$1.1M in Revenue… With No Admin (Here’s the Problem)

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If you're trying to grow a home service business from zero to $3 million in annual revenue, this video is for you.
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I'm sitting down with 10 home service entrepreneurs that are trying to scale their business, and we're gonna be talking all about delegation of sales, operations, and admin.
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What happens when I don't feel like I'm a good leader, but yet I need to get an operations person to run my $1 million business.
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We're gonna be talking about how to figure out marketing,
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just getting your first few customers and when to focus on getting Google reviews versus building a great website.
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There's a lot of information, so let's get started.
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All right, Daniel, you're up.
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Hi, McEnnis.
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How are you?
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Good, brother.
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How are you doing?
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Good, good.
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Last year, I tried to get an operations manager, and it didn't do too well.
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He just wasn't a good operations manager.
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And heading into my season, I just want to make sure we start off good and right foot during Spring Rush, right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, like last season we had five crews.
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This season I want to have eight crews and I just need to have good operation manager, right?
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Because at my stage, I should already have one, right?
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I just want to know, like, what do you do to find the right operation manager in terms of hiring?
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Like, what kind of questions do you ask?
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And, you know, like, how do you incentivize them to like, you know, to perform well?
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Yeah, so first thing, how much in revenue did you last year, Daniel?
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Almost 1.1.
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Okay.
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And then do you currently have an office manager?
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No.
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Got it.
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So this is my concern.
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When I think about the business, I think about there's three departments, sales, operations, and admin.
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And right now you're trying to delegate operations before delegating admin when admin is a cheaper role to fulfill and going to be easier to train that person.
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And you're definitely not going to have to give them equity.
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Mm-hmm.
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And so I would highly recommend finding the office side because by displacing your time from doing admin, you could spend more time in operations and potentially this year get through most of the growth, staying operations.
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And then you hire next year or later on once you have a bigger business for an operations role and then you move into sales full time.
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Yes, yes.
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That's what I was thinking too.
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And I tried doing that.
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Like this year, I want to get for sure, you mentioned customer service and admin help, right?
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Either I get customer service, like a VA, or I do it in-house.
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But definitely admin I need to get.
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The thing is like operations too.
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I just feel like I'm not good.
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I feel like I'm better in the back end.
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I'm not really good leadership wise.
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Yeah.
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for us manager this leads my second question about that is that i have a friend who he also is a long care business we're in the same market and he does about he has one truck he started out last year a year before and he did about um like i think 150k in revenue something like that but he's like my really good friend really good guy like been with him a long time and i was actually thinking about bringing him in as a partner and then
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That's why I wanted to ask like into the partnership equity, right?
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Because he's obviously much smaller this year.
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I have eight trucks.
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I want to get to eight crews.
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I want to get to like 2 million, hopefully 1.8, 2 million.
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And if I can, and he's a really good operations manager.
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He actually didn't have any work in November.
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So he came to help me for fall, cleanups in November and he did really well.
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So I was wondering like, you know, instead of competing in the same market, he does his own business.
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I do mine.
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And I like go in the season, you know, like, you know, not having an operation manager, not knowing if I can succeed in that.
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If I could just bring him in and give him partnership in the company, I just wanted to know your opinion on that and how to do it.
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I would really avoid partnership.
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I would offer potentially profit sharing or him getting a percentage of distributions, for example, so that you avoid what happened last time.
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And now it would affect your relationship with him personally.
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And so that's the first thing.
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I would definitely not be offering equity.
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I would do profit sharing.
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Secondly, be careful thinking that he's good at operations because he is good at operations at 150, but he's never seen a $2 million business.
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And so it is most easy to bring in operations people that you know, like, and trust because you don't yet have systems to actually validate whether or not they're good at operations.
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Like if someone was coming from a $5 million company as their operations person, you would know, assuming they have been there for years, have great recommendations, that they can run that size of business confidently.
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He can't.
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We know that for certain.
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Now, he might have the raw talent, but you're going to have to have systems in place for him to actually be successful in that role.
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If you don't have systems for someone that doesn't have the skills, but they have the talent.
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How I look at him, Daniel, is he has talent.
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He's a great worker.
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You trust him.
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He's a great leader.
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before.
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The only way to be able to make him successful is have systems in place that he can follow.
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If you have systems and operations that you can be like, hey, you're great talent.
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Here's the roadmap to gain the skills.
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Then I would give him the green light with profit sharing.
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I would be very careful though, if you don't have a very systematization of your operations role and what that leadership role looks like, because you are going to throw him to the lines then, and he's going to go from 150 to a $2 million company, more than a 10X, and it's likely he
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okay great and then if i were to do the profit sharing like like how would i do that like how would you recommend that uh sorry what to add to that as well like i we talked about it before briefly and he said that's the thing like i mentioned about like giving just profit sharing right and he mentioned oh but like if i leave my company and join yours we pick on partners like like i just feel like i want to i already i don't want to be work i want to own i want to own a business too i want to be part of one that's what he that's what he says right but
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Well, yeah, if he's willing to take your salary, what do you take out of the business?
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Last year, 100.
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Yeah, so it comes down to what the investment is on his part too, right?
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I would also just say the reason I always stay away from equity is because it will eventually end, 100%.
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And it is likely if you give him equity, when that business partnership ends, your personal relationship will also be ruined.
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It almost always happens.
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Everyone points to Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett.
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It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Okay, name me 10 other people that have lived their entire life and been business partners.
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It never happens.
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I would mostly, if that's his, like what he's saying, I would say, hey, look, I never want to lose you as a friend.
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You're my friend number one.
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And if we go into equity together, it is like having a marriage.
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And every business partnership, it's not until that's part.
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It ends at some point.
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And when that happens, I don't want to lose our friendship.
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And so the only way I would do the equity split is if it's very, very clear.
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in a very long document that is signed and legally binding as to what happens when someone wants to leave.
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Because inevitably someone will want to, they'll be divorced, someone will get injured, someone will stop caring about the business, someone will suddenly not become money motivated.
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All of these things are reasons why partnerships end.
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And I just don't want the personal relationship to also be ruined in that process.
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Okay, so then for the profit sharing, how would you do that then?
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How would you frame that?
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In my book, I talk about length.
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Basically, for every dollar you take out of the business, he gets a percentage.
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So that way, his motive is to get as much dollars in your bank account as possible.
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So if someone starts, for example, at 15%, and then maybe after two years, he goes 15%, and then he goes to 20%.
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I'm happy to give a GM that's running the entire business a huge chunk of profit sharing.
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But if you're going to be in the business, he's just doing operations, I might only let that cap out at 15% to 20%.
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But I would tie it to his tenor.
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He gains more percentage as he stays longer.
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And then make sure that you have a threshold of working capital that has to stay in the business.
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So, for example, what we do is one month of revenue.
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Anything above one month of revenue is distributable cash.
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And then if there's $50,000 that have to stay in the business bank account, and there's $80,000, that's $30,000 in distributable cash, that gets broken up based upon the percentage that the owner and the GM are going to split.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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I get that.
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Should I do a salary for him, though?
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I would do salary.
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Yeah.
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How much do you recommend for a salary?
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I think this is a negotiation.
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This is why if he's coming off of ownership, you already know if he's doing $150,000 and his business has a couple employees, he's making no more than $60,000 or $70,000 a year.
