah.
1468
01:14:36.939 --> 01:14:44.403
Because if I come back here in a year and we have a solid P&L from 2025, we have a really good discussion about, okay, do you pay for performance?
1469
01:14:44.643 --> 01:14:45.684
Do we open up the books?
1470
01:14:45.984 --> 01:14:47.305
Do we do profit sharing?
1471
01:14:47.505 --> 01:14:48.946
What does the triple cash look like?
1472
01:14:49.166 --> 01:14:50.427
What are the roles and responsibilities?
1473
01:14:50.487 --> 01:14:52.988
And what percentage of revenue is going to the landscaping versus the mowing?
1474
01:14:53.328 --> 01:14:54.329
But we don't have that now.
1475
01:14:55.029 --> 01:14:59.632
So I think numbers, like having the bookkeeper, they'll be happy to take your money, so that should be an easy one.
1476
01:14:59.652 --> 01:14:59.732
Shh.
1477
01:14:59.752 --> 01:14:59.832
Shh.
1478
01:15:00.952 --> 01:15:03.813
I feel like within a week or two, they clean things up for you, right?
1479
01:15:03.833 --> 01:15:05.193
And then you have a really good P&L.
1480
01:15:05.453 --> 01:15:08.293
You actually, as you make a price increase, you see the effect of it.
1481
01:15:08.554 --> 01:15:11.454
You start to see what the close ratio is for landscape versus mowing.
1482
01:15:11.774 --> 01:15:14.855
And then you really start to govern the business as the owner, right?
1483
01:15:14.935 --> 01:15:15.135
Yeah.
1484
01:15:15.455 --> 01:15:27.517
Cause that's what we feel like now is we're just kind of like, or more last year, but this year we're trying to be like, Hey, we are the leaders, like the managers, we need to be owners, not just people who are, you know, working out in the field and kind of,
1485
01:15:28.710 --> 01:15:33.973
taking a beating from technically our employees, obviously, but like thinking of us coworkers.
1486
01:15:34.013 --> 01:15:35.875
So, but yeah.
1487
01:15:37.255 --> 01:15:38.997
Well, any other questions that I can help with?
1488
01:15:40.678 --> 01:15:41.298
I don't have any.
1489
01:15:41.638 --> 01:15:42.999
I know we kind of did the full circle there.
1490
01:15:43.019 --> 01:15:44.420
There's a lot of little changes.
1491
01:15:44.460 --> 01:15:44.840
Yeah.
1492
01:15:44.880 --> 01:15:48.823
And what's funny is like most time people think I'm going to come in here like, ah, change the software.
1493
01:15:48.863 --> 01:15:51.304
And like, we don't have any numbers to do us right now.
1494
01:15:51.324 --> 01:15:51.524
Right.
1495
01:15:51.564 --> 01:15:54.086
And so I go after the low hanging fruit, which is like, we need more money in the bank.
1496
01:15:54.606 --> 01:15:56.648
And to do that, we need to hit capacity and raise prices.
1497
01:15:57.208 --> 01:16:01.230
And I think we can grow into that, and then a lot of this other stuff falls into place.
1498
01:16:01.270 --> 01:16:09.053
If you're a version of your leads, all of a sudden you're getting six, eight leads a day, it'll force you even more so that the bottom that becomes you can't communicate.
1499
01:16:09.433 --> 01:16:10.974
So it'll force you to simplify services.
1500
01:16:11.014 --> 01:16:13.075
It'll force you to say no to complex ones.
1501
01:16:14.035 --> 01:16:24.099
And then you'll need to know your numbers, because eventually you get to the point where you're like, oh wait, this is so fresh and money comes in, money somehow disappears, we have no idea where it's going, and you're just like, you gotta have a P&L.
1502
01:16:24.379 --> 01:16:24.639
Right.
1503
01:16:27.222 --> 01:16:29.524
Talk to Emily right away, the bookkeeper.
1504
01:16:29.544 --> 01:16:30.445
Get that square away first.
1505
01:16:30.765 --> 01:16:33.448
Yeah, I think within a week or two she'll clean it up.
1506
01:16:33.788 --> 01:16:37.872
She'll probably go back in time, ask for your bank statements, all your credit card statements, and like, can I go from there?
