He Was Wasting $3K a Month on Ads... (Unfiltered Turnaround)

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I'm concerned we're spending $3,000 a month on marketing.
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If someone on Google is not giving you a cost per lead, they have no idea what they do.
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I can almost guarantee you it's a horrible return on investment.
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One thing that might be helpful is just having where you do start in the field, from a profitability perspective, but then it's like, okay, say 3 o'clock afterwards.
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That's when I do estimates, I do my email, just some sort of delineation, because otherwise the start and stop throughout the day can just make it super inefficient.
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It's hard to manage the crew.
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It's hard to focus.
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It stresses me out, too.
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Totally.
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Because I'm trying to set this paver, and I'm also taking a phone call and saying out an estimate real quick, and it's just not efficient at all.
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That's a good idea.
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I never thought of it.
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Even if it's okay, from 6 till 2, I will be with the crew.
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I'm 100% operations, and then I'll switch to admin and sales.
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And really, that's what you'll have to do at this size.
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Until you get to that 400,000 level, you're just not going to be able to afford the admin person.
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For sure.
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And there's honestly not enough for them to do.
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You got a couple estimates a day, a couple calls.
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It was like two hours a week that she was doing.
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Got it.
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Got it, yeah, no, cool.
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All right, and so right now, my biggest, where I see the constraint in some regard, are a big, not problem, like the fact that we're spending $3,000 a month on the ads for Google, and we don't know where that's going.
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Like we don't have traceable cost per lead, customer acquisition costs, so like,
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There's no information he's sending you?
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Like clicks, keywords?
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Nothing official.
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I've never gotten a PDF or anything written in an email.
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Okay.
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Again, we've done some stuff on a video call and he shares his screen, but I still don't think I'm seeing an ROI.
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I think we're just like,
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Seeing like, this is your ad, this is how many people clicked, and this is how many people were input into your CRM use jobber.
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Yep.
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So can you see that number?
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How many came from Google inside there?
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Only if we have these video calls.
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I don't know if I can access it out of these video calls that happen once a month.
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Okay.
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So how many leads in a month do you usually get?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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I can move on jobber.
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Yeah, pull it up real quick.
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You can at least get a ballpark.
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Okay.
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obviously this is a slow but are we still spending like for example last month is it still a thousand dollars so he's lenient with me so from end of November to we're starting up next week that's been again I wasn't paying anything
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So nothing, like he wasn't paying for, it was like zero.
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Go on.
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Everything is next.
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So basically probably seven, eight months of the year is when he's actually running ads.
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We're paying $1,000 in management fees and then $2,000 a month for ad spend.
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That's correct.
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Got it.
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That's the plan this year.
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I think that's what we did last year too.
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Okay.
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So Java actually just input an AI or co-pilot in here.
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Right.
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So I can see how many.
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This one was three requests in the past 30 days.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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Things are just now speeding up as well.
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And then a lot of these are calls too.
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That's not input in here, but I get calls too, so that's not totally accurate.
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Makes sense.
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How many?
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Great.
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You're good.
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Go to your quotes real quick.
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I just want to see how many you're sending out on average.
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And then we can even just search.
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There you go.
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Go all.
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Go ahead and filter this down.
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This?
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Yeah.
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Then go custom range.
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Let's do April 2024.
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Just all of April and next April 1.
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Like November, December last year?
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No, just April.
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Just April.
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All the way back.
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Because that's kind of your... Ah!
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I would say that's kind of your busy season.
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Sorry.
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Yeah, for sure.
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So, like, just April.
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Yeah.
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46.
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Wow, that's quite a bit.
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So you're basically getting, like, more than one a day, at least.
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Yeah.
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During the busy season.
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And I would bet May is probably our busier... Whoops.
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Our busier month.
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Okay.
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I could be wrong.
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That's always what I thought.
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But 40 seconds, I'm about the same.
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OK.
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So you're getting one.
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OK. All right.
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Cool.
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Yeah.
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I'm really interested to see if we can get any sort of other data from him in terms of cost per lead.
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So I'm assuming he doesn't have tracking codes on your website to track when an estimate is being requested.
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No, nothing that's, no, not at all.
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Yeah, so, because what we want to know is like, how much are we spending to get one lead?
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Right.
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And like right now, we're spending $3,000 a month in go time, but if we get say 50 leads, and it's all from Google, like 100% of which I would assume it's like half.
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But if you're saying we get 40 leads, on $3,000, we are spending like $80 cost per lead.
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Right.
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And then if we close it, say half of those, now we're paying about $150 customer acquisition cost.
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And just knowing that number is important.
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Right.
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It's not to say that you can say that it's bad.
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Like it's not a horrible number.
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But I also, I happen to believe that out of those 40, let's just call it 50 leads, maybe 20 of them are actually coming from Google.
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Yeah.
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Because there are other ones that just are coming from your website and Facebook and seeing your truck and referrals and everything else.
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Okay.
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And so now if we're paying $300 customer acquisition costs and we're only getting 10 new leads a month from Google, now this might not be a good way to use our money.
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That's true.
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Because when I look at, like last year we spent $20,000 in marketing and we had $200,000 in revenue.
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That's like a 10x, right?
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But that assumes every single customer came from our ads.
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But you already had like $150,000 in revenue the year before.
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of recurring customers.
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And I know for sure.
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Like I said, I'll hire them later in the season too.
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Yeah.
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Wow.
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Yeah, I'm concerned we're spending $3,000 a month on marketing.
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Yeah.
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Like, for the return that we're getting.
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That's true.
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I always looked at it like, okay, I want to spend 10% of revenue on marketing, but I never really tracked it.
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Right.
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And I never cared to choose.
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Like, that's why I hired out my Google ads because I didn't know how to track it.
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And then I guess I just interested in tracking it.
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Yeah, that's not good for sure.
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Yeah, especially if, do you know this person personally or is it an actual business?
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It's an actual business.
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It's like basically one guy that runs it all though.
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He's based out of San Diego.
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Okay.
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I was a cold lead, he reached out to me on like Facebook.
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Okay.
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And then like six months later I was like, hey, I can't do this, can you help?
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Yeah.
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If someone on Google is not giving you a cost per lead, they have no idea what they're
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Because what you want them to do is put a Google tracking code on your thank you page.
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Yeah.
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So when someone makes an estimate request for them, they can actually, oh, I, like, that ad made that lead.
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So he set up basically a duplicate of my website.
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Okay.
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It's my website with go.at at the beginning.
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And I think that's connected to it.
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And I'm also concerned.
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I had this thought last year.
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I wonder if he didn't share those numbers with me because they didn't perform as well as he thought they would.
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Yeah.
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Because when I was managing them,
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I could be wrong because I don't track these things very well, but I thought I could have been getting more leads than he was getting me.
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And I was spending less than he was.
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I'm also concerned with the whole subdomain thing because now you're driving traffic to a domain that's not yours.
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Like that is not your main website.
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I don't want traffic going to some other subdomain.
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I want it all going to my main website so that Google's like, oh, there's a bunch of traffic going to this spot.
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Plus they can't explore elsewhere on the site.
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They can?
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Yeah.
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Well, yeah, no.
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Because it's just go.trust.
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My website's trustthrive.com.
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Yeah, yeah.
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His is go.trustthrive.com, which is not connected to my website at all.
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Oh, at all.
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Yeah.
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It's just a... Like a landing page.
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A landing page, yeah.
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Oh, Mercy, yeah, no.
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Really?
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Yeah.
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That makes sense, I guess.
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If you spent one day on Google Ads YouTube, you would probably outperform him, honestly, just by having a Google tracking code that you put on your website and then being able to...
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Even if he didn't track the leads, just with the fact that you're paying $1,000 a month to him for managing it.
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Let's just, okay, let's say you spend $2,000 a month on ads and $1,000 on him.
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If you run the ads, he has to beat you by 50% cost per lead to make it break even on paying $1,000 to him.
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He just dropped it.
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Yeah.
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So like, I don't know who he is, but like, I would recommend cutting that.
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Um, like that's $3,000 in your pocket right now.
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And I happen to believe, even if you turn that off completely, you'd probably get 70% of your leads still.
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So here's the thing too.
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We locked into a year contract.
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Oh, so okay.
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It, which was last June, I want to say.
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Okay.
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So at a bare minimum, I have to finish out until June, unless there's some clause.
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that I can get out somehow.
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Okay, so that's basically April, May, and June.
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Yeah.
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And that's gonna be $3,000 a month.
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Well, I can probably reduce my ad spend, but at a minimum I have to pay him his fee.
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Right.
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His monthly fee.
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Okay.
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Then what I would do then, cause that's like Spring Rush, so it's okay.
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We're gonna kind of bomb for Spring Rush in terms of work.
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Like, you are spending a ton of money on ads.
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And getting very little in return.
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Like, we're shooting for a 10x return, or sorry, a 20x return on new revenue.
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So, for example, if last year we did $200,000, if I spent $20,000 in marketing this year, I would expect a $400,000 increase.
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Really?
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In revenue, which would be on top of your $200,000.
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We'd be getting to $600,000 in the perfect world.
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Let's just say you had a 10x return.
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That's $200,000, which means this year you should be doing $400,000 in revenue.
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Just $200,000 base and then additional.
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Well, because you already have that recurring revenue from last year.
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You already have a base of revenue from recurring customers, et cetera.
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So I want marketing dollars to be in addition to last year's revenue.
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I would just be careful with that one.
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I know people, especially if they're reaching out from Facebook, they are taking advantage of the fact that you just feel inadequate and you don't know the numbers side of things.
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But honestly, one day, if you just lock yourself in this room and I'm going to learn Google Ads, and you watch eight hours worth of content, you will run better ads than that.
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Simply by having a tracking code behind your thank you page.
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It's like when they submit the form.
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Yeah.
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It literally tracks like, oh, this is how many leads I got for X amount that I've spent.
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Yeah.
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So...
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Yeah, I do better jobs at tracking all that.
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I guess for now, until June, I just need to be on it about, hey, I need to be getting this ROI for it to be worth it.
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So for now, for the next few months, we're just like, hey, I would love to be able to see my cost per lead.
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Yeah.
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Right?
243
00:10:22.841 --> 00:10:28.143
And if he can't give that to you, it's a really telltale sign, or just the fact that he knows that, and he knows it's really bad.
244
00:10:28.563 --> 00:10:29.724
That could be possible as well.
245
00:10:30.345 --> 00:10:33.628
So I would really push for, hey, can I get my cost per lead?
246
00:10:33.648 --> 00:10:34.469
And he does not know.
247
00:10:34.809 --> 00:10:41.636
I know he knows that number because the reason he did that subdomain is because he knows that every single lead that comes through that domain is a lead from your ads.
248
00:10:42.670 --> 00:10:48.414
So when you get a lead from that webpage, does it look any different to you inside of CoPilot?
249
00:10:48.514 --> 00:10:50.255
Or inside of GoJarber?
250
00:10:50.275 --> 00:10:50.415
No.
251
00:10:50.435 --> 00:10:58.900
So basically, it goes from that, then it goes to his CRM, and then I think it bounces it to my...
252
00:10:59.701 --> 00:11:01.422
to my job.
253
00:11:01.442 --> 00:11:03.244
So there's some Zapier connect that happens.
254
00:11:03.264 --> 00:11:03.404
Right.
255
00:11:03.464 --> 00:11:04.805
Do you see that different?
256
00:11:05.025 --> 00:11:07.808
Can you differentiate that between a lead you get?