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You can start that as like, okay, I have to at least pay that just to make sure he's comfortable and then give it an upside to where like, hey, as this business grows, here's the roadmap and the on-target earnings based upon a 15%, 20%, 25% of profit sharing and what the expectation is.
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Okay, okay.
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Okay, good.
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And then build systems in place so he can succeed in that operations role, right?
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Okay.
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If you don't have those and you hire him now, it will be pretty choppy.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Okay, and then how about P4P?
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Like going, me from going from five crews to eight crews, I have a couple of guys coming back this season, but like I didn't do P4P.
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I tried doing it last year, but I didn't disclose my numbers, right?
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I know you talk about, you have to disclose your numbers.
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I know I watch your videos and I didn't do that.
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um so i just told my guys like hey if you do you know this many properties per day like a crew of two i run crew two um you'll get you'll get paid this much more per hour this much per hour right and then like it just came so like messy with all the in the books and everything and like my guys they would do sloppy work like i don't know like they would try to do so many houses right so i
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Should I do P4P this year?
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I just onboarded some homeworks yesterday and the on-break Christian, I think it was, he told me that he recommends trying it out with one crew first and then getting to see the result and then using the results to show the rest of the team.
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What would you say about that?
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Do you know what your base pay on P4P needs to be or not?
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No.
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Okay.
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What's your hourly wages that you're paying currently to your technicians?
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What's the range?
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So crew member, I pay.
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Last year, I started at 19 an hour.
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This year, I'm going to start at 20 an hour.
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And then crew lead, last year was 22 starting.
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This year, I'm going to do 23, 24 starting for crew leader.
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And what's your hourly rate per budget hour?
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Per band, probably 70 to 80.
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Okay, if it's 80, you pass what I call the 25% rule, and that is I want the hourly wage that I pay on base pay for P4P to be at or below 25% of what I'm charging the customer.
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So if you're 80 per hour to the customer, I want base pay to be max 20 on P4P.
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So you kind of pass financially, as long as you're getting that $80 an hour, assuming that's true.
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I think you should do P for P, yes.
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I'm obviously biased.
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It changed my business and like allowed me to run the business much more smooth.
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It also be a huge gift to your operations person because now the crew that they're managing is directly linked to the revenue and making sure things are done.
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Now, if you do a half-baked P for P, as I talk about in the book and talk about in the course, it always messes up.
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Because if you don't share the numbers, and if you don't, if you do it based on like number of yards, gets messy so fast.
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Because then you've got projects that don't really fall into that.
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So that's why budgeted hours have to be established.
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They have to be accurate.
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And if that's not the case, and this is what I would do, Daniel, maybe next year you do P4P.
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This year I'd focus on budgeted hours.
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Because if your budgeted hours are accurate on every mowing job, every project, and you're tracking that religiously, switching to P4P is easy.
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Because you could literally sync up with P4P software, run the numbers on the back end without even telling the crew.
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It just all syncs across from HomeWorks.
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And then be able to know already who your top performers are and how much they're about going to make on P4P.
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I believe, based upon your numbers, assuming you're able to hit $80 an hour, your top performing crew can make $26 to $28 an hour on P4P.
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Your bottom performers are barely going to get above base pay, $19 to $20 an hour.
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And they're going to bounce.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, because it exposed the weak performance, right?
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Okay.
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You give way more upside to the guys who kill it.
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Yeah.
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And then crew leads and crew members, like, should I give like, like, people, I know you do like, you don't want to exceed 33%, right?
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Of the labor revenue, of the revenue.
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We give it away.
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We go above that during like spring rush, for example, when we know it's crazy long, the grass is wet, wet.
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Oh, okay.
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But to your point, I would only change the percentage that I'm paying a crew lead versus a crew member if there are different responsibilities.
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So, for example, excuse me, do you have like a driver and a non-driver?
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Yeah, crew leads driving and crew members not.
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Yeah.
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And they have more experienced crew leads always.
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Yeah.
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So you guys have a higher base pay on P4P.
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Or can I do it like – sorry, go ahead.
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In the software, you just literally in their user account be like, hey, this person's 22 an hour, this one's 20 an hour.
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And then what all P4P is, it's tracking the hourly rate that you guaranteed to them.
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If it's also tracking the percentage of revenue that they've earned.
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And then you just give them the higher of those two at the end of the pay period.
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The reason I think you're a candidate to be in good for P4P Daniel, is your base pay on P4P will be what you're currently paying them on hourly.
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There will only be upside for these guys.
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So it'll be very easy to convince them, but you've got to be confident in your budget hours.
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And that's why this year I would religiously be tracking budget hours and homeworks.
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I think the one thing that homeworks on is really good is track budget hours and track capacity.
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And if you do that for this year, you'll get really good.
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Which jobs are we losing on?
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Which ones are we crushing on?
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Is my estimates actually accurate?
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Am I hitting 80 an hour?
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Even when I said, hey, what's your hour?
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You're like, oh, it's 70 to 80.
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For an Augusta owner, I would be raking them over the coals.
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It's got, you got to know your number like that.
213
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This is the number every single time for, for like say projects versus recurring maintenance.
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Get there that this year, and then just connect it on the back end without even telling your crew sync all the data over to P4P and then kind of start figuring out what the numbers are already.
215
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Okay.
216
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Thank you.
217
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And about the, about the hourly rate, you said that make the base pay higher for the crew lead and basically like 24, the crew member.
218
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Would you say maybe even this too, if I do 35% for the crew lead and 30% for the crew member?
219
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You could.
220
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You could individualize it for every user, right?
221
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So how the software on the backend works for P4P is it says, okay, there's $100 worth of labor revenue.
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It can individually break it apart based upon the crews finishing that job of like this person gets 32%, this person gets 33%, this person gets 30%.
223
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It can do that.
224
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I would keep it as simple as possible.
225
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So I would probably just do an increase in base pay, and then maybe a 3% higher percentage for P as well.
226
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Okay, okay, great.
227
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I've watched it for five years, and thank you so much.
228
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I just appreciate it.
229
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You got it, man.
230
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It's time to lock in before the spring rush.
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And when it comes to locking in, you want to be able to rely on something to hold your business strong, just like this chain.
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That's why at HomeWorks, we have the logo of the chain because it's the three links in every home service business.
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Sales, operations, and admin.
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So before the spring rush gets super hot and you have leads coming in like crazy, make sure you're set up inside of a software like HomeWorks that can take your business to the next level and allow you to scale this spring.
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Go check out today.
236
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Go to Home.Works.
237
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Eddie, go ahead and unmute yourself and we'll rock and roll.
238
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Hey, Mike.
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I'm trying to fill my landscaping schedule for this year, and I would like to open up a new line of service.
240
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And I was wondering whether you think maybe I should move towards lawn spraying.
241
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I'm very uneducated in it.
242
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However, it seems lucrative because it's recurring.
243
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But I've also done like dethatching aeration services and overseeding and leveling and stuff like that.
244
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So I was wondering if you had a favorite between the two.
245
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What was your revenue last year, Eddie?
246
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$300,000.
247
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And was that all project-based, like landscape construction?
248
00:14:18.918 --> 00:14:21.860
It was lawn service was probably two-thirds of it.