1507
01:16:38.112 --> 01:16:39.153
Okay.
1508
01:16:39.193 --> 01:16:40.814
Anything else, like random, I can help with?
1509
01:16:40.874 --> 01:16:41.555
Anything whatsoever?
1510
01:16:42.780 --> 01:16:43.601
I don't think so.
1511
01:16:43.721 --> 01:16:46.084
You went deeper than what I was even thinking.
1512
01:16:46.124 --> 01:16:48.046
So I think you covered everything.
1513
01:16:48.066 --> 01:16:50.089
So that's kind of like the bullet points.
1514
01:16:50.169 --> 01:16:51.951
I can share this with you guys and keep it.
1515
01:16:52.752 --> 01:16:59.219
But if we can follow up in the next six weeks, I think a lot of these little things, the biggest thing is if we get access to the site this week,
1516
01:16:59.840 --> 01:17:07.221
and then immediately increase our conversion as Spring Rush comes on, I think that's the thing that unlocks us getting 50 new customers and raising the price.
1517
01:17:07.442 --> 01:17:16.383
If we can either, like, the difference between this year being profitable and not is going to be if we get that price increase in six to eight weeks versus, ah, like in August we kinda hit capacity.
1518
01:17:16.863 --> 01:17:20.544
Right, and then you're like, I don't really wanna raise prices because we're kind of on the downswing anyways.
1519
01:17:20.824 --> 01:17:24.985
Like, the next two months of sprinting to that is the difference of profitability.
1520
01:17:26.322 --> 01:17:26.603
Okay.
1521
01:17:27.223 --> 01:17:28.704
And you said, I lied, I did have a question.
1522
01:17:28.764 --> 01:17:33.309
For these, you said you wouldn't send these out, you would just focus on the website, right?
1523
01:17:33.749 --> 01:17:36.612
I, like, last year, for example, we didn't have a constraint of not having enough leads.
1524
01:17:36.872 --> 01:17:40.195
Like, if you look at, in the 4.0 frame, it's like, where last year did we have the constraint?
1525
01:17:40.495 --> 01:17:43.458
It was the fact that we had infindible laborers and we had no money in the bank.
1526
01:17:43.818 --> 01:17:43.978
Right.
1527
01:17:44.018 --> 01:17:44.218
Right?
1528
01:17:44.238 --> 01:17:44.439
So...
1529
01:17:45.259 --> 01:17:53.086
If laborers now seems like it's the fix, like it's, or we got a lot of people coming in, we simplified services, we're making that easier, it just becomes we need more money in the bank.
1530
01:17:53.266 --> 01:17:53.607
Yeah.
1531
01:17:53.707 --> 01:17:58.151
And so I'm not gonna even worry about more leads unless you get so many laborers, you have a bunch of money in the bank.
1532
01:17:58.431 --> 01:17:59.212
Well, now it's pretty easy.
1533
01:17:59.232 --> 01:18:03.175
You go out and do deals, you do Facebook ads, you're driving to a site that converts well.
1534
01:18:03.555 --> 01:18:07.499
So like, yes, you could go do these, but let's just say you have $70, $80 cost per lead.
1535
01:18:07.759 --> 01:18:10.962
That goes down to $40 or $50 by just converting them better once they get to your site.
1536
01:18:11.442 --> 01:18:18.764
So I want to fix the thing I own, the website, before I go rent space from Facebook and rent space from Google, like fix the thing you own, the house you own.
1537
01:18:19.224 --> 01:18:19.884
Right?
1538
01:18:20.384 --> 01:18:27.786
So if you can do that this week, like get that control, make those changes, increase the conversion as we go into Spring Rush, because like it gets hot and heavy here in a week or two.
1539
01:18:28.606 --> 01:18:30.167
So we're going right into the teeth of it.
1540
01:18:30.547 --> 01:18:36.909
And so the difference between getting 20 to 30 new customers and that hitting that 50 and the million raised prices, it all kind of hinges on that site, I'd say.
1541
01:18:39.317 --> 01:18:39.797
Good stuff.
1542
01:18:39.817 --> 01:18:39.977
Yeah.
1543
01:18:40.197 --> 01:18:40.877
I'll get a hold of them.
1544
01:18:40.937 --> 01:18:42.058
I'll do it.