257
00:11:08.008 --> 00:11:08.168
Yeah.
258
00:11:08.188 --> 00:11:09.849
It's confusing too.
259
00:11:10.090 --> 00:11:18.777
If I go to my request, I have no idea which one of these came from him and which ones of these were just from my website or from Facebook or whatever.
260
00:11:19.097 --> 00:11:25.202
Okay, so another thing you could ask him about, you just ask him about UTM, just say, hey, could you do UTM parameters on these?
261
00:11:25.663 --> 00:11:31.848
That's gonna allow him, if he knows what he's doing, he'll be able to track these simply by, if they hit that domain, it tags the account.
262
00:11:32.348 --> 00:11:40.535
So ask him about UTM parameters, and then also ask him about cost per lead, like, can I just figure out, can you give me my cost per lead?
263
00:11:41.315 --> 00:11:45.759
At the very least, can you tag quotes that come from your CRM?
264
00:11:45.779 --> 00:11:46.600
Because he sees that.
265
00:11:46.965 --> 00:11:48.486
Okay, like a customer tag?
266
00:11:49.186 --> 00:11:50.027
At the very least.
267
00:11:50.047 --> 00:11:51.368
That would be more of a manual thing.
268
00:11:51.708 --> 00:11:58.292
But I would imagine from a tracking code or UTM, he could do this automatically, especially if he's using Zapier to pull these in.
269
00:11:59.272 --> 00:12:03.995
But you could also just be like, hey, can I just have a list of the ones that are coming to your CRM?
270
00:12:04.015 --> 00:12:04.936
You could actually just ask for that.
271
00:12:05.496 --> 00:12:08.018
Like, hey, I just want to know which leads are coming from Google.
272
00:12:08.818 --> 00:12:11.900
A, can you give me cost per lead, which I think he has, but he's not giving it to you.
273
00:12:12.280 --> 00:12:19.443
Or at least say, I'd like to be able to see which ones are coming through your CRM so I can compare how many are coming from my other advertising.
274
00:12:20.144 --> 00:12:23.245
So I can almost guarantee you it's a horrible return on investment.
275
00:12:23.626 --> 00:12:29.489
Yeah, based upon how much you're spending and the amount of leads coming in, the fact they didn't charge you throughout the winter is nice.
276
00:12:30.249 --> 00:12:30.609
For sure.
277
00:12:30.950 --> 00:12:36.773
I would say it's probably because he probably knows that it's going to cost hundreds of dollars per lead because there's low demand.
278
00:12:36.793 --> 00:12:37.114
Yeah.
279
00:12:37.234 --> 00:12:38.515
There's nothing coming in there.
280
00:12:38.655 --> 00:12:38.855
Yeah.
281
00:12:38.875 --> 00:12:47.481
So I would also like to see that traffic going to your website instead of... And it kind of makes sense as to why you have 75 Google reviews, but you're not ranking super high.
282
00:12:48.802 --> 00:12:52.164
Because your traffic's lower than what I would have anticipated.
283
00:12:52.184 --> 00:12:53.064
Yeah.
284
00:12:53.265 --> 00:12:56.207
Because you got 75 Google reviews, which in this area is basically the highest.
285
00:12:56.407 --> 00:12:56.507
Yeah.
286
00:12:56.527 --> 00:12:56.647
Yeah.
287
00:12:56.907 --> 00:12:59.969
So you rank really well on Google Listing, but the native search is not there.
288
00:13:00.170 --> 00:13:04.573
So we rank really well for native search in Chatham, Illinois.
289
00:13:04.633 --> 00:13:04.853
Okay.
290
00:13:05.153 --> 00:13:06.855
Because that was my first target market.
291
00:13:06.955 --> 00:13:07.115
Yeah.
292
00:13:07.295 --> 00:13:12.539
Only last year did I create a landing page for Springfield and keywords for Springfield.
293
00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:16.422
Because at first I wanted to stay out of Springfield because I was super small.
294
00:13:16.482 --> 00:13:18.524
I just wanted to hit this really tight-knit community.
295
00:13:18.644 --> 00:13:18.744
Yeah.
296
00:13:18.764 --> 00:13:18.904
Yeah.
297
00:13:19.104 --> 00:13:22.605
And now that we're expanding, I'm like, well, I should really get into Springfield more.
298
00:13:22.645 --> 00:13:25.046
So give it like a year or two.
299
00:13:25.407 --> 00:13:28.528
And obviously what you're saying would help, but that should also.
300
00:13:28.768 --> 00:13:29.788
Pull up your website real quick.
301
00:13:29.808 --> 00:13:30.509
Did you build this?
302
00:13:30.729 --> 00:13:30.969
I did.
303
00:13:31.149 --> 00:13:31.789
Oh, that's very good.
304
00:13:32.049 --> 00:13:32.569
Yeah, I did.
305
00:13:32.609 --> 00:13:34.570
You're telling me you don't know technology and ads.
306
00:13:34.610 --> 00:13:35.771
You can totally figure out Google.
307
00:13:35.791 --> 00:13:37.191
It's just the numbers that I don't understand.
308
00:13:37.271 --> 00:13:38.152
Gotcha.
309
00:13:38.212 --> 00:13:38.952
I love graphics.
310
00:13:38.992 --> 00:13:39.712
I love design.
311
00:13:39.732 --> 00:13:40.613
I love creativity.
312
00:13:40.673 --> 00:13:41.473
What did you build this on?
313
00:13:41.893 --> 00:13:42.333
WordPress.
314
00:13:42.494 --> 00:13:43.875
Cool, this is really cool.
315
00:13:43.915 --> 00:13:46.737
I saw the videos on the other pages too, like the pricing ones, stuff like that.
316
00:13:46.777 --> 00:13:47.117
Appreciate it.
317
00:13:47.137 --> 00:13:47.818
It's very cool.
318
00:13:48.358 --> 00:13:54.483
Okay, and then, yeah, so in your header, it's in Chatham, is there something in Springfield right after that?
319
00:13:54.663 --> 00:13:56.725
I should, I haven't changed that yet.
320
00:13:56.765 --> 00:14:04.411
I would just take out exceeding expectations and just change that to landscaping in Chatham and Springfield.
321
00:14:04.431 --> 00:14:05.512
Yeah, that'll help.
322
00:14:05.932 --> 00:14:07.173
My fear too was like,
323
00:14:08.667 --> 00:14:08.987
Never mind.
324
00:14:09.067 --> 00:14:10.789
I guess what you just said, Nick, is what I was about to say.
325
00:14:10.809 --> 00:14:11.109
So never mind.
326
00:14:11.129 --> 00:14:11.349
Go ahead.
327
00:14:11.830 --> 00:14:16.954
I was going to say, like, I was going to do just Springfield because I wanted to have exceeding expectations there, but it's not needed.
328
00:14:17.155 --> 00:14:17.415
Right.
329
00:14:17.515 --> 00:14:18.476
So I can just do those two.
330
00:14:18.496 --> 00:14:21.558
I was afraid of taking Chatham out and then losing my ranking in Chatham.
331
00:14:21.859 --> 00:14:22.079
Yeah.
332
00:14:22.359 --> 00:14:25.482
Yeah, I would take out exceeding expectations because it's not helping the rank at all.
333
00:14:25.502 --> 00:14:25.862
That's true.
334
00:14:25.922 --> 00:14:28.925
And if people don't get here, we don't get exceeded any of those expectations.
335
00:14:28.945 --> 00:14:30.126
That's right.
336
00:14:30.587 --> 00:14:32.428
Go to the top really quick.
337
00:14:32.608 --> 00:14:33.269
The top of the page?
338
00:14:33.289 --> 00:14:34.210
Top of the page, yeah.
339
00:14:34.230 --> 00:14:34.370
Yep.
340
00:14:35.391 --> 00:14:38.092
So this is the part where I feel, I get a little confused.
341
00:14:38.112 --> 00:14:41.354
Because if I take out this right here, I don't know what you do.
342
00:14:41.814 --> 00:14:42.735
Mm, okay.
343
00:14:43.177 --> 00:14:59.024
Right, so like what I like to see usually when I come to a website is, yes the logo is nice, but basically what we just talked about here, I wanna see this here, like serving Chatham and Springfield, Illinois with lawn care and landscaping you need since X date, for example.
344
00:14:59.084 --> 00:15:06.107
Or just saying like number one provider or exceeding expectations of residents in Springfield and Chatham.
345
00:15:06.407 --> 00:15:07.908
And saying lawn care and landscaping.
346
00:15:08.868 --> 00:15:12.970
I don't know what this is all about either, because like these are sites, great.
347
00:15:13.631 --> 00:15:15.873
I also know that you can just pull these images from Google.
348
00:15:15.953 --> 00:15:18.795
So like from a customer's perspective, it doesn't really add a lot.
349
00:15:19.576 --> 00:15:24.101
So I would be doing a couple things right from the get here from like a conversion perspective.
350
00:15:24.201 --> 00:15:24.401
Yeah.
351
00:15:24.781 --> 00:15:25.542
And it is.
352
00:15:25.602 --> 00:15:26.483
Oh, you're good.
353
00:15:26.503 --> 00:15:26.923
Sorry.
354
00:15:27.204 --> 00:15:31.388
From a conversion perspective, I would rather instead of having this stuff, I'd have an estimate request form.
355
00:15:32.156 --> 00:15:37.698
And so you already, you have the jobber work request, but it's super big.
356
00:15:37.798 --> 00:15:38.578
Yeah.
357
00:15:38.878 --> 00:15:43.500
If you use like JotForm or PaperForm, yeah, perfect, and you know Zapier enough probably.
358
00:15:43.520 --> 00:15:44.120
Yeah, so perfect.
359
00:15:44.400 --> 00:15:50.383
So I would make a small form, I'd be putting it right here, and I'd just like request a free estimate.
360
00:15:50.683 --> 00:15:56.525
I'd probably make even a button up top here, so as someone scrolls down, they're reading about you, they're reading everything.
361
00:15:57.185 --> 00:15:59.606
Always a spot to like, the call to action's really, really clear.
362
00:15:59.766 --> 00:16:00.527
Yeah, that makes sense.
363
00:16:00.547 --> 00:16:01.787
So what about this though?
364
00:16:01.807 --> 00:16:05.190
Because like all these forms that are, these contact forms that are on my page, Yeah.
365
00:16:05.610 --> 00:16:09.933
These are HTML from Jobber that I was able to plug in.
366
00:16:11.614 --> 00:16:17.838
Will, if I did some sort of job form or something here, like would that still go, I guess,
367
00:16:18.258 --> 00:16:20.440
Those customer details, I could Zapier into Jabber.
368
00:16:20.460 --> 00:16:20.960
Correct.
369
00:16:21.140 --> 00:16:25.223
And then secondly, even if it didn't, even if you don't connect to Zapier, it sounds like you know how to do that.
370
00:16:25.243 --> 00:16:33.990
But even if you didn't, I'd still recommend doing it separately because it takes you 10 seconds to copy and paste their contact information over.
371
00:16:34.010 --> 00:16:34.390
Yeah.
372
00:16:34.670 --> 00:16:36.351
I'm focusing on conversion.
373
00:16:36.391 --> 00:16:41.713
Because the other part of like, this is why I have a hard time actually judging this guy with his Google Ads.
374
00:16:41.913 --> 00:16:56.598
Because you can get someone to click an ad, because you do a great job at ads, but when it comes to the site, if it's not clear as to what they're asking for, the conversion, like that's the other part that like someone should be tracking when it comes to like the web design, like what's the conversion rate?