249
00:14:22.001 --> 00:14:23.642
Okay, when you say lawn service, is that mowing?
250
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Yes.
251
00:14:24.943 --> 00:14:27.025
Okay, and the other third is project-based stuff?
252
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Mostly mulch installation.
253
00:14:28.846 --> 00:14:32.029
Okay, and so your question is what additional service should you be adding?
254
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Is that your question?
255
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Yes.
256
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Right, because we're adding another truck, and I'm pushing towards more recurring work with grass cutting, and I'm setting one unit alone just for landscape projects.
257
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So the mulch, recurring mulch that we've done will only get me so far, I feel like.
258
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So I want to add something that I could sell to the, like an upsell to the recurring people.
259
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Yeah, I would really lean into bed maintenance and bush trimming, mostly because you can keep the same truck, the same crew, and train up your existing employees and keep them on the same route.
260
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By dividing your two trucks, for example, it keeps another threshold of capacity you have to manage versus just looking at total budgeted hours and sending out two crews.
261
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They can both mow, they can both do bushes, they can both bed maintenance, and most of your mowing customers also need those services.
262
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It's a really easy upsell.
263
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It doesn't require a lot of complicated training,
264
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for your technicians and the most important part in my mind is you can double the annual customer value of the customer because if you're doing 800 900 a month for mowing you can easily get to 2000 if you're able to sell weeding bush trimming a property cleanup and most importantly winter services during your off season now that gets unlocked i never thought of training like the lawn techs to do the landscape work they never honestly they never even wanted a part of it so yeah
265
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Yeah, and it's maintenance, right?
266
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So like, it's not complicated stuff.
267
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Like I would stay away from any sort of like installation.
268
00:15:52.193 --> 00:15:57.915
But like, if they can't trim a bush, and they can't pull weeds, they're probably also not getting on a zero turn and driving your trailer, right?
269
00:15:58.175 --> 00:16:01.337
So the skill level is usually a little more congruent.
270
00:16:01.457 --> 00:16:04.158
So you would you would have everybody do a little bit everything?
271
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I would, mostly because it's still considered, in my opinion, a simple service.
272
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I can train someone up in a few days talking about several different types of trees, how you're going to trim them, pulling weeds, how to do that.
273
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And I can immediately go sell probably 30 to 40% of your mowing customers that service and probably fill most of that second truck.
274
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But I'm not going to separate them because I want them to be able to go on the same visit doing all the services because that's where you make your profit.
275
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If you have a second truck going around, you're also going to get a lot more admin calls because customers get confused why you didn't do something when you were just there.
276
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And it makes your crew way more efficient on pay for performance because they're able to knock out three services in one visit versus going back twice.
277
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Right.
278
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Wow.
279
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Interesting take.
280
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Okay.
281
00:16:42.251 --> 00:16:42.871
I like that a lot.
282
00:16:42.971 --> 00:16:44.292
Another question for you.
283
00:16:44.432 --> 00:16:51.935
Theoretically, we have an employee who was paid cash and he now wants to be on the books employee, you know, claiming to- Did you say theoretically?
284
00:16:52.035 --> 00:16:52.936
Did you say theoretically?
285
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Theoretically.
286
00:16:53.776 --> 00:16:54.176
Yeah.
287
00:16:54.436 --> 00:16:59.459
That employee wants to go on, but they're asking for equal...
288
00:16:59.999 --> 00:17:02.520
pay back because now they're losing money on taxes.
289
00:17:02.820 --> 00:17:04.981
So what would you do in that situation?
290
00:17:05.001 --> 00:17:10.722
I feel like it's not fair for me to give them an extra like five bucks an hour, just so it equates where they make the same.
291
00:17:11.003 --> 00:17:12.603
I feel like that wouldn't be fair for me.
292
00:17:12.843 --> 00:17:18.685
Is the hourly wage that they're wanting on W2 the same as the local market rate?
293
00:17:19.646 --> 00:17:20.626
I think it'd be pretty high.
294
00:17:20.866 --> 00:17:25.049
So theoretically, this employee got $24 an hour to mow Graff.
295
00:17:25.089 --> 00:17:25.289
Yeah.
296
00:17:25.510 --> 00:17:31.594
But he ran the crew and like he would have to go up to like $29.30 just for him to make the $24.
297
00:17:32.174 --> 00:17:32.574
Yeah.
298
00:17:32.614 --> 00:17:36.137
And his alternative is to go work under the table someplace else.
299
00:17:36.337 --> 00:17:36.817
Probably.
300
00:17:37.118 --> 00:17:38.619
But he's asking to be W2, right?
301
00:17:38.899 --> 00:17:39.159
Right.
302
00:17:39.219 --> 00:17:43.062
But I think that he would take the offer if I kept it the same.
303
00:17:43.162 --> 00:17:47.725
But I also want to make sure that he is like happy with what he's doing, you know?
304
00:17:48.065 --> 00:17:49.526
Yeah, so this is a conversation, Eddie.
305
00:17:49.546 --> 00:17:52.507
So it's just a matter of like, hey, man, I know you want to go W2.
306
00:17:52.787 --> 00:17:55.668
I want to go W2 also because it protects the business.
307
00:17:55.968 --> 00:17:57.488
I want to make sure I'm doing everything above board.
308
00:17:57.968 --> 00:17:59.909
Keep in mind, and you'd run these numbers, Eddie.
309
00:17:59.929 --> 00:18:02.670
You'd be like, hey, it's going to cost me about $3 to $4 more per hour.
310
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Do the math.
311
00:18:03.850 --> 00:18:04.831
Make sure you know what you're talking about.
312
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Per hour, if I do that.
313
00:18:07.231 --> 00:18:11.493
And so what are you willing to take per hour of wages if we switch to W2?
314
00:18:11.793 --> 00:18:16.675
And if it's going to cost you $3, he might be, well, if you can give me $1 more, it'll kind of break out the difference.
315
00:18:16.935 --> 00:18:23.217
Most solid employees eventually want to be W-2 if they want to get loans or get a lease or get a car.
316
00:18:23.257 --> 00:18:23.677
Exactly.
317
00:18:23.937 --> 00:18:28.079
It's also the good thing to do for the business from a liability perspective, not doing that.
318
00:18:28.099 --> 00:18:31.700
You're just opening yourself up as a target for all sorts of agencies to come after you.
319
00:18:31.820 --> 00:18:32.520
I think it's a good thing.
320
00:18:32.560 --> 00:18:33.321
It's a necessary thing.
321
00:18:33.381 --> 00:18:36.642
I would position yourself as, hey, this is going to cost me X amount more.
322
00:18:37.222 --> 00:18:41.584
What are you willing to be able to – I want this to be good for you, and I want you to feel good about it.
323
00:18:41.864 --> 00:18:44.185
The good thing is he has asked for this to happen.
324
00:18:44.505 --> 00:18:47.346
It's a whole lot better than you or a government agency telling you you have to do it.
325
00:18:47.526 --> 00:18:48.026
Absolutely.
326
00:18:48.046 --> 00:18:48.626
Yeah.
327
00:18:49.106 --> 00:18:49.867
Just a conversation.
328
00:18:49.907 --> 00:18:53.168
If you have a conversation and you know that math, I think he'll be very reasonable.