1545
01:18:42.118 --> 01:18:42.678
Get a hold of them.
1546
01:18:42.738 --> 01:18:43.198
Everybody.
1547
01:18:43.218 --> 01:18:43.618
Okay, cool.
1548
01:18:43.798 --> 01:18:45.239
Anything else whatsoever?
1549
01:18:45.439 --> 01:18:46.719
Just let me, I don't go interview you.
1550
01:18:46.739 --> 01:18:50.760
They want to go get job site videos and stuff like that, but anything from me I can help with?
1551
01:18:51.360 --> 01:18:53.621
I think I'm pretty good.
1552
01:18:53.641 --> 01:18:54.581
Okay, good stuff.
1553
01:18:54.621 --> 01:18:56.081
I know there's a lot, a bunch of random stuff.
1554
01:18:56.281 --> 01:18:57.542
Yeah, I can give this to you too here.
1555
01:19:00.828 --> 01:19:05.431
Yeah, but change the picture, we needed your face on the website, I was so confused.
1556
01:19:05.471 --> 01:19:07.412
That's literally what we talked to him about.
1557
01:19:07.432 --> 01:19:08.472
That was the meeting all about.
1558
01:19:08.492 --> 01:19:10.633
We brought him, we took him out to lunch.
1559
01:19:10.874 --> 01:19:11.474
Oh yeah.
1560
01:19:11.494 --> 01:19:23.961
And was like, hey, you know, we'll pay for your lunch, like let's just get this back rolling, because he took a break, he went out to Georgia, or no, somewhere, I don't know, somewhere like Florida, for that big hurricane.
1561
01:19:24.061 --> 01:19:24.581
Yeah, yeah.
1562
01:19:24.861 --> 01:19:28.304
And he works with a tree service in Godfrey.
1563
01:19:28.524 --> 01:19:32.227
And so they took him out so that he could do like drawn footage and blah, blah, blah, and stuff like that.
1564
01:19:32.347 --> 01:19:34.028
And he was getting paid like $1,000 a day.
1565
01:19:34.109 --> 01:19:36.671
And I was like, go do it.
1566
01:19:36.711 --> 01:19:37.551
Like $1,000 a day.
1567
01:19:37.591 --> 01:19:38.512
I wouldn't pass that up either.
1568
01:19:38.552 --> 01:19:39.253
Go do what you got to do.
1569
01:19:39.673 --> 01:19:40.314
Then he came back.
1570
01:19:40.914 --> 01:19:41.935
It was like a month after that.
1571
01:19:41.955 --> 01:19:43.936
And we're like, hey, like you said you were going to do this.
1572
01:19:44.097 --> 01:19:46.038
So then he came here and we talked about it.
1573
01:19:46.599 --> 01:19:47.900
And then it was like...
1574
01:19:48.949 --> 01:19:50.650
We've gotten him so much work.
1575
01:19:51.271 --> 01:19:52.952
And I think that's where he messed up.
1576
01:19:53.012 --> 01:19:55.214
Kind of like us, he got overbeared.
1577
01:19:55.574 --> 01:19:56.855
And then he was like, ugh.
1578
01:19:56.915 --> 01:19:57.796
I'm just gonna lack.
1579
01:19:57.896 --> 01:20:04.140
And if he's not able to do it, and he's a friend, just like, hey, can we take it on, or can we get someone else to take access to it?
1580
01:20:04.220 --> 01:20:08.463
Because if he has a WordPress login, you can get access to that, get a freelancer to work on it with you.
1581
01:20:08.764 --> 01:20:10.945
Like, literally hop on a call and watch him for 30 minutes.
1582
01:20:10.965 --> 01:20:12.206
They'll walk you through how to do it all.
1583
01:20:13.727 --> 01:20:41.936
and say like Tory at Long Hair Web Design just talk to him you can book a free call at longhairwebdesign.com slash call and you can even say like hey we're on we're on the Turner Show I'm just going to talk for 15-20 minutes and get some like how do I do this he'll walk you through the whole thing and then you know just as long as you get access it's not like you're a good friend he's not going to like screw you guys over so that's a good thing yeah like you said he knows where he lives so well thanks for letting me come out I appreciate it I appreciate it thanks for coming out absolutely man thank you