375
00:16:56.658 --> 00:17:00.859
Like if I get 50 people from an ad, how many of them actually send an estimate request form?
376
00:17:01.459 --> 00:17:02.880
Right, and then how many of them are actually
377
00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:04.761
turning into clients.
378
00:17:04.841 --> 00:17:05.241
Right.
379
00:17:05.602 --> 00:17:13.347
So for example, I know as soon as I have a different page, like if you click this and it drops them or it takes them into a contact page, immediately you're losing 30% of people.
380
00:17:14.047 --> 00:17:14.528
Yeah.
381
00:17:14.568 --> 00:17:15.108
Just immediately.
382
00:17:15.128 --> 00:17:20.292
30% of your people are lost by the fact that I can't immediately insert my contact information.
383
00:17:20.492 --> 00:17:20.792
Really?
384
00:17:20.952 --> 00:17:21.212
Yeah.
385
00:17:21.393 --> 00:17:21.673
Okay.
386
00:17:22.133 --> 00:17:25.175
So we have one goal, exceed the expectations.
387
00:17:25.495 --> 00:17:25.856
Great.
388
00:17:25.876 --> 00:17:26.416
Great.
389
00:17:26.536 --> 00:17:27.096
They don't care.
390
00:17:27.997 --> 00:17:31.058
They clicked on an ad saying lawn care, landscaping.
391
00:17:31.078 --> 00:17:32.118
And they're like, I have a problem.
392
00:17:32.158 --> 00:17:32.878
I want it solved.
393
00:17:33.358 --> 00:17:39.440
And when they're coming to the site, the only thing that you have to do is bridge them from, I have a problem to, we have a solution.
394
00:17:39.580 --> 00:17:41.681
And there's an estimate that is needed in between that.
395
00:17:42.201 --> 00:17:43.502
Now, I like instant pricing.
396
00:17:43.622 --> 00:17:48.744
But even if you don't do that, I would just make it really easy for them to be able to give you their contact info.
397
00:17:48.844 --> 00:17:50.184
I'm down with instant pricing.
398
00:17:50.604 --> 00:17:51.885
I just don't know how to set that up.
399
00:17:52.005 --> 00:17:52.705
You actually have it.
400
00:17:52.845 --> 00:17:53.945
You have it kind of throughout.
401
00:17:54.185 --> 00:17:54.666
Sort of.
402
00:17:56.066 --> 00:18:00.508
I would like there to be a way for them to fill out a form.
403
00:18:01.469 --> 00:18:04.110
Well, I guess if they input their square footage and stuff, a lot of people don't really know.
404
00:18:04.190 --> 00:18:04.731
They have no idea.
405
00:18:04.751 --> 00:18:05.991
Yeah, so I don't know.
406
00:18:06.351 --> 00:18:10.654
But what you could do, like, so one thing on the pricing thing, I would say no one's going to read this.
407
00:18:11.034 --> 00:18:12.575
This is a lot of information.
408
00:18:12.595 --> 00:18:13.075
It is, yeah.
409
00:18:13.215 --> 00:18:17.797
I would try to take everything that's in this small text and try to make it one sentence max.
410
00:18:18.398 --> 00:18:19.838
So this is really...
411
00:18:21.219 --> 00:18:25.421
Just a lot of information and if you keep scrolling, if I remember, there's even more.
412
00:18:25.461 --> 00:18:26.162
Keep scrolling down.
413
00:18:26.202 --> 00:18:26.942
There's four.
414
00:18:27.782 --> 00:18:28.163
Yeah, okay.
415
00:18:28.183 --> 00:18:29.823
This is basically an ask for a question.
416
00:18:30.144 --> 00:18:34.146
It's just a lot of information that is hard to digest for somebody.
417
00:18:34.426 --> 00:18:38.348
What I was thinking, though, is what you could do is on your service page have this information.
418
00:18:39.008 --> 00:18:42.350
So for example, I want lawn care, then the premium lawn care is there.
419
00:18:42.930 --> 00:18:46.172
And then if I want like, you know, property cleanups, okay, seasonal is there.
420
00:18:46.192 --> 00:18:46.812
Yeah, that's there too.
421
00:18:46.912 --> 00:18:50.854
And then there's like the landscape, that would be on the landscaping page.
422
00:18:50.874 --> 00:18:54.016
Because otherwise it looks like a whole bunch of random pricing information.
423
00:18:54.516 --> 00:18:58.898
And when you're saying starting at, it's not specific enough for people like, oh, like that's what I'm paying.
424
00:18:58.978 --> 00:19:00.418
And it's kind of misleading too.
425
00:19:00.858 --> 00:19:03.399
I've noticed that because I had a call the other day.
426
00:19:03.419 --> 00:19:05.859
It's like, oh, you charge 100 bucks for mulch install.
427
00:19:05.939 --> 00:19:07.660
No, that's per yard.
428
00:19:07.820 --> 00:19:09.520
That's not really what we charge and they were not in charge.
429
00:19:09.580 --> 00:19:11.800
And even would you want to install one yard of mulch?
430
00:19:11.820 --> 00:19:12.401
Yeah, exactly.
431
00:19:12.421 --> 00:19:13.061
Right, for 100 bucks?
432
00:19:13.081 --> 00:19:13.921
Not really, right?
433
00:19:14.061 --> 00:19:20.362
So I would probably say the one thing for instant pricing that we still don't touch is projects.
434
00:19:20.502 --> 00:19:21.962
Because the range is like.
435
00:19:22.242 --> 00:19:23.323
Yeah, it's all over the place.
436
00:19:23.383 --> 00:19:24.263
It's so many different variables.
437
00:19:25.383 --> 00:19:28.967
Whereas with mowing, I'm willing to take a little bit of variation, knowing that I can raise their price in the future.
438
00:19:28.987 --> 00:19:29.447
That makes sense.
439
00:19:29.467 --> 00:19:30.428
Right?
440
00:19:30.729 --> 00:19:41.359
But going back to the home page, even if you didn't do instant pricing, which I would say on JotForm, if you get good at that, you could definitely make it where it shows pictures, like small, medium, and large.
441
00:19:41.659 --> 00:19:44.582
And then what we do is we do show the square footage ranges.
442
00:19:44.923 --> 00:19:45.123
Okay.
443
00:19:45.363 --> 00:19:50.466
So, like small, it'll say you have a picture, but then it'll be like 3,000 to 8,000 square feet.
444
00:19:50.887 --> 00:19:52.948
Medium would be like 8,000 to 12,000 square feet.
445
00:19:53.008 --> 00:19:54.589
Large would be like 12,000 square feet plus.
446
00:19:54.769 --> 00:19:57.271
But then I have the pictures to make it a little easier for them.
447
00:19:57.491 --> 00:20:10.280
You could do that, but like literally you would get like a 30% bump in conversion if you just mix this, put this as a small form, you want to cover like less than a third of the page, where they don't have to scroll any further down.
448
00:20:10.700 --> 00:20:19.443
So even if you wanted to move this thing down, make that form there, nix this, and just make it... Because they're coming to your site, usually from an ad, or they saw your...
449
00:20:19.463 --> 00:20:21.203
They want to submit information as fast as possible.
450
00:20:21.643 --> 00:20:26.545
And as soon as you say, hey, you've got to click on contact, you've got to click on this button over here, we've just dropped 30% of people.
451
00:20:27.585 --> 00:20:33.189
I guess because we get a ton of traffic, a ton for what I would think, on our homepage.
452
00:20:33.429 --> 00:20:33.629
Right.
453
00:20:33.789 --> 00:20:39.473
And then if anything else, like it drops off, then the time spent on those pages is like nothing.
454
00:20:39.493 --> 00:20:39.953
Nothing, yeah.
455
00:20:39.994 --> 00:20:40.634
Yeah.
456
00:20:40.754 --> 00:20:44.036
So what you're trying to do is like this part of your page, it's kind of like Google.
457
00:20:44.336 --> 00:20:44.537
Yeah.
458
00:20:44.657 --> 00:20:47.519
If you're not in the first like three spots of Google, you don't get seen.
459
00:20:47.979 --> 00:20:49.040
It's the same thing with your website.
460
00:20:49.360 --> 00:20:49.500
Okay.
461
00:20:49.820 --> 00:20:51.822
Above the fold, everyone sees it.
462
00:20:52.222 --> 00:20:53.943
When they come to the site, they will see this.
463
00:20:54.344 --> 00:20:57.086
The likelihood of them seeing the contact page or the pricing page is like 1%.
464
00:20:57.266 --> 00:21:03.251
So this is why this is the most important real estate of the entire thing, and we're giving it to these people?
465
00:21:03.571 --> 00:21:03.891
Really?
466
00:21:04.732 --> 00:21:07.995
So that's where it's like, let's just make it really laser-like focus on our CTA.
467
00:21:08.015 --> 00:21:10.096
Absolutely.
468
00:21:10.156 --> 00:21:11.938
Also, the picture in the background...
469
00:21:12.458 --> 00:21:16.621
is a random photo of trees, I would just make it more personalized to you.
470
00:21:16.741 --> 00:21:17.382
Okay.
471
00:21:17.462 --> 00:21:21.685
You have some really good photos of you and the crew, you out in the field.
472
00:21:22.305 --> 00:21:28.390
I think even at your size now, leaning into the, you can picture your family, if you had it, is really good.
473
00:21:28.990 --> 00:21:29.190
Okay.
474
00:21:29.350 --> 00:21:36.596
This picture, though, if it was like you on a project job with a couple of employees would do way better conversion than random trees.
475
00:21:36.896 --> 00:21:37.077
Yeah.
476
00:21:37.177 --> 00:21:39.999
Also tells me very quickly what you do versus this.
477
00:21:40.379 --> 00:21:42.701
Again, literally, if you cover up this, I have no idea what this is.
478
00:21:42.721 --> 00:21:43.382
Yeah, it's just green.
479
00:21:43.642 --> 00:21:44.322
And you see a tree.
480
00:21:44.503 --> 00:21:46.024
Like, this is supposed to be a bed.
481
00:21:46.044 --> 00:21:47.045
There's supposed to be a whole landscape.
482
00:21:47.085 --> 00:21:49.687
Oh, it's just you can't see because the... On mobile, it looks good.
483
00:21:49.727 --> 00:21:50.948
But I guess on this, it doesn't.
484
00:21:51.969 --> 00:21:53.290
So, yeah, I would just like...
485
00:21:53.990 --> 00:21:56.472
It's kind of like when we make videos.
486
00:21:56.792 --> 00:21:59.293
Like 90% of our time should be on the first 30 seconds.
487
00:21:59.473 --> 00:22:01.394
Because I know everyone's going to see that.
488
00:22:01.795 --> 00:22:05.437
Whereas when your website's like, I want this to be perfect.
489
00:22:05.797 --> 00:22:07.058
All this other stuff, great.
490
00:22:07.138 --> 00:22:08.419
I'm doing it mostly for SEO.
491
00:22:08.699 --> 00:22:12.401
If someone's digging into my site and wants to do a back-end study about me.
492
00:22:12.421 --> 00:22:14.422
But most people don't care.
493
00:22:15.023 --> 00:22:18.705
I just got to get them to get an estimate request from me to make that as easy as possible.
494
00:22:18.765 --> 00:22:19.005
Okay.
495
00:22:19.385 --> 00:22:21.047
So don't worry so much about CTAs.