329
00:18:53.348 --> 00:18:54.148
I think he will, too.
330
00:18:54.429 --> 00:18:54.989
He's a good guy.
331
00:18:55.149 --> 00:18:55.709
Okay.
332
00:18:55.869 --> 00:18:57.230
Last question, kind of personal.
333
00:18:57.450 --> 00:18:59.571
I want to curious to you because you're so busy.
334
00:18:59.591 --> 00:19:00.531
You do so many things.
335
00:19:00.691 --> 00:19:01.272
It's amazing.
336
00:19:01.432 --> 00:19:04.893
How do you balance your work life balance like with your family?
337
00:19:05.754 --> 00:19:09.796
Do you like set aside like say every Sunday, like I don't do anything business related.
338
00:19:09.816 --> 00:19:12.037
This is I just take straight time for my family.
339
00:19:12.057 --> 00:19:14.538
Like, how do you how do you find peace and balance in your life?
340
00:19:14.618 --> 00:19:25.043
Yeah, so I don't really try to achieve balance because if you look at any sort of state, like if you look at a pendulum or whatever, balance is extremely difficult because there's only one degree of balance.
341
00:19:25.144 --> 00:19:25.824
It has to be perfect.
342
00:19:25.864 --> 00:19:30.786
In order for balance to occur, it has to be exactly 50-50 on if you have a fulcrum in the middle.
343
00:19:31.147 --> 00:19:32.007
Very hard to achieve.
344
00:19:32.427 --> 00:19:37.290
And so instead, like my philosophy is much more like go 100% towards one thing at one time.
345
00:19:37.790 --> 00:19:39.571
And so if I'm at work, I'm all in on work.
346
00:19:39.751 --> 00:19:42.031
If I'm going to be with my family for an hour or two, like that's all I'm doing.
347
00:19:42.051 --> 00:19:43.272
You're never going to see my phone around me.
348
00:19:43.352 --> 00:19:44.392
And I just go extremes.
349
00:19:44.432 --> 00:19:46.533
And that also will usually go wider.
350
00:19:46.613 --> 00:19:49.434
So for example, all my whole 20s was just dedicated to work.
351
00:19:49.514 --> 00:19:53.775
And then I got married last year and it's like, okay, there's going to be a change in that calibration.
352
00:19:54.235 --> 00:19:58.657
And it must be much finer amounts of time where there's a couple hours like I'm not doing work.
353
00:19:58.677 --> 00:19:59.717
I'm with my spouse.
354
00:19:59.937 --> 00:20:03.421
Personally, it's served me well because that way I'm not always judging myself because I'm at work.
355
00:20:03.441 --> 00:20:05.924
I'm not judging myself about whether or not I'm a good husband.
356
00:20:06.244 --> 00:20:08.487
When I'm trying to be a good husband, I'm not thinking about work.
357
00:20:08.567 --> 00:20:11.850
It has allowed me to be focused on and be where my shoes are at.
358
00:20:12.391 --> 00:20:13.312
And that's served me well.
359
00:20:13.332 --> 00:20:17.897
It's not good for everyone necessarily, especially when you have kids a little more difficult, but that's the way I've done it.
360
00:20:17.977 --> 00:20:20.738
Change your structure and you live right in the moment, in the present.
361
00:20:20.918 --> 00:20:21.438
If possible.
362
00:20:21.558 --> 00:20:21.878
Yes, sir.
363
00:20:22.018 --> 00:20:22.558
That's great.
364
00:20:22.858 --> 00:20:23.178
All right.
365
00:20:23.298 --> 00:20:23.638
Thanks, Mike.
366
00:20:23.658 --> 00:20:23.999
You got it.
367
00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:24.939
Brad, you're up.
368
00:20:24.979 --> 00:20:25.639
Quick question for you.
369
00:20:25.659 --> 00:20:26.599
We're a newer business.
370
00:20:26.759 --> 00:20:32.161
We don't have a ton of like a catalog of emails and I guess things to market to.
371
00:20:32.501 --> 00:20:34.561
I've only been on homework for five days.
372
00:20:34.981 --> 00:20:41.443
How do I start my business basically and get, because all I care about now is getting more customers.
373
00:20:41.723 --> 00:20:51.328
Yeah, so like when it comes to getting a database that you can eventually email and text and not have to pay for marketing, the thing that everyone falls into when they're first getting started is like, oh, I only have 50 contacts.
374
00:20:51.348 --> 00:20:52.329
I only have 100 contacts.
375
00:20:52.349 --> 00:20:53.610
I only have 150 contacts.
376
00:20:54.150 --> 00:20:56.732
And if you don't stay in touch with them, they eventually become cold.
377
00:20:57.132 --> 00:21:00.213
And so now you wake up with 1,000 one day, but you haven't messaged them in years.
378
00:21:00.514 --> 00:21:04.736
And so even though at the beginning, it seems like, why would I text my 50 people?
379
00:21:04.756 --> 00:21:05.817
I only have one estimate.
380
00:21:05.837 --> 00:21:06.837
It's not really a big deal.
381
00:21:07.418 --> 00:21:09.499
And because people don't, those leads go cold
382
00:21:10.019 --> 00:21:14.643
And so when you do want to message them in a couple of years and you have hundreds of people, they don't even know, remember who you are.
383
00:21:14.803 --> 00:21:22.430
And so I would just encourage you as you build the business and you get more contacts in the database, still send an email and a text message every single month.
384
00:21:22.490 --> 00:21:23.851
I would do that usually in the middle of the month.
385
00:21:23.911 --> 00:21:26.933
If you're billing monthly, every single month, you're sending a text, you're sending an email.
386
00:21:27.034 --> 00:21:32.058
I'm going to set up my calendar for the entire year of what those monthly emails are going to pitch, right?
387
00:21:32.098 --> 00:21:35.661
So it's a, it should be a season specific offer for a season specific service.
388
00:21:35.841 --> 00:21:37.622
And I'm going to figure out what's the service I'm going to pitch.
389
00:21:37.722 --> 00:21:40.522
And I would also say that text and email does not need to be a flashy.
390
00:21:40.543 --> 00:21:42.943
It doesn't have images and video and GIFs.
391
00:21:42.983 --> 00:21:46.024
And I know there's all these fancy stickers you can put inside the email builder and stuff.
392
00:21:46.324 --> 00:21:47.465
Don't use them, in my opinion.
393
00:21:48.085 --> 00:21:51.866
I just want this to be a high response rate and get through any spam filters.
394
00:21:52.206 --> 00:21:53.827
And to do that, just use text.
395
00:21:53.947 --> 00:21:54.547
Hey, it's Brad.
396
00:21:54.987 --> 00:21:55.928
over at Groot Lawn Care.
397
00:21:56.108 --> 00:21:58.709
Just wondering if you'd like to get on the cleanup schedule.
398
00:21:58.729 --> 00:21:59.870
We're booking out several weeks.
399
00:21:59.910 --> 00:22:04.212
I want to make sure I give you a priority as a loyal customer of ours.
400
00:22:04.693 --> 00:22:08.775
That one sentence will get way better returns than a big flashy email.
401
00:22:08.935 --> 00:22:10.176
No, I definitely understand that.
402
00:22:10.416 --> 00:22:14.038
And obviously it's a way for me to build my knowledge base as well.
403
00:22:14.538 --> 00:22:17.800
We'll do it well for that point when I get to that many customers.
404
00:22:17.820 --> 00:22:23.023
But I'm simply asking the most basic of questions as a new customer.
405
00:22:23.623 --> 00:22:24.484
owner, I guess.
406
00:22:24.745 --> 00:22:25.986
How do I get more customers?
407
00:22:26.307 --> 00:22:27.228
I'm doing the flyers.
408
00:22:27.308 --> 00:22:30.452
My kids and I are pretty militant about it in our area.
409
00:22:30.812 --> 00:22:37.140
What else can I be doing at this point that isn't a bunch of high budget value packed flyers and mailers and stuff?
410
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:38.942
What's your budget right now, Brad?
411
00:22:38.962 --> 00:22:39.143
5k.
412
00:22:39.423 --> 00:22:43.465
Yeah, so in that case, I would be doing local service ads in terms of paid.
413
00:22:43.605 --> 00:22:47.086
So Google local services, you're going to get verified and do background check the whole nine yards.
414
00:22:47.646 --> 00:22:49.167
That's probably the only paid I'd do.
415
00:22:49.727 --> 00:22:51.648
I would then be focusing on Google business listing.
416
00:22:52.148 --> 00:22:56.190
I'm making sure we have a verified address, not a service area, but a verified address.
417
00:22:56.770 --> 00:22:59.751
I'd be making sure I put pictures on there at least two to three times a week.
418
00:22:59.871 --> 00:23:03.773
I'd make sure I'd be responding to reviews and getting a minimum of 30 reviews on Google.
419
00:23:04.393 --> 00:23:05.194
as soon as possible.
420
00:23:05.614 --> 00:23:13.000
I would then respond to them by taking their review, putting it into ChatDVT or Gemini, and asking it to give you an SEO friendly response.
421
00:23:13.601 --> 00:23:25.571
So instead of just like, thanks Bob for your review, it's gonna say like, thank you Bob, it was a pleasure working at your property in XYZ City, doing XYZ services, it's gonna give you a nice response, used on every single review.
422
00:23:26.071 --> 00:23:32.397
But you're making sure you're putting pictures and video into your Google business listing, that alone, along with the reviews,
423
00:23:32.997 --> 00:23:36.878
will get you to the top of Google business listings if you get over 30 reviews.
424
00:23:36.938 --> 00:23:49.201
The next thing, Brad, in terms of paid that I want you to do down the road as the scales is your website, because there's no point in paying Facebook or Google or anyone else or even door hangers and flyers if when they come to the website, they don't convert into a lead.
425
00:23:49.221 --> 00:23:53.283
And so everyone's worried about number of people who's getting their website.
426
00:23:53.383 --> 00:23:54.503
I'm worried about how many leads you get.
427
00:23:55.063 --> 00:24:02.108
And what we see all the time is one out of 200, one out of 300 people getting to a website actually convert into a lead.
428
00:24:02.248 --> 00:24:05.731
If you can just get that to one to 50, you will 5X the amount of leads you get.
429
00:24:05.891 --> 00:24:13.136
And so before you spend a dollar on any sort of paid traffic, I want to make sure, and even flyers are paid traffic.
430
00:24:13.457 --> 00:24:15.258
It is people are going to look you up online.
431
00:24:15.378 --> 00:24:20.622
I would do first spend any dollar on the website first, then down the road, think about paid ads.
432
00:24:20.662 --> 00:24:20.782
Okay.
433
00:24:20.782 --> 00:24:21.343
Fantastic.
434
00:24:21.463 --> 00:24:23.845
And then just a simple other basic question.
435
00:24:24.006 --> 00:24:30.233
I have a friend down the road here who is an Augusta owner, and he has been talking to me heavily about it.
436
00:24:30.733 --> 00:24:39.423
The only hang up I can't get over, which I'm sure you've heard a thousand times is me and my family have sat around and put this business, you know, name together.
437
00:24:39.623 --> 00:24:40.383
Yes, it's young.
438
00:24:40.423 --> 00:24:41.184
Yes, it's new.
439
00:24:41.964 --> 00:24:53.070
Will you, are you ever going to have a Augusta under your own name type of where you get all those services, all that everything, but we don't have to be Augusta?
440
00:24:53.490 --> 00:24:57.392
No, like we have other services we pieced out to basically build the team here.
441
00:24:57.452 --> 00:24:58.393
So, for example, like.
442
00:24:59.093 --> 00:25:00.874
lawn care web design and home service web design.
443
00:25:01.074 --> 00:25:01.815
They can do your site.
444
00:25:02.135 --> 00:25:05.437
Home service CPA, they can do your taxes and bookkeeping, et cetera.
445
00:25:06.057 --> 00:25:08.759
But in terms of joining Augusta, it's very much like a brand, right?
446
00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:11.740
So everyone wears the same uniform, everyone changes their brand over.
447
00:25:12.080 --> 00:25:19.304
And I wouldn't recommend even joining Augusta because you get so many leads, you need more capital to even stay up with the growth.
448
00:25:19.885 --> 00:25:25.088
And so I would say like for now, doing the things that I just said will easily five to 10 extra business.
449
00:25:25.448 --> 00:25:27.309
Like the Google stuff, getting a great website,
450
00:25:27.869 --> 00:25:33.310
That will by far and away be the highest leverage dollars you'll ever spend and just time and getting those things.
451
00:25:33.330 --> 00:25:41.052
Doing flyers is fine, but you are losing 60 to 70% of your traffic that gets to your website and it's like, whoa, this is not a professional operation here.
452
00:25:41.193 --> 00:25:45.594
And so having a great Google, getting 30, how many reviews do you have now, Brad, on Google?
453
00:25:45.614 --> 00:25:45.734
Five.
454
00:25:45.874 --> 00:25:47.074
Yeah, so get that above 30.
455
00:25:47.294 --> 00:25:50.175
So we would expect within 14 days of people leaving training, they have 30 reviews.
456
00:25:50.735 --> 00:25:51.676
Friends, family, I don't care.
457
00:25:51.796 --> 00:25:53.478
They don't need to lie and say they did service with you.
458
00:25:53.698 --> 00:26:00.266
Just ask them to review you, your family, the business, the brand, and then you respond back with an SEO friendly reply.
459
00:26:00.286 --> 00:26:02.909
That will be the best return on your investment.
460
00:26:03.209 --> 00:26:06.312
In terms of like an Augusta without the name, it's like, well then what is it?
461
00:26:06.633 --> 00:26:12.259
Well, it's lawn care web design, it's homeworks, it's all the pieces that we've kind of have made available to people that can't join.
462
00:26:12.379 --> 00:26:14.321
I didn't know you guys had a gusto web design.
463
00:26:14.341 --> 00:26:16.363
So, or homeworks web design, sorry.
464
00:26:16.704 --> 00:26:17.444
No, it's not homework.
465
00:26:17.464 --> 00:26:17.705
Sorry.
466
00:26:17.745 --> 00:26:19.567
It's longcarewebdesign.com.
467
00:26:19.747 --> 00:26:26.093
And if you just go to longcarewebdesign.com slash call, you can book a call team and they'll just like literally go over with you whether or not you're a good fit.