496
00:22:21.147 --> 00:22:25.351
I mean, have CTAs on these pages, but really just hammer it right here.
497
00:22:25.471 --> 00:22:28.634
Yeah, like 90% of our time should be spent on Above the Fold homepage.
498
00:22:29.014 --> 00:22:31.857
So I think here you could have either your phone number,
499
00:22:32.963 --> 00:22:33.564
Ah, very good.
500
00:22:33.624 --> 00:22:34.044
It's small.
501
00:22:34.224 --> 00:22:34.884
Yep, you're good.
502
00:22:35.065 --> 00:22:38.767
So here could just be contact us or even get a free quote.
503
00:22:38.827 --> 00:22:40.429
I would just move this up here, get a free quote.
504
00:22:40.669 --> 00:22:46.613
So that way as they scroll down, if they pass this form or if they're on and about pages, there's always a CTA to get a free quote.
505
00:22:46.673 --> 00:22:46.913
Okay.
506
00:22:46.973 --> 00:22:48.995
But then right here, I'd nix these four.
507
00:22:49.395 --> 00:22:51.157
One third of the page is going to be a small form.
508
00:22:51.277 --> 00:22:53.238
I'm minimizing how much information I need from them.
509
00:22:53.318 --> 00:22:53.498
Yeah.
510
00:22:53.718 --> 00:22:57.381
It's just like services, name, phone number, address, email.
511
00:22:57.481 --> 00:22:57.902
That's it.
512
00:22:57.982 --> 00:22:58.302
Okay, perfect.
513
00:22:59.183 --> 00:23:00.424
Make it as small as possible.
514
00:23:00.704 --> 00:23:04.166
The challenging part with the HTML and Dropbox, it takes so much space.
515
00:23:04.347 --> 00:23:04.807
It does, yeah.
516
00:23:04.947 --> 00:23:06.969
And ideally I push them towards that because it's perfect.
517
00:23:06.989 --> 00:23:08.850
It goes into the form, everything's connected.
518
00:23:09.551 --> 00:23:10.812
I got way more information.
519
00:23:11.152 --> 00:23:13.174
But I just want to get higher conversion.
520
00:23:15.035 --> 00:23:19.917
So you're saying on JotForm, like JotForm has a thing I can put in here and it's smaller.
521
00:23:20.178 --> 00:23:21.098
Yeah.
522
00:23:21.118 --> 00:23:22.239
Would you build this on WordPress?
523
00:23:22.279 --> 00:23:22.639
WordPress.
524
00:23:22.679 --> 00:23:23.279
They have ones too.
525
00:23:23.899 --> 00:23:27.661
It's just a matter of like, I don't even care if it's connected to... Just something small there.
526
00:23:27.701 --> 00:23:28.041
Something.
527
00:23:28.101 --> 00:23:28.301
Okay.
528
00:23:28.381 --> 00:23:31.243
And if you can't connect it with Zapier, if you can't, it doesn't matter.
529
00:23:31.263 --> 00:23:33.484
Because it literally takes you 20 seconds to copy it over.
530
00:23:33.504 --> 00:23:34.004
That's true.
531
00:23:34.024 --> 00:23:37.286
And like if you look at your conversion, like you said, like there's such a huge drop off.
532
00:23:37.626 --> 00:23:43.869
If we can just increase that by double, so let's say for example, one out of 50 people currently submit an asset request form that get to the site.
533
00:23:44.209 --> 00:23:45.370
which is pretty average.
534
00:23:45.530 --> 00:23:50.693
If we get to one more, it's like one out of 25, we double the business.
535
00:23:50.993 --> 00:23:53.555
And that will do more for us than spending $3,000 a month right now.
536
00:23:54.831 --> 00:23:57.813
Here I'm sitting here thinking my website was super good.
537
00:23:58.094 --> 00:23:58.474
It's good.
538
00:23:58.534 --> 00:23:59.195
No, don't worry.
539
00:23:59.295 --> 00:24:00.656
I know, but it can do a lot better.
540
00:24:00.676 --> 00:24:01.837
Trust me, I have seen a lot worse.
541
00:24:02.017 --> 00:24:02.898
Don't worry about that.
542
00:24:02.918 --> 00:24:05.039
It can do a lot better functionality-wise, yeah.
543
00:24:05.199 --> 00:24:06.240
It looks good, though.
544
00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:07.922
There's three elements.
545
00:24:07.942 --> 00:24:10.504
There's design, there's conversion, and there's SEO.
546
00:24:10.544 --> 00:24:10.824
Yeah.
547
00:24:11.024 --> 00:24:11.264
Right?
548
00:24:11.424 --> 00:24:12.605
Design-wise, you nailed it.
549
00:24:12.625 --> 00:24:14.127
The fact that you built it, super good.
550
00:24:14.167 --> 00:24:15.067
Especially on mobile, actually.
551
00:24:15.147 --> 00:24:16.509
I really like the design on mobile.
552
00:24:16.529 --> 00:24:16.709
For sure.
553
00:24:16.829 --> 00:24:16.969
Yeah.
554
00:24:17.449 --> 00:24:20.152
And the conversion part is the part we want to address.
555
00:24:20.352 --> 00:24:25.296
The whole reason the website exists is to get people to go from interested to a lead.
556
00:24:25.757 --> 00:24:26.457
Right, so.
557
00:24:27.478 --> 00:24:29.980
Just a couple things on that one, but overall you built it really well.
558
00:24:30.161 --> 00:24:32.923
Appreciate it.
559
00:24:32.943 --> 00:24:33.584
Okay, cool.
560
00:24:33.944 --> 00:24:35.545
So that's like the marketing side.
561
00:24:36.026 --> 00:24:39.749
I think that for now it is a matter of, actually do you have a piece of paper?
562
00:24:40.149 --> 00:24:40.810
Could I have a marker?
563
00:24:41.110 --> 00:24:43.673
I'll try to keep notes for you so it's a little more organized.
564
00:24:44.413 --> 00:24:45.114
And then...
565
00:24:45.775 --> 00:24:47.056
Damn, let's go.
566
00:24:47.116 --> 00:24:48.978
Actually, can I have the clipboard?
567
00:24:48.998 --> 00:24:49.178
Yeah.
568
00:24:49.198 --> 00:24:50.199
That'd be super helpful.
569
00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:51.921
Let's go, the employee handbook.
570
00:24:52.862 --> 00:24:53.483
My man.
571
00:24:53.503 --> 00:24:54.344
That's the animal.
572
00:24:55.785 --> 00:24:56.806
Oh, that might be sensitive.
573
00:24:56.946 --> 00:24:58.148
Oh, okay, I won't look at that.
574
00:24:58.168 --> 00:24:59.969
This is the employee handbook.
575
00:25:00.490 --> 00:25:00.991
Sweet.
576
00:25:01.231 --> 00:25:02.072
Ah, very good.
577
00:25:02.695 --> 00:25:03.896
Last year I really struggled.
578
00:25:05.657 --> 00:25:07.298
I shy away a lot from conflict.
579
00:25:08.639 --> 00:25:10.300
And I try to avoid it as much as possible.
580
00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:14.042
And this is almost mainly there just to help me.
581
00:25:14.943 --> 00:25:15.983
Have something that can be amenable.
582
00:25:16.003 --> 00:25:16.704
Yeah, exactly.
583
00:25:16.764 --> 00:25:19.866
Because if someone's late and I'm like, hey, can you stop being late?
584
00:25:20.126 --> 00:25:21.547
Like, we really need you here on time.
585
00:25:22.219 --> 00:25:26.322
If I have something to actually back that up, that conversation goes a lot easier for me.
586
00:25:26.722 --> 00:25:28.363
So it's been helpful?
587
00:25:28.763 --> 00:25:28.963
Yeah.
588
00:25:29.023 --> 00:25:30.364
Well, I just implemented it this year.
589
00:25:30.544 --> 00:25:35.267
Because last year we had a late problem with a couple guys.
590
00:25:35.567 --> 00:25:39.470
And again, I don't like conflicts of like, hey, can we stop doing this?
591
00:25:39.570 --> 00:25:40.571
And then they'd be late again.
592
00:25:40.831 --> 00:25:41.851
Hey, can we stop doing this?
593
00:25:42.212 --> 00:25:44.633
And I'm too nice about it too.
594
00:25:44.713 --> 00:25:47.835
So it'll definitely help, I think, this year having something.
595
00:25:47.855 --> 00:25:49.156
And they sign off on it and everything.
596
00:25:49.196 --> 00:25:49.837
Okay, cool.
597
00:25:50.097 --> 00:25:54.542
And so really going into this year, though, you got one person that's been with you since last fall.
598
00:25:54.622 --> 00:25:54.782
Yes.
599
00:25:54.842 --> 00:25:56.864
And then two brand new ones starting next week.
600
00:25:56.944 --> 00:25:57.124
Yep.
601
00:25:57.305 --> 00:25:57.945
There we go.
602
00:25:58.106 --> 00:25:58.906
And you've already hired them.
603
00:25:58.926 --> 00:25:59.507
They're good to go.
604
00:25:59.667 --> 00:25:59.907
Yeah.
605
00:25:59.988 --> 00:26:01.109
What's underneath that is there.
606
00:26:01.129 --> 00:26:02.030
Sorry to interrupt you guys.
607
00:26:02.150 --> 00:26:02.710
One of your mics.
608
00:26:03.291 --> 00:26:03.892
Probably me.
609
00:26:04.152 --> 00:26:05.113
Nope.
610
00:26:06.334 --> 00:26:08.557
It says it's red.
611
00:26:09.262 --> 00:26:10.483
It's the same brand that makes drones.
612
00:26:10.763 --> 00:26:11.083
Yeah.
613
00:26:11.103 --> 00:26:11.924
We just got them.
614
00:26:11.944 --> 00:26:12.964
They're really nice.
615
00:26:12.984 --> 00:26:14.025
TGI mics, man.
616
00:26:14.045 --> 00:26:15.386
What kind of job is he doing today?
617
00:26:15.686 --> 00:26:16.286
Huh?
618
00:26:16.326 --> 00:26:17.387
What job is he doing today?
619
00:26:17.647 --> 00:26:18.268
A mulch install.
620
00:26:18.368 --> 00:26:18.728
Okay, nice.
621
00:26:18.748 --> 00:26:19.909
He's cleaning out.
622
00:26:19.969 --> 00:26:20.829
A bunch of bags.
623
00:26:20.909 --> 00:26:21.930
Yeah, that's good.
624
00:26:21.950 --> 00:26:22.831
How many yards?
625
00:26:24.171 --> 00:26:24.912
Three and a half.
626
00:26:24.932 --> 00:26:25.092
Okay.
627
00:26:25.112 --> 00:26:25.672
So nothing crazy.
628
00:26:25.692 --> 00:26:28.014
Do you kind of keep him busy and you busy during the winter?
629
00:26:28.594 --> 00:26:28.774
No.
630
00:26:28.854 --> 00:26:29.855
So during the winter, he's laid off.
631
00:26:30.035 --> 00:26:30.335
Got it.
632
00:26:30.375 --> 00:26:31.796
Oh, so he just started back up.
633
00:26:31.816 --> 00:26:32.537
He just started this week.
634
00:26:32.697 --> 00:26:32.917
Okay.
635
00:26:32.937 --> 00:26:33.197
Yesterday.
636
00:26:33.357 --> 00:26:33.617
Oh, wow.
637
00:26:33.657 --> 00:26:33.897
Okay, cool.