468
00:26:26.153 --> 00:26:31.259
And it might be, Brad, they might actually tell you, do what I just mentioned on the Google stuff before you even come to us.
469
00:26:31.439 --> 00:26:32.160
They might tell you that.
470
00:26:32.560 --> 00:26:36.082
Because most of the time when people come to us, we're like, hey, you're not ready for a 5X of leads yet.
471
00:26:36.162 --> 00:26:38.943
Go to Google, get Google reviews, et cetera.
472
00:26:39.043 --> 00:26:40.103
But you can book a call with them.
473
00:26:40.383 --> 00:26:42.384
They'll see what you got going on and see if they're a good fit.
474
00:26:42.524 --> 00:26:43.024
Fantastic.
475
00:26:43.065 --> 00:26:43.365
Thank you.
476
00:26:43.845 --> 00:26:44.225
You got it.
477
00:26:44.325 --> 00:26:44.665
Hey, everyone.
478
00:26:44.705 --> 00:26:46.466
So this is actually the front of our office.
479
00:26:46.546 --> 00:26:48.347
And you can see there's really nice signage.
480
00:26:48.747 --> 00:26:48.967
Why?
481
00:26:49.027 --> 00:26:50.908
So when people come in here, they want to work here.
482
00:26:51.148 --> 00:26:53.749
They want to be able to come inside and see what we got going on.
483
00:26:54.129 --> 00:26:57.010
And that's what your customers are thinking when it comes to your website.
484
00:26:57.331 --> 00:26:58.691
They see the sign out next to the road.
485
00:26:58.911 --> 00:27:00.272
They drive into the parking lot.
486
00:27:00.772 --> 00:27:06.457
and they look for your signage, and your signage is your website, and if it doesn't look professional, they don't even wanna walk in the door.
487
00:27:06.717 --> 00:27:12.641
I don't care if you have the best prime rib steak in town, if it looks like everything's falling apart, I'm not going inside.
488
00:27:12.942 --> 00:27:20.488
And so you have a great service, you have a great business, you offer great services to your customers, but they'll never walk in that door if your signage doesn't look good.
489
00:27:20.808 --> 00:27:29.134
That's why at homeservicewebdesign.com and lawncarewebdesign.com, the average customer in the first year increases the amount of leads they're getting by 80%.
490
00:27:30.115 --> 00:27:30.936
Go check it out today.
491
00:27:31.276 --> 00:27:34.919
Sign up for a subscription that you don't have to pay $5,000, $10,000 up front.
492
00:27:35.259 --> 00:27:37.721
You just get leads starting right away.
493
00:27:38.081 --> 00:27:38.582
We'll see you there.
494
00:27:38.822 --> 00:27:40.823
All right, Gavin Michaels is up next.
495
00:27:40.903 --> 00:27:41.804
Hey, Mike, how are you?
496
00:27:42.004 --> 00:27:42.585
Fantastic.
497
00:27:42.745 --> 00:27:45.187
So I just had a few simple questions.
498
00:27:45.427 --> 00:27:46.668
I'm based out of Georgia.
499
00:27:46.888 --> 00:27:49.310
And so, first of all, I'm 15 running a.
500
00:27:49.470 --> 00:28:13.578
landscape business and i'm having a hard time selling landscaping and cleanup jobs because one my age and two like people are kind of iffy about pricing like whenever they hear like a 120 to 200 dollar price tag for a few hours of work they kind of get like pushed away so um i'm having a hard time like getting them to accept those kind of jobs what would you recommend for that
501
00:28:13.758 --> 00:28:14.519
So a couple of things.
502
00:28:14.619 --> 00:28:17.362
First off, are you in the Teen Give Back program, Gavin?
503
00:28:17.562 --> 00:28:18.263
I am not yet.
504
00:28:18.283 --> 00:28:20.065
I have not registered my LLC yet.
505
00:28:20.265 --> 00:28:22.828
But I talked to Christian yesterday and we're going to get that set up soon.
506
00:28:23.249 --> 00:28:23.549
Perfect.
507
00:28:23.589 --> 00:28:23.810
Cool.
508
00:28:23.830 --> 00:28:24.751
That way you can get him for free.
509
00:28:24.791 --> 00:28:27.934
So I would say, first off, no one cares about your age.
510
00:28:28.235 --> 00:28:32.920
Now, they might care about the quality of the service and they might have question marks around that because of your age.
511
00:28:33.321 --> 00:28:34.382
But they don't actually care about your age.
512
00:28:34.642 --> 00:28:39.428
And so what you want to do is give them so much proof that your age is not going to deteriorate the service.
513
00:28:39.608 --> 00:28:44.134
So having a great website, having great pictures, having great reviews, they don't see what your age is.
514
00:28:44.374 --> 00:28:48.339
They don't even see you if you're doing instant quotes or like just filling out a form and you do a drive-by estimate.
515
00:28:48.559 --> 00:28:49.521
They don't even see your age.
516
00:28:50.041 --> 00:28:58.287
In terms of the price, the reason that you feel that way, Gavin, is because you can't fathom spending $200 on the services you're doing and you feel like you're expensive.
517
00:28:58.327 --> 00:29:01.550
But to them, they have a lot of money and very little time.
518
00:29:01.790 --> 00:29:04.212
You have a lot of time ahead of you and very little money.
519
00:29:04.292 --> 00:29:07.394
And so you're selling to a target customer that is not you.
520
00:29:07.495 --> 00:29:11.017
And so just keep that in mind because to you, this service seems expensive.
521
00:29:11.077 --> 00:29:11.818
To them, it doesn't.
522
00:29:11.958 --> 00:29:14.560
To them, they don't have a lot of time left literally on this earth.
523
00:29:14.680 --> 00:29:18.403
If they have five or 10 years left, they're willing to part with money to get more time back.
524
00:29:18.623 --> 00:29:22.125
If you can separate the fact that you are not selling to yourself, you're selling to a different target market.
525
00:29:22.265 --> 00:29:24.406
Also, you're not just selling even time savings.
526
00:29:24.426 --> 00:29:28.509
You're saving peace of mind, the insurance of the property not deteriorating.
527
00:29:28.769 --> 00:29:33.572
For many of these baby boomers that you're serving, their biggest asset in their net worth is their house.
528
00:29:33.872 --> 00:29:38.134
So maintaining it is actually a form of insurance, not saving them time even.
529
00:29:38.235 --> 00:29:42.977
And they're spending three, 400 bucks a month for insurance on that house and never getting anything for it.
530
00:29:43.137 --> 00:29:47.140
So you getting $200 a month to maintain that property is nothing for them.
531
00:29:47.360 --> 00:29:47.500
Mm-hmm.
532
00:29:47.700 --> 00:29:48.760
So I would do two things.
533
00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:53.122
One, separate the idea that it's expensive because it is to you but not to them.
534
00:29:53.322 --> 00:29:57.604
And then just focus on creating value in the form of a great-looking website, a great-looking truck.
535
00:29:57.964 --> 00:30:00.344
Those are the things that override someone's age.
536
00:30:00.424 --> 00:30:01.545
And I started at 11.
537
00:30:01.605 --> 00:30:06.106
I know it's like 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and you literally are showing up and you look like a child.
538
00:30:06.507 --> 00:30:06.807
I get it.