638
00:26:33.917 --> 00:26:34.298
So, yeah.
639
00:26:34.798 --> 00:26:34.998
Yep.
640
00:26:35.198 --> 00:26:37.580
So during the winter, what's your revenue usually around?
641
00:26:37.780 --> 00:26:37.940
Next.
642
00:26:38.298 --> 00:26:39.479
We don't do anything in the winter.
643
00:26:39.699 --> 00:26:40.279
Okay.
644
00:26:40.719 --> 00:26:45.282
I did shovel driveways this year, and I made like a couple grand, but I'm never doing that again.
645
00:26:45.422 --> 00:26:46.282
I hated shoveling.
646
00:26:46.522 --> 00:26:47.263
Really?
647
00:26:47.503 --> 00:26:54.606
So if I'm going to do snow again, which I'm not opposed to, I just want to make sure I have equipment to do so.
648
00:26:54.967 --> 00:26:55.187
Right.
649
00:26:55.427 --> 00:26:56.627
Right, right.
650
00:26:56.767 --> 00:26:58.268
It's kind of intermittent with snow here, though.
651
00:26:58.748 --> 00:26:58.888
Right?
652
00:26:58.929 --> 00:26:59.709
Yeah, it's a hit or miss.
653
00:26:59.729 --> 00:27:01.290
Like two years ago, we didn't get anything.
654
00:27:01.330 --> 00:27:02.410
Three years ago, we didn't get anything.
655
00:27:02.470 --> 00:27:04.271
Four years ago, we got hit like we did this year.
656
00:27:04.691 --> 00:27:07.693
We had a big storm, and everybody was out for three days, but...
657
00:27:07.993 --> 00:27:09.214
Yeah, it's a hit or miss.
658
00:27:09.254 --> 00:27:12.395
So if I buy something this year, it's kind of a gamble whether or not it's going to work.
659
00:27:12.656 --> 00:27:12.876
Got it.
660
00:27:12.936 --> 00:27:13.156
Okay.
661
00:27:13.696 --> 00:27:13.956
All right.
662
00:27:14.056 --> 00:27:19.119
So from a leads perspective, so when we look at the 4L framework, it's basically just going to help us kind of like organize this stuff.
663
00:27:19.439 --> 00:27:23.461
So liquidity is the first of the L's.
664
00:27:23.781 --> 00:27:27.163
So liquidity, we know like right now, the cash crunch is real.
665
00:27:27.743 --> 00:27:29.885
And so we will address that part in a second.
666
00:27:29.905 --> 00:27:33.727
But from a leads perspective, we know we need to know cost per lead.
667
00:27:35.388 --> 00:27:41.912
we are going to increase conversion of the website using the SM request form,
668
00:27:44.408 --> 00:27:49.331
as well as this part being really focused on what does this do.
669
00:27:49.492 --> 00:27:53.354
When a customer comes here, they want to know, do they serve my area, and do they do my services?
670
00:27:53.414 --> 00:27:53.894
What do we do?
671
00:27:54.015 --> 00:27:54.575
How can we help?
672
00:27:54.895 --> 00:27:56.716
And then immediately getting their info.
673
00:27:56.736 --> 00:27:58.438
Yeah, the first thing, Thrive Lawn Care, great.
674
00:27:58.478 --> 00:27:59.198
I know they do lawn care.
675
00:27:59.819 --> 00:28:02.801
The next question I have a customer has is, do they serve my area?
676
00:28:02.901 --> 00:28:03.521
Yeah.
677
00:28:03.581 --> 00:28:06.183
That's why having Chatham and Springfield there is helpful.
678
00:28:06.323 --> 00:28:06.703
That's true.
679
00:28:06.963 --> 00:28:09.805
They're just trying to validate, like, does this work for me, right?
680
00:28:09.825 --> 00:28:10.366
I do that a lot.
681
00:28:10.386 --> 00:28:13.648
Like, I'm looking at an HVAC company, and they're out of Pleasant Plains or something.
682
00:28:14.108 --> 00:28:15.590
But do they serve my energy?
683
00:28:15.630 --> 00:28:16.271
That makes total sense.
684
00:28:16.491 --> 00:28:16.671
Cool.
685
00:28:16.912 --> 00:28:19.375
So leads, we got to know our cost per lead.
686
00:28:19.415 --> 00:28:22.338
For now, we'll talk to the guy at Google, see if he can't give us that information.
687
00:28:22.478 --> 00:28:27.885
And if not, just ask for a very manual outlay of, okay, give me all the leads that come into your CRM.
688
00:28:27.905 --> 00:28:28.145
Yeah.
689
00:28:28.185 --> 00:28:28.686
Just so I know.
690
00:28:28.766 --> 00:28:29.907
Just any information I can give.
691
00:28:30.099 --> 00:28:30.879
Yep.
692
00:28:30.959 --> 00:28:31.320
Okay, great.
693
00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:32.100
That's leads.
694
00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:43.947
I genuinely believe that after June, if you just hand him and you spend $1,000 on Google Ads yourself, save two grand, you'd probably get more leads.
695
00:28:44.547 --> 00:28:44.767
Right?
696
00:28:45.147 --> 00:28:45.387
Yeah.
697
00:28:45.608 --> 00:28:46.968
And you can then control lead flow.
698
00:28:46.988 --> 00:28:48.989
So when you're crazy booked, you just throttle it back.
699
00:28:49.110 --> 00:28:49.290
Right.
700
00:28:49.310 --> 00:28:51.151
When you need a little more, you can put more on it.
701
00:28:51.471 --> 00:28:51.651
Okay.
702
00:28:51.911 --> 00:28:57.133
But tracking the cost per lead, putting the tracking code behind here, you will figure that out in two hours.
703
00:28:57.153 --> 00:28:57.674
Like, you know what?
704
00:28:57.694 --> 00:29:00.475
If you can build this, you can put a tracking code behind.
705
00:29:00.595 --> 00:29:00.815
Okay.
706
00:29:01.075 --> 00:29:13.280
And what's also cool, if you did the JotForm or some sort of form separately, you could always know, like you could just track, okay, I'm going to send all the traffic to there from Google Ads, you'll know, okay, that form equals I have a converting ad.
707
00:29:13.320 --> 00:29:13.660
Yeah.
708
00:29:13.861 --> 00:29:15.821
So that's what he's doing with the whole subdomain thing.
709
00:29:15.901 --> 00:29:16.762
It's easier to track.
710
00:29:16.782 --> 00:29:16.962
Yeah.
711
00:29:17.522 --> 00:29:18.383
So, cool.
712
00:29:18.824 --> 00:29:19.044
All right.
713
00:29:19.264 --> 00:29:24.169
So from a liquidity perspective right now, what's our labor rate?
714
00:29:24.209 --> 00:29:25.831
Like, what are you trying to charge out in the field?
715
00:29:26.912 --> 00:29:28.374
80 to 90 an hour.
716
00:29:28.514 --> 00:29:28.734
Okay.
717
00:29:28.754 --> 00:29:30.296
So I try to get, it doesn't always happen.
718
00:29:30.716 --> 00:29:33.299
The mowing side usually is hovering around 80.
719
00:29:33.319 --> 00:29:36.362
But again, that depends on things going wrong.
720
00:29:36.583 --> 00:29:38.605
The landscaping side is where we started last year.
721
00:29:39.725 --> 00:29:47.588
I would charge, try to charge between 80 and 100, but some days we'd be getting like 50 or 60, and then some days we'd get 120, and it's just all over the place.
722
00:29:47.688 --> 00:29:48.528
Right.
723
00:29:48.808 --> 00:29:52.569
But yeah, my bare minimum that I wanna hit is like $80 now.
724
00:29:52.629 --> 00:29:52.810
Okay.
725
00:29:54.706 --> 00:29:56.007
okay if we had like seven.
726
00:29:56.227 --> 00:29:56.347
Okay.
727
00:29:56.367 --> 00:29:59.428
All right, do you know what approximately your close ratio is?
728
00:29:59.528 --> 00:30:00.589
Like what percentage?
729
00:30:00.609 --> 00:30:00.849
Too high.
730
00:30:01.209 --> 00:30:01.609
Too high.
731
00:30:01.729 --> 00:30:02.849
Yeah, last year it was too high.
732
00:30:02.869 --> 00:30:03.430
So?
733
00:30:03.510 --> 00:30:04.410
It was like above 50%.
734
00:30:04.650 --> 00:30:06.911
Okay, like 60, 70%?
735
00:30:06.931 --> 00:30:08.452
It was, yeah, around 60.
736
00:30:08.692 --> 00:30:08.972
Okay.
737
00:30:08.992 --> 00:30:10.913
Yeah, I don't think it was above 60, but maybe.
738
00:30:11.853 --> 00:30:13.574
Mid 60s, low 60s.
739
00:30:13.794 --> 00:30:14.015
Okay.
740
00:30:14.395 --> 00:30:20.639
Yeah, like my concern right now is that we have a few employees and yourself working.
741
00:30:21.159 --> 00:30:25.421
And at the revenue market we're currently doing, like we're not actually hitting 80 to 100.
742
00:30:25.942 --> 00:30:30.344
We're significantly lower, but we really want to track that so we know.
743
00:30:30.825 --> 00:30:32.746
Also to be able to track the efficiency of the crew.
744
00:30:32.986 --> 00:30:34.868
Yeah, that's another thing I need to work on this year.
745
00:30:34.928 --> 00:30:41.052
So, like, I know, like, pay for performance is not really in the cards yet, because I'm assuming you don't use budget hours for every job, etc.
746
00:30:41.072 --> 00:30:43.154
And it's a little harder to track than a jobber.
747
00:30:43.494 --> 00:30:50.620
So, what you could do, though, is just track how much do you pay someone per day in wages, and then how much do they earn in revenue per day.
748
00:30:50.820 --> 00:30:53.762
Yeah, how much do I need to be making to make this certain labor revenue.
749
00:30:53.883 --> 00:30:57.665
So, for example, if we take, on, like, the labor side, if we just start tracking...
750
00:30:58.802 --> 00:30:59.582
labor efficiency.
751
00:30:59.682 --> 00:31:05.044
And how we're gonna track labor efficiency is simply, I shouldn't see, is going to be wages paid.
752
00:31:05.584 --> 00:31:09.985
So that could be, let's just call them 20 bucks an hour, that kind of average.
753
00:31:10.245 --> 00:31:13.646
So 20 bucks an hour, we had eight hours worth of work, $160.
754
00:31:14.266 --> 00:31:17.667
Divided by, okay, what was, what we earned for that day.
755
00:31:17.807 --> 00:31:18.828
Okay, I earned $1,000.
756
00:31:18.848 --> 00:31:20.668
Well it's 180 divided by 1,000, that's .18, 18%, good.
757
00:31:20.708 --> 00:31:21.828
We want that number under 40%.
758
00:31:21.848 --> 00:31:22.029
Yeah.
759
00:31:27.772 --> 00:31:40.964
So last year, just to give, you probably already maybe have crunched these numbers, but on my P&L, my labor to revenue, if I wasn't in the, so this obviously, this doesn't include me, the labor and payroll.
760
00:31:41.064 --> 00:31:41.304
Right.
761
00:31:41.965 --> 00:31:43.226
I'm going to interrupt real fast.
762
00:31:43.246 --> 00:31:43.326
Yep.
763
00:31:43.346 --> 00:31:45.048
I'm just going to set this here as a recording.
764
00:31:45.188 --> 00:31:45.288
Yep.
765
00:31:45.308 --> 00:31:47.210
Here, go ahead and put this right here.
766
00:31:47.430 --> 00:31:47.610
Sorry.
767
00:31:47.710 --> 00:31:49.412
So that way, as you guys are talking, we at least get.
768
00:31:50.272 --> 00:31:51.533
So, um...
769
00:31:52.394 --> 00:31:58.757
If I wasn't in the equation, if it was just the payroll I paid out, it was like under 30%, which was great.
770
00:31:58.817 --> 00:32:01.218
But I was in the field every day working 50 hours a week.
771
00:32:01.258 --> 00:32:09.382
So if I put myself in that situation, in that equation, as if I was an employee, it jumped up to like 43%, if that makes any sense.
772
00:32:09.402 --> 00:32:09.843
Yeah, totally.
773
00:32:10.143 --> 00:32:13.204
And what you can do, because you have the two trucks, is track it by the crew.
774
00:32:13.444 --> 00:32:13.565
Okay.
775
00:32:13.625 --> 00:32:20.308
Because what I would guess is that you are like crazy efficient, and your other crew is just falling behind a bit.
776
00:32:20.348 --> 00:32:20.588
Yeah, yeah.
777
00:32:20.668 --> 00:32:23.570
But just knowing what that is and actually having a metric.
778
00:32:23.610 --> 00:32:25.251
Instead of just being like, I kind of feel like they're...
779
00:32:25.291 --> 00:32:28.914
It's also why it's tough to hold people accountable is when you're not tracking the numbers.
780
00:32:28.934 --> 00:32:34.197
Because you don't want to throw someone under the bus if they're trying, but you just take them wrong.
781
00:32:34.537 --> 00:32:36.018
But the numbers don't lie.
782
00:32:36.339 --> 00:32:47.386
If one crew is at 60% of revenue going to wages and the other one's at 25%, we have a training or an efficiency problem or work ethic problem, right?
783
00:32:47.867 --> 00:32:48.327
And so...
784
00:32:49.127 --> 00:32:53.669
Even if you didn't pay, I would say down the road you'd want to incentivize this.
785
00:32:53.969 --> 00:32:54.149
Right.
786
00:32:54.169 --> 00:32:55.150
Because we can have...
787
00:32:55.210 --> 00:32:56.750
I was just talking to Brad about this morning.
788
00:32:56.790 --> 00:33:03.473
I was like, the more we grow and the more money we make by your efficiency, I want you to win from that.
789
00:33:03.853 --> 00:33:05.574
I just don't know how to implement that quite yet.
790
00:33:05.654 --> 00:33:07.215
I don't know if we have time to do it yet.
791
00:33:07.615 --> 00:33:10.676
Yeah, like, ultimately, pay for performance is nice for that.
792
00:33:10.996 --> 00:33:16.397
I think the simpler model is like, let's just track for now what percentage of labor revenue is going out in wages.
793
00:33:16.417 --> 00:33:20.737
And then down the road, you could be like, hey, guys, if you beat 30%, you get some sort of a bonus.
794
00:33:20.777 --> 00:33:21.437
Yeah, for sure.
795
00:33:21.577 --> 00:33:22.198
Right?
796
00:33:22.538 --> 00:33:23.918
And so just tracking that would be helpful.
797
00:33:23.938 --> 00:33:30.159
Because right now, you can really easily know how long they work today, multiply that by their hourly rate, boom, there's their wages.
798
00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:36.320
And then look at job room, OK, add up all the jobs they did for the day or the one project, boom, there's that revenue marker.
799
00:33:36.640 --> 00:33:40.221
Now remember it's labor revenue, so if they have like mulch jobs, they're gonna have to take the materials out.
800
00:33:40.241 --> 00:33:41.161
Right, yeah.
801
00:33:41.461 --> 00:33:42.742
Even if it's an approximation though.
802
00:33:42.762 --> 00:33:44.642
Yeah, now I think of it, yeah.
803
00:33:44.842 --> 00:33:47.123
Our landscaping side probably really sucked last year.
804
00:33:47.143 --> 00:33:47.603
Really?
805
00:33:47.723 --> 00:33:53.565
Yeah, because a lot of like, I'd look at our revenue and I wasn't even calculating the materials on it for some of the jobs.
806
00:33:54.095 --> 00:33:56.416
In my head through the day, I was like, okay, this is how much we made hourly.
807
00:33:56.436 --> 00:33:57.436
We paid this much materials.
808
00:33:57.456 --> 00:34:00.777
But looking back on the month, I definitely wasn't doing so.
809
00:34:00.897 --> 00:34:01.157
Okay.
810
00:34:01.577 --> 00:34:04.717
So from a labor perspective, the goal is track labor efficiency.
811
00:34:05.398 --> 00:34:10.819
Our kind of equations are going to be wages paid that day divided by labor revenue.
812
00:34:11.219 --> 00:34:14.520
It's going to take you like a minute, maybe two minutes per employee per day.
813
00:34:14.900 --> 00:34:15.980
Wages is 10 minutes a day.
814
00:34:16.200 --> 00:34:16.860
It kind of stinks.
815
00:34:16.900 --> 00:34:19.501
But if you do that every day and over the course of time...
816
00:34:19.821 --> 00:34:20.121
Sorry.
817
00:34:20.501 --> 00:34:27.584
be able to kind of see like what is the trajectory for each employee, the crew, and then just have better confidence when it comes to budgeting.
818
00:34:27.624 --> 00:34:30.885
Because like right now, like man, we're spending so much in ads.
819
00:34:31.385 --> 00:34:32.926
I want to can this guy so fast.
820
00:34:33.746 --> 00:34:35.067
Whoa, whoops.
821
00:34:36.588 --> 00:34:38.328
What's the likelihood of getting out of the contract?
822
00:34:40.109 --> 00:34:40.609
I don't know.
823
00:34:41.229 --> 00:34:42.670
It's hard to because I'm a pushover.
824
00:34:42.690 --> 00:34:43.530
I know, I know.
825
00:34:45.260 --> 00:34:46.841
I could probably make it happen.
826
00:34:47.341 --> 00:34:48.982
I would just feel terrible, I guess.
827
00:34:49.082 --> 00:34:52.704
But logistically, it just doesn't make sense to stay in the thing.
828
00:34:53.785 --> 00:34:54.806
I could probably make it happen.
829
00:34:55.166 --> 00:34:56.186
I signed a contract.
830
00:34:56.707 --> 00:34:57.507
He's a good guy, though.
831
00:34:57.707 --> 00:34:58.808
He might be able to make something happen.
832
00:34:59.458 --> 00:35:01.480
I would come from the angle of, I can't afford this.
833
00:35:01.941 --> 00:35:02.181
Yeah.
834
00:35:02.481 --> 00:35:10.410
Like, right now, we are spending way too much of our revenue on it, and I genuinely believe if you spend $1,000, you'd get the same results, if not better.
835
00:35:10.950 --> 00:35:13.373
And then the other $2,000, like, we need it in our pocket.
836
00:35:13.833 --> 00:35:13.933
Okay.
837
00:35:13.953 --> 00:35:14.614
We just don't have the cash.
838
00:35:14.634 --> 00:35:16.596
Like, you could just be really straight and honest with them.
839
00:35:16.616 --> 00:35:18.578
Like, I don't have one month's worth of advertising.
840
00:35:18.598 --> 00:35:18.738
Right.
841
00:35:19.183 --> 00:35:20.165
That's what I told them last week.
842
00:35:20.185 --> 00:35:22.589
We had our phone call for the year to get things ready.
843
00:35:22.629 --> 00:35:25.193
And we were supposed to start this week.
844
00:35:25.433 --> 00:35:25.673
Yeah.
845
00:35:25.714 --> 00:35:27.336
But I was like, I just don't have the money.
846
00:35:27.516 --> 00:35:28.799
I got to re-register my trucks.
847
00:35:28.879 --> 00:35:30.020
I got to pay my CPA.
848
00:35:30.621 --> 00:35:32.164
I don't have the money to do ads right now.
849
00:35:32.344 --> 00:35:32.765
And I'm like,
850
00:35:33.212 --> 00:35:59.063
banking on the fact that we'll have money in two weeks to be able to pay him what yeah if we can get out of that contract that'd be huge okay because we're it's not just a thousand dollars of basically straight off to him right it's the two thousand dollars in absent i don't see any return i'm just not seeing it yeah we were doing good actually on our on our facebook ads when i was managing those we had a ton of leads the problem was a lot of them were low quality leads right
851
00:36:00.230 --> 00:36:08.133
But yeah, I think that's doable.
852
00:36:08.433 --> 00:36:09.514
Then that makes a lot of sense.
853
00:36:09.554 --> 00:36:12.895
Like that would literally be an extra two grand in my pocket at the end of the month.
854
00:36:13.035 --> 00:36:17.336
And that's assuming we still spend a thousand dollars on things that you know work, right?
855
00:36:17.516 --> 00:36:18.537
The Facebook ads, for example.
856
00:36:18.557 --> 00:36:22.118
My ROI could be higher and I could be making more money too.
857
00:36:22.298 --> 00:36:28.463
And for example, if someone says, hey, I'm getting a ton of leads from Facebook, but they're low, low quality, it's like, great, let's just add constraint to the ad.
858
00:36:28.823 --> 00:36:41.672
So instead of just saying, like, get free lawn care, which is going to have tons of leads, but low quality, I'm going to put something like, hey, minimum starts at $49 or something like that, that's going to immediately guess, reduce the amount of leads I get, but increase the quality of them.
859
00:36:41.692 --> 00:36:42.673
Yeah, that's a good idea.
860
00:36:42.713 --> 00:36:42.933
Right?
861
00:36:43.233 --> 00:36:48.097
So we're going to get out of the contract, get out of the Google contract, um, and,
862
00:36:48.597 --> 00:36:54.724
The guy's probably really nice, and I think it's a matter of just because someone doesn't do a great job does not mean they're not nice.
863
00:36:55.645 --> 00:37:09.760
These things can coexist, but I think it's a matter of we are spending way too much for what we're getting, and the fact that he's not giving us our cost per lead, we're not getting any sort of tracking around it, means we are literally...
864
00:37:10.641 --> 00:37:38.067
throwing money and just coping and praying and i got the bad strategy okay okay let's try to get out of that okay um and even if you have to say like hey i'll give you next month or something like that to get out of the next because basically we're going to try to save nine grand yeah um over the next three four months if we can do that take control back of your ads i feel like the time you're spending on just those calls if you could just take one day before spring rush starts like even if it's this week yeah and watch videos on google ads and you already know facebook ads but
865
00:37:41.289 --> 00:37:41.989
you'll do better.
866
00:37:43.170 --> 00:37:45.552
And especially once you fix the site's conversion stuff.
867
00:37:45.792 --> 00:37:49.254
Doing that could immediately put you above him in terms of conversion.
868
00:37:49.675 --> 00:37:50.956
And number of leads coming in.
869
00:37:50.976 --> 00:37:54.498
Even if I didn't do any ads, just the website alone.
870
00:37:54.518 --> 00:37:58.501
Because you already have traffic, you can see that traffic coming in, and it's not coming from his ads.
871
00:37:58.861 --> 00:38:00.563
Because he's going to a different subdomain.
872
00:38:01.023 --> 00:38:08.508
And so if you can just increase the conversion, you might actually not spend money on ads, but because you doubled the conversion, get just as many leads.
873
00:38:09.289 --> 00:38:09.489
Right?