539
00:30:07.087 --> 00:30:10.248
No one cares if your site looks good, if your truck looks good, and you do good service.
540
00:30:10.548 --> 00:30:19.294
Another thing, I kind of talked to the AI robot on your website, and I was like asking it about like when it comes to pricing, but I still have more questions.
541
00:30:20.394 --> 00:30:25.057
For property cleanups, at least for me, I'm pricing $60 per budgeted hour.
542
00:30:25.077 --> 00:30:27.639
Does that seem like a pretty reasonable price to you?
543
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:33.085
Yeah, like you're going to be on the lower end of what I like to use, but you can do that now because you don't have any overhead, right?
544
00:30:33.105 --> 00:30:37.429
When you're living at home, when you don't have a lot of cost and expenses, like $60 an hour, great.
545
00:30:37.790 --> 00:30:41.353
Just know when you think it's expensive, I know that's very cheap, right?
546
00:30:41.574 --> 00:30:44.737
So just like eliminate that every time you think I'm expensive.
547
00:30:44.777 --> 00:30:46.399
Just know you are not.
548
00:30:46.439 --> 00:30:49.322
We don't allow people to go under $60 an hour at Augusta.
549
00:30:49.482 --> 00:30:50.103
It's not allowed.
550
00:30:50.903 --> 00:30:57.288
Um, cause like I'm looking at 80, a hundred plus at least first off, you're, you're, you're very average or low, I would say.
551
00:30:57.788 --> 00:30:59.330
So get that part out of your mind.
552
00:30:59.370 --> 00:31:05.394
And then in terms of, you know, giving you the pass on a lower price, I'm okay with it because you have such low margins or sorry, low costs.
553
00:31:05.794 --> 00:31:11.479
As you get more employees and you add more infrastructure to the business and you get past 18, you have to start paying for homework, things like that.
554
00:31:11.699 --> 00:31:14.621
Those expenses have to be covered and you'll have to raise prices past 60 bucks.
555
00:31:14.701 --> 00:31:15.001
All right.
556
00:31:15.262 --> 00:31:19.866
When it comes to mowing, I have it priced at, these are like small residential lawns.
557
00:31:19.886 --> 00:31:22.909
So I have priced at $35 weekly, 45 biweekly.
558
00:31:23.089 --> 00:31:24.871
Is that on the low side, do you think?
559
00:31:25.051 --> 00:31:25.372
It is.
560
00:31:25.392 --> 00:31:29.556
It's probably in line though with your $60 per hour, like per budgeted hour, right?
561
00:31:30.236 --> 00:31:35.060
Just the fact that you're tracking budget hours, you're leagues ahead of anyone, including myself, when I was 15 years old.
562
00:31:35.461 --> 00:31:35.641
Right?
563
00:31:35.661 --> 00:31:36.922
So huge props there.
564
00:31:37.362 --> 00:31:44.728
Just make sure you make at least $60 per budget hour, meaning on a $35 lawn, it should be taking about 30 to 35 minutes to get that lawn cut.
565
00:31:44.988 --> 00:31:46.730
If it's taking you an hour, we got a problem.
566
00:31:47.090 --> 00:31:50.153
I don't care about the absolute dollar amount, the $35.
567
00:31:50.453 --> 00:31:53.455
I care about are you hitting the $60 per hour on the budget hours.
568
00:31:53.755 --> 00:31:55.577
You'll know that by tracking your time in homework.
569
00:31:55.617 --> 00:31:55.917
All right.
570
00:31:56.097 --> 00:31:59.560
And when it actually comes to budgeting hours, I have a hard time doing that.
571
00:31:59.820 --> 00:32:03.624
My mom always says like I price things way too low for how long it's going to take me.
572
00:32:04.324 --> 00:32:13.612
So like whenever it comes to budgeting hours, what are some like some like key factors that you see on like a property that help when it comes to budgeting those hours?
573
00:32:13.932 --> 00:32:19.496
Honestly, if you do this enough times, Gavin, this won't become a question because you'll just be able to look at a property and know exactly how long it'll take.
574
00:32:19.616 --> 00:32:23.680
And so the best form of time tracking accuracy is doing more reps.
575
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:25.461
So I don't care if you're cheap right now.
576
00:32:25.481 --> 00:32:28.343
Get 20, 30, 40, 50 customers, do their lawn.
577
00:32:28.643 --> 00:32:34.688
And after doing 500 lawns, you will very quickly be able to know how long a job's going to take and be accurate on it.
578
00:32:34.828 --> 00:32:43.575
But for now, at least tracking it will allow you to be able to look back at your day and say, okay, on the dispatch board, it'll go green if you beat budget hours, red if you don't hit budget hours.
579
00:32:43.795 --> 00:32:50.722
So just look at that and over the course of time, start realizing, oh, Mr. Jones, I'm literally always 30, 40% in the red.
580
00:32:50.982 --> 00:32:54.225
I need to raise his price next year to be able to get to $60 per budget hour.
581
00:32:54.305 --> 00:32:59.130
Whenever it comes to raising prices, like I feel like since I'm so small right now, I have like...
582
00:32:59.690 --> 00:33:02.933
on average, 12 to 15 mowing customers throughout the summer.
583
00:33:02.973 --> 00:33:04.815
I feel like if I raise prices, I'll lose that.
584
00:33:04.975 --> 00:33:09.140
That's like a big deal when it comes to my annual revenue.
585
00:33:09.160 --> 00:33:13.043
So what would you suggest when it comes to raising prices to avoid them leaving?
586
00:33:16.707 --> 00:33:19.350
I would not even worry about raising prices because you're not at capacity.
587
00:33:19.430 --> 00:33:31.763
To determine how many lawns you can mow without you having to drop out of school and go crazy and work every single waking hour, determine that it might be 30, it might be 40, and focus only on getting more customers to that limit.
588
00:33:31.863 --> 00:33:34.826
Because then once you hit that limit, you'll raise prices because you have to.
589
00:33:35.387 --> 00:33:37.189
So don't even worry about that right now.
590
00:33:37.209 --> 00:33:38.311
Just focus on getting the customer.
591
00:33:38.331 --> 00:33:38.551
Okay.
592
00:33:38.631 --> 00:33:39.933
And upselling.
593
00:33:40.134 --> 00:33:42.818
Whenever I try to upsell, they're always just like, no, thank you.
594
00:33:42.918 --> 00:33:49.267
Like, how would you like suggest, like kind of like showing that this needs to be done and I can get you an estimate as soon as possible?
595
00:33:49.407 --> 00:33:49.708
Yeah, like,
596
00:33:50.048 --> 00:33:51.149
Making a video is helpful.
597
00:33:51.349 --> 00:33:54.170
It shows that you actually are looking at the property, not trying to sell them something.
598
00:33:54.390 --> 00:33:55.611
You show them the problem.
599
00:33:55.951 --> 00:33:58.833
And then you say, hey, if you want the solution, it's in the link below.
600
00:33:58.853 --> 00:33:59.693
I got your quote.
601
00:33:59.833 --> 00:34:01.494
So I would lean heavily into video.
602
00:34:01.514 --> 00:34:02.575
You don't need to show your face.
603
00:34:02.595 --> 00:34:03.935
They don't need to see you.