874
00:38:09.509 --> 00:38:10.470
Okay, cool.
875
00:38:10.490 --> 00:38:13.834
Okay, so liquidity goal is get out of Google on a track.
876
00:38:14.515 --> 00:38:14.655
Okay.
877
00:38:14.735 --> 00:38:18.679
I think we can do that if you wanted to pay them for one month or like behind.
878
00:38:18.700 --> 00:38:22.384
But like I think this is also a time like we got to put our foot down sometimes as a business owner.
879
00:38:22.404 --> 00:38:23.565
Like this is what's right for the business.
880
00:38:23.585 --> 00:38:24.005
Yeah.
881
00:38:24.025 --> 00:38:28.631
And just take like the fact that like we got to provide for the family and like we currently can't.
882
00:38:28.831 --> 00:38:28.991
Yeah.
883
00:38:29.191 --> 00:38:34.636
And so sometimes just taking that angle of someone that is reasonable, it's like, hey, I can't afford this.
884
00:38:35.136 --> 00:38:36.598
And maybe I'll come back to you in the future.
885
00:38:36.638 --> 00:38:37.378
I would love to.
886
00:38:37.398 --> 00:38:39.160
And if we can end this on good terms, great.
887
00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:42.283
Like, right now, I cannot afford this contract.
888
00:38:42.943 --> 00:38:44.144
And it's going to put me out of business.
889
00:38:44.485 --> 00:38:46.567
Like, it seems, like, fatalistic.
890
00:38:46.627 --> 00:38:47.868
But, like, be true.
891
00:38:48.008 --> 00:38:48.969
Like, we're being honest.
892
00:38:48.989 --> 00:38:49.169
Right.
893
00:38:49.309 --> 00:38:50.570
Yeah, no, you're right.
894
00:38:51.510 --> 00:38:57.654
And I really believe that with the conversion of the site and then you taking over the ads, saving two or three grand right now is really important.
895
00:38:57.914 --> 00:39:02.737
So, because during Spring Rush, we're probably doing what, like 15,000, 20,000 a month in revenue?
896
00:39:03.557 --> 00:39:05.118
Last year during Spring Rush,
897
00:39:05.772 --> 00:39:06.333
Actually, probably more.
898
00:39:06.353 --> 00:39:07.313
Probably more like $25,000.
899
00:39:07.353 --> 00:39:08.494
Yeah, $25,000, $30,000.
900
00:39:08.574 --> 00:39:10.816
Our highest was like $35,000 last year.
901
00:39:10.936 --> 00:39:11.957
Yeah.
902
00:39:11.977 --> 00:39:14.259
So we just do not want that money going there.
903
00:39:14.319 --> 00:39:14.719
You're right.
904
00:39:14.839 --> 00:39:16.600
So, cool.
905
00:39:16.701 --> 00:39:18.002
So we got labor.
906
00:39:18.042 --> 00:39:19.643
We're trying to track the labor efficiency.
907
00:39:21.404 --> 00:39:26.747
When it comes to you feeling a bit of a pushover from the employee's perspective, is that when they make mistakes?
908
00:39:26.847 --> 00:39:27.807
Is it when they don't show up?
909
00:39:28.247 --> 00:39:32.389
What are the parts where you know you're being steamrolled or just letting things slide?
910
00:39:32.789 --> 00:39:34.610
So I don't let quality slide.
911
00:39:35.090 --> 00:39:38.972
I try not to micromanage, but I feel like I'm pretty gracious with mistakes.
912
00:39:39.552 --> 00:39:42.974
I had someone total a truck last year, and I wasn't mad.
913
00:39:42.994 --> 00:39:43.614
Mistakes happen.
914
00:39:44.054 --> 00:39:44.615
Things happen.
915
00:39:46.215 --> 00:39:49.317
If we miss a spot trimming, mistakes happen, just try to do better.
916
00:39:49.897 --> 00:39:54.742
It's like things, again, like things that I can enforce, but I didn't have in place to enforce.
917
00:39:55.183 --> 00:40:02.991
Like being late or not wearing a company t-shirt or, you know, things that I can enforce, but I couldn't.
918
00:40:03.191 --> 00:40:05.173
Because like, to me, it's common sense.
919
00:40:05.633 --> 00:40:06.935
To them, it may not be.
920
00:40:07.275 --> 00:40:07.615
Yeah.
921
00:40:08.612 --> 00:40:11.773
So I think being a pushover in terms of what I can actually enforce.
922
00:40:12.073 --> 00:40:14.494
And even this year, like, I think that employment handbook is going to help.
923
00:40:15.034 --> 00:40:19.755
But because I can be a pushover, I am afraid I'm going to be afraid to reference that.
924
00:40:19.915 --> 00:40:20.155
Right.
925
00:40:20.295 --> 00:40:21.836
Just because I don't want to cause contention.
926
00:40:22.096 --> 00:40:22.236
Yeah.
927
00:40:22.296 --> 00:40:23.036
I just want to be liked.
928
00:40:23.496 --> 00:40:24.236
Yeah.
929
00:40:24.296 --> 00:40:26.717
It's a bad thing, but that's, yeah.
930
00:40:27.097 --> 00:40:32.139
Like how I got over this part, because like when I first started, every single person in the company was older than me.
931
00:40:32.419 --> 00:40:35.320
So it was very intimidating because I was 18, 19.
932
00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:37.581
Not a single person was younger than me until I was 22.
933
00:40:38.081 --> 00:40:41.582
And so it was like, I am going to take away from someone who has a family.
934
00:40:41.622 --> 00:40:42.803
I'm going to take away their job.
935
00:40:42.823 --> 00:40:48.365
This is like very daunting and I'm going to let things slide because I don't want to have to address the firing thing.
936
00:40:49.105 --> 00:40:57.357
And so, and that changed after someone sued me, after I tried to nicely let them go, and then they said it was because I was doing it based upon them getting injured.
937
00:40:57.918 --> 00:40:58.158
Oh my gosh.
938
00:40:58.458 --> 00:41:04.146
I was trying to graciously allow them to like, get out with their dignity from the team, and they came around and sued me.
939
00:41:04.760 --> 00:41:09.442
From then on, it's like, all right, so this is the book, and if they do something wrong, you're out, and I'm not giving you a reason why.
940
00:41:10.202 --> 00:41:17.585
And so that seems harsh, but it'll take you getting burnt one time, to where, and right now the business can't afford to have to be burnt.
941
00:41:17.886 --> 00:41:18.626
And that's where I was at.
942
00:41:18.646 --> 00:41:24.889
So I had to go take a loan out to cover a lawsuit that was completely frivolous and made up.
943
00:41:25.469 --> 00:41:28.450
But we can't do that right now.
944
00:41:28.470 --> 00:41:29.391
Yeah, you're right.
945
00:41:29.871 --> 00:41:32.452
Last year I had the guy who actually totaled
946
00:41:35.047 --> 00:41:36.730
So I should have been mad at him for it, but I wasn't.
947
00:41:36.750 --> 00:41:41.577
And like, um, there, I should have fired him a long time ago too.
948
00:41:41.678 --> 00:41:43.801
Everyone around me, I told everyone about this employee.
949
00:41:44.201 --> 00:41:46.425
Everyone's like, you need to fire him right now, but I'm,
950
00:41:46.953 --> 00:41:48.634
Prior to the, prior to the.
951
00:41:48.734 --> 00:41:48.954
Yeah.
952
00:41:49.754 --> 00:41:52.916
And I just have a hard time kind of mixing like personal.
953
00:41:52.956 --> 00:41:53.896
Is everyone your wife?
954
00:41:54.837 --> 00:41:58.318
Okay, so we need to listen to your wife on all HR related things.
955
00:41:58.338 --> 00:42:03.381
She was like, as soon as I hired him, cause she, now she's like, I need to be involved in every interview.
956
00:42:03.401 --> 00:42:03.781
Very good.
957
00:42:03.801 --> 00:42:04.761
She wasn't in this one.
958
00:42:04.781 --> 00:42:05.022
Good.
959
00:42:05.402 --> 00:42:09.964
And yeah, so she was telling me from the get go, like, I don't like this guy, he shouldn't be here.
960
00:42:10.064 --> 00:42:10.884
Yeah.
961
00:42:11.545 --> 00:42:11.705
And,
962
00:42:12.570 --> 00:42:13.490
You're just optimistic.
963
00:42:13.550 --> 00:42:14.911
You want everyone to do well.
964
00:42:14.931 --> 00:42:15.911
I want this kid to do better.
965
00:42:15.931 --> 00:42:20.352
I saw myself in him when I was 18 years old, and that was a bad mistake.
966
00:42:21.472 --> 00:42:23.473
So is she involved in the hiring process now?
967
00:42:23.533 --> 00:42:23.693
Yeah.
968
00:42:23.993 --> 00:42:27.533
And then does she meet with them throughout the day or talk to them throughout the day?
969
00:42:28.174 --> 00:42:29.094
Occasionally, yeah.
970
00:42:29.114 --> 00:42:30.174
She'll come out.
971
00:42:30.434 --> 00:42:33.535
She'll be outside, and they'll say hi to each other, recap the day or something.
972
00:42:34.516 --> 00:42:41.004
But mainly it's like interviews and then if I face any conflicts with the guys, she's heavily involved in that.
973
00:42:41.044 --> 00:42:41.705
Yeah.
974
00:42:42.105 --> 00:42:46.891
Last year there was a conflict between two guys and she handled most of it.
975
00:42:47.271 --> 00:42:48.253
I don't know what to do.
976
00:42:48.453 --> 00:42:48.733
Okay.
977
00:42:48.833 --> 00:42:49.054
Like...
978
00:42:49.554 --> 00:42:50.654
So, yeah, she stepped in.
979
00:42:50.775 --> 00:42:54.576
So in the morning, if the crew needs to call out, do they contact you or do they contact her?
980
00:42:54.856 --> 00:42:55.816
Okay.
981
00:42:56.137 --> 00:43:01.579
And does she want to be more involved in that area or we're trying to kind of keep her where she doesn't have to be involved in the business?
982
00:43:02.079 --> 00:43:03.179
More so the latter.
983
00:43:03.239 --> 00:43:03.879
Okay, okay.
984
00:43:04.219 --> 00:43:06.961
It's mostly like you know this is a weakness and it's a strength of hers.
985
00:43:06.981 --> 00:43:07.481
100%.
986
00:43:07.541 --> 00:43:07.841
Got it.
987
00:43:08.241 --> 00:43:08.481
Okay.
988
00:43:08.661 --> 00:43:09.862
I want her to focus on the kids.
989
00:43:09.882 --> 00:43:10.842
Like that's, you know.
990
00:43:11.182 --> 00:43:12.524
Not to just say, hold on, I love that.
991
00:43:13.645 --> 00:43:18.830
But, yeah, my weakness is the people and putting my foot down, and she's good at that.
992
00:43:19.290 --> 00:43:24.255
And if you can even spend 10% of her time doing that, it'll save you, like, half your day.
993
00:43:24.416 --> 00:43:24.596
Yeah.
994
00:43:24.896 --> 00:43:27.679
Because it's a huge leverage point once you start having employees.
995
00:43:28.039 --> 00:43:30.882
So, like, one thing I would consider is...
996
00:43:31.783 --> 00:43:42.767
having her being tasked with creating a bench, which means there's a backup person that's hired, ready to go, that is like, not hired, I shouldn't say that, but like, they're a good applicant and you're ready to hire them.