604
00:34:03.955 --> 00:34:07.137
It's just a matter of like, hey, Mr. Jones, the crew is at your property today.
605
00:34:07.337 --> 00:34:09.438
Like I would just always use your crew and it's you.
606
00:34:09.738 --> 00:34:10.619
But the crew is at your property.
607
00:34:10.659 --> 00:34:11.599
They take this quick video.
608
00:34:11.880 --> 00:34:16.582
You can take that right out of Fueled Force, drop it in an email and be like, hey, they saw this need for mulch.
609
00:34:17.062 --> 00:34:18.363
And here's the price down below.
610
00:34:18.723 --> 00:34:19.845
I appreciate your time.
611
00:34:20.025 --> 00:34:20.666
Thank you so much.
612
00:34:20.706 --> 00:34:21.487
That's very helpful.
613
00:34:21.907 --> 00:34:22.468
You got it again.
614
00:34:22.688 --> 00:34:23.369
Dalton, you're up.
615
00:34:23.429 --> 00:34:23.970
Go for it, brother.
616
00:34:24.090 --> 00:34:24.431
Hey, Mike.
617
00:34:24.611 --> 00:34:27.054
I have two really quick questions.
618
00:34:27.294 --> 00:34:28.516
So I'll give you a little bit of background.
619
00:34:28.536 --> 00:34:29.517
I'm 17 years old.
620
00:34:30.038 --> 00:34:31.019
The business is me.
621
00:34:31.059 --> 00:34:34.243
And then I got two younger brothers that we all work out, knock out stuff.
622
00:34:34.323 --> 00:34:37.204
My main question is about leveraging and over leveraging.
623
00:34:37.224 --> 00:34:40.944
We leveraged a skid steer about 50-ish grand, a mower.
624
00:34:41.084 --> 00:34:46.785
We have 10 gram left and then an attachment to the skid that can do snow for about 18 grand.
625
00:34:46.925 --> 00:34:48.165
So all at about 90-ish.
626
00:34:48.365 --> 00:34:51.486
And we have a decent amount in the bank, so we could pay a lot of that off.
627
00:34:51.546 --> 00:34:54.947
But I'm just kind of wondering how you kind of like to deal with leverage.
628
00:34:54.967 --> 00:34:59.948
And our goal, my goal personally, is to build it and just not be in the day-to-day operations.
629
00:35:00.168 --> 00:35:02.508
But I also want to grow it and use leverage as well.
630
00:35:02.628 --> 00:35:04.048
What was revenue last year, Dalton?
631
00:35:04.189 --> 00:35:06.669
We hit just over a little over six figures.
632
00:35:06.729 --> 00:35:09.750
I think you have, you're not using that equipment to its full extent.
633
00:35:09.770 --> 00:35:11.311
Like you're not using the skid steer every day.
634
00:35:11.491 --> 00:35:12.631
And so there's one of two options.
635
00:35:12.851 --> 00:35:16.692
One, you sell the piece of equipment to get rid of the debt and you only rent it when you actually need it.
636
00:35:16.892 --> 00:35:21.234
Or B, you grow to the point where you're using that thing at least once a week.
637
00:35:21.754 --> 00:35:28.215
If you're like, hey, I want to grow and get out of operations, it means you're going to go a bigger business, which means, especially at your size, you're taking more risks on.
638
00:35:28.636 --> 00:35:34.177
I would probably take whatever cash you have, make sure your website's dialed in, make sure you have great – figure out advertising really well.
639
00:35:34.437 --> 00:35:43.819
Because you spending $20,000 or $30,000 on a great website and starting to run a really good ad campaign will likely double, triple, quadruple the business pretty quickly and get you to $500,000 plus.
640
00:35:43.839 --> 00:35:45.239
And at $500,000 plus, I say you can afford said equipment.
641
00:35:48.440 --> 00:35:49.481
At your current size, you can't.
642
00:35:49.581 --> 00:35:54.165
So the only way to be able to do this is either grow or you sell the equipment and get rid of the debt.
643
00:35:54.185 --> 00:35:58.049
Because $100,000, $150,000 makes no sense whatsoever to have that much debt.
644
00:35:58.169 --> 00:36:02.973
But if you're going to then use that equipment to be able to 5x or 10x the business, then I give you the pass.
645
00:36:03.033 --> 00:36:03.373
Gotcha.
646
00:36:03.433 --> 00:36:03.834
Okay, yeah.
647
00:36:03.854 --> 00:36:08.658
Because, I mean, like we're in snow and we got insane profit margins because we have like zero in labor.
648
00:36:09.699 --> 00:36:14.123
We could almost practically pay off everything right now if we wanted to and just cash.
649
00:36:14.583 --> 00:36:19.868
But yeah, that would be my other question is what my dad works on a farm and I would really love to work with him.
650
00:36:19.888 --> 00:36:23.331
He does big machinery, you know, excavators, bulldozers.
651
00:36:23.351 --> 00:36:30.437
And if I could grow the lawn care company to where other people could manage it, and then I could work with my dad and help him out on his business.
652
00:36:30.457 --> 00:36:31.538
That's kind of like the dream.
653
00:36:31.598 --> 00:36:37.964
So I was wondering what what are some really good actionable steps you could take as a 17 year old to get there.
654
00:36:38.104 --> 00:36:47.689
Keep your services really simple because if you're trying to be an autonomous owner that's not there, there's no way that you're going to find dependable labor.
655
00:36:48.190 --> 00:36:52.072
Right now, your margins are really good because you're not paying yourself as an employee.
656
00:36:52.312 --> 00:36:53.913
Once you get employees, they're going to be less efficient.
657
00:36:54.113 --> 00:36:55.214
They're going to cost a lot of money.
658
00:36:55.274 --> 00:36:56.434
Your margins are going to get collapsed.
659
00:36:56.714 --> 00:36:57.495
That's what always happens.
660
00:36:57.835 --> 00:37:00.196
So $150,000, maybe you're 70% profitable.
661
00:37:00.437 --> 00:37:02.718
That's not going to happen when you're doing a million in revenue.
662
00:37:03.138 --> 00:37:10.487
So keeping your services simple so that labor churn doesn't hurt you because if you are tied to one or two employees and either then leave, guess what?
663
00:37:10.527 --> 00:37:11.649
You're no longer helping your dad.
664
00:37:12.009 --> 00:37:13.130
You're back on the skid.
665
00:37:13.210 --> 00:37:15.313
So I would keep your services as simple as possible.
666
00:37:15.413 --> 00:37:17.335
And I create systems for everything that's being done.
667
00:37:17.696 --> 00:37:20.139
That's the only way to be able to have a business run without you.
668
00:37:20.279 --> 00:37:20.659
Gotcha.
669
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:21.040
Okay.
670
00:37:21.220 --> 00:37:21.420
All right.
671
00:37:21.460 --> 00:37:21.761
Perfect.
672
00:37:21.781 --> 00:37:22.542
I really appreciate it.
673
00:37:22.942 --> 00:37:23.423
You got it.
674
00:37:23.583 --> 00:37:24.524
Appreciate you all tremendously.
675
00:37:24.624 --> 00:37:28.229
Have a great weekend and let's crush the rush here as we head in 2026.
676
00:37:28.669 --> 00:37:29.070
Take care guys.