997
00:43:43.207 --> 00:43:47.469
Because if you have that person, you'll have more confidence to go pull the trigger on someone when you know they need to.
998
00:43:47.709 --> 00:43:52.090
Instead of like, well, we kinda need them, we're in the middle of spring rush, who else is gonna be able to do it?
999
00:43:52.570 --> 00:43:59.213
And so if her jam is hiring people, interviewing them, sniffing out people in terms of like, are they a good fit?
1000
00:43:59.873 --> 00:44:00.914
Okay, we need two employees.
1001
00:44:01.094 --> 00:44:07.099
Great, but we're going to have another one that's like, we tell them, we tell them when they, okay, we don't have a certain start date, we're always looking for great people.
1002
00:44:07.139 --> 00:44:07.339
Yeah.
1003
00:44:07.739 --> 00:44:14.704
And then they pass the interview process, and then she tells you, hey, I got someone, they're really good, we're not going to offer them a job, but just so you know.
1004
00:44:14.885 --> 00:44:19.008
That way if there's someone that does something stupid today, you're going to pull the trigger a lot faster.
1005
00:44:19.028 --> 00:44:21.289
Because I'm not afraid of losing someone good.
1006
00:44:21.450 --> 00:44:22.010
Exactly.
1007
00:44:22.030 --> 00:44:22.430
Okay.
1008
00:44:22.631 --> 00:44:22.811
So.
1009
00:44:23.211 --> 00:44:26.373
If you guys want to open that window too, if you want, I know it's a little bit warm in here.
1010
00:44:26.694 --> 00:44:26.914
Go ahead.
1011
00:44:26.994 --> 00:44:28.355
It might be a little too windy.
1012
00:44:28.795 --> 00:44:29.796
I'm fine.
1013
00:44:29.856 --> 00:44:30.136
I'm fine.
1014
00:44:30.156 --> 00:44:30.757
I'm fine.
1015
00:44:31.357 --> 00:44:34.159
Okay, so on the labor part, I'm gonna put create a bench.
1016
00:44:34.179 --> 00:44:34.719
Okay.
1017
00:44:35.180 --> 00:44:43.286
And that's basically, we need someone on the bench that gives you the confidence of the coach to pull players knowing that there's someone else to step in.
1018
00:44:44.206 --> 00:44:48.188
And then you're not going to be involved in creating the bench because that's not our strength.
1019
00:44:48.888 --> 00:44:51.329
Your strength is selling and dealing with the team out in the field.
1020
00:44:51.449 --> 00:44:53.850
So I would say technically it's like sales and operations.
1021
00:44:54.010 --> 00:44:54.571
That's kind of you.
1022
00:44:55.451 --> 00:45:02.894
But if you know your weakness is sniffing people out, being a little bit more skeptical of them, et cetera, let her handle all that.
1023
00:45:03.354 --> 00:45:06.456
And she only says, I have someone on the bench or I do not have someone on the bench.
1024
00:45:06.816 --> 00:45:11.198
Then when you're out in the field and someone doesn't show up for two days, you're immediately pulling their card and you have someone else to step in.
1025
00:45:11.578 --> 00:45:12.679
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
1026
00:45:12.699 --> 00:45:15.182
But right now you're putting up with it because like, we're busy.
1027
00:45:15.442 --> 00:45:17.264
Yeah, and we'll have the time to find someone else.
1028
00:45:17.405 --> 00:45:20.728
Yeah, and now you have the benchmarks as to why their card would have got pulled.
1029
00:45:21.008 --> 00:45:21.849
Okay.
1030
00:45:22.090 --> 00:45:24.252
In the handbook, it says if you were late, this happens.
1031
00:45:24.572 --> 00:45:28.797
And now you're going to actually have the kahunas to go do it because it says it and they signed it.
1032
00:45:28.817 --> 00:45:29.438
Yeah, right.
1033
00:45:29.638 --> 00:45:29.898
Right?
1034
00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:31.600
And there's someone to back them up.
1035
00:45:31.860 --> 00:45:32.061
Right.
1036
00:45:32.421 --> 00:45:33.042
I think that's a good idea.
1037
00:45:33.522 --> 00:45:34.684
Okay.
1038
00:45:35.304 --> 00:45:39.670
From a leadership perspective, I think it kind of ties into that.
1039
00:45:40.451 --> 00:45:46.538
And that's just a matter of having the organization of the employee handbook for you to lean back on is helpful.
1040
00:45:47.159 --> 00:45:50.082
I'm assuming you have meetings with the guys each morning, etc.
1041
00:45:52.325 --> 00:46:00.709
I think a lot of this will just come down to confidence as you build the business and then not being taken advantage of from the employee's perspective.
1042
00:46:01.790 --> 00:46:04.571
There needs to be some whip cracking in terms of efficiency.
1043
00:46:05.152 --> 00:46:11.075
Because when we look at three employees and the revenue, and you're hauling probably half the revenue.
1044
00:46:11.776 --> 00:46:20.501
So when I look at the numbers, I'm actually saying, okay, if $198 was our revenue, you working 50 hours a week, I bet you made over $100,000 of that with your revenue.
1045
00:46:21.241 --> 00:46:25.144
And so then when... $100,000 left for two or three guys, which is kind of insane.
1046
00:46:25.304 --> 00:46:25.644
Right.
1047
00:46:25.944 --> 00:46:36.090
And so this is where actually my brain goes, is I actually think you would have, last year, made more money, you being solo, not doing any advertising, not worrying about any leads, and just doing the work yourself.
1048
00:46:36.230 --> 00:46:36.350
Right.
1049
00:46:37.086 --> 00:46:37.507
You're right.
1050
00:46:37.527 --> 00:46:41.196
I have a buddy who owns a lawn care company in Auburn where we used to live.
1051
00:46:43.113 --> 00:46:46.934
He did more than me last year, and it was just him and a part-time guy.
1052
00:46:47.174 --> 00:46:48.255
And he doesn't spend any on ads.
1053
00:46:48.415 --> 00:46:51.876
Because what's happening is 20, 30% of your day is being spent managing a crew.
1054
00:46:52.416 --> 00:46:55.217
And doing more sales is required to fill their schedule.
1055
00:46:55.617 --> 00:47:00.638
So you're doing all the work, advertising, and overhead required to fill work that is unprofitable.
1056
00:47:00.978 --> 00:47:06.380
Versus if you did just less revenue, but all of it was doing you super profitable.
1057
00:47:06.680 --> 00:47:08.961
If you did once, I bet you could do 140 to 150 by yourself.
1058
00:47:10.295 --> 00:47:10.735
Yeah, for sure.
1059
00:47:10.895 --> 00:47:13.157
Because you're probably doing 110, 120 by yourself now.
1060
00:47:13.537 --> 00:47:18.840
But if you didn't have to deal with the team, you could probably do the work yourself and be more efficient.
1061
00:47:19.500 --> 00:47:20.721
And then you wouldn't have to spend money on ads.
1062
00:47:20.761 --> 00:47:21.702
You'd be like, forget that.
1063
00:47:21.722 --> 00:47:24.523
I'll just fix my website because it's free to make that change.
1064
00:47:24.804 --> 00:47:25.664
Forget advertising.
1065
00:47:25.684 --> 00:47:27.545
I have enough leads coming in as is.
1066
00:47:28.065 --> 00:47:37.651
I just, I don't want to be like, that makes, I really want to make this business to where like, if I break a leg, my sole income isn't gone.
1067
00:47:38.231 --> 00:47:38.592
So like,
1068
00:47:39.495 --> 00:47:53.144
I guess I would almost take this over me making $150,000 just because I have a bit of security knowing I won't lose all my money if I get injured or if I have to stay home with my wife for a couple weeks to take care of the kid or whatever.
1069
00:47:53.724 --> 00:47:54.605
So I agree with you.
1070
00:47:55.125 --> 00:47:56.646
The counterpoint to that is this.
1071
00:47:56.826 --> 00:48:01.829
Right now, if you got injured, you're still making up half the revenue, and now the business would lose $50,000 to $60,000 a year.
1072
00:48:03.050 --> 00:48:05.331
Because you have employees that are inefficient.
1073
00:48:05.431 --> 00:48:08.632
And or pricing that's not high enough, the estimates weren't exactly accurate.
1074
00:48:08.652 --> 00:48:09.513
So there's two options.
1075
00:48:09.733 --> 00:48:15.956
One, do we go the very conservative route, which is literally the next year we do 150 in revenue, but you're 50% profitable.
1076
00:48:16.956 --> 00:48:17.716
That's conservative.
1077
00:48:18.157 --> 00:48:22.178
Or we do what we've been talking about, which is let's juice up the website.
1078
00:48:22.538 --> 00:48:25.240
Let's cut back on frivolous marketing stuff.
1079
00:48:25.620 --> 00:48:27.040
Be a better leader to the crew.
1080
00:48:27.100 --> 00:48:27.901
Hold them accountable.
1081
00:48:27.961 --> 00:48:29.201
Track our labor efficiency.
1082
00:48:29.421 --> 00:48:31.122
Make sure that they're actually making money for us.
1083
00:48:31.482 --> 00:48:32.683
If they're not making money, they need to go.
1084
00:48:33.703 --> 00:48:38.265
And as much as we want to help them in their future life, if they're not making money, we need to fire them.
1085
00:48:38.305 --> 00:48:39.985
Yeah, it doesn't make sense, it's not a business.
1086
00:48:40.706 --> 00:48:41.146
Yeah.
1087
00:48:41.306 --> 00:48:45.947
Literally a couple days ago I was talking to Anna and I was like, what if I just fire everybody this year?
1088
00:48:46.127 --> 00:48:47.988
And the more I thought about it...
1089
00:48:48.008 --> 00:48:48.988
Thinking dark thoughts.
1090
00:48:49.048 --> 00:48:56.231
Yeah, well like the money style, I was like, this could be nice, but yeah, it's not just what I want to do long term.
1091
00:48:56.491 --> 00:48:59.752
So definitely doing the latter and making sure those things are set up.
1092
00:49:01.376 --> 00:49:04.077
What if, what if, you did it for one year?
1093
00:49:04.757 --> 00:49:09.660
And then you got your prices up to where they need to be at and got like, so for example, how many mowing customers do you have now?
1094
00:49:10.100 --> 00:49:10.960
Whew, that's tough to lose.
1095
00:49:11.400 --> 00:49:26.547
But this is the thing, we would have to do no more sales, you do 74 mowing customers, you make $15,000 a month, it'd be like 50% profit, and then what I'd be really pushing is how do we convert those people into winter services so we can keep revenue throughout the winter?
1096
00:49:27.347 --> 00:49:28.330
Yeah, I don't know.
1097
00:49:28.470 --> 00:49:30.415
I feel like I would just be taking a step back.
1098
00:49:30.616 --> 00:49:31.238
Yeah.
1099
00:49:31.298 --> 00:49:32.040
Oh, you would be.
1100
00:49:32.060 --> 00:49:32.922
You would be for a year.
1101
00:49:32.942 --> 00:49:35.750
I think that's what I...
1102
00:49:36.638 --> 00:49:43.062
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I can do that this year with my current setup and just nixing out my unnecessary expenses.
1103
00:49:43.383 --> 00:49:50.808
Like you said, becoming a better leader and just strengthening what I have instead of ripping out and starting over.
1104
00:49:51.128 --> 00:49:52.549
What if you had just one employee?
1105
00:49:53.069 --> 00:49:55.271
Because I feel like you're having three employees right now.
1106
00:49:56.371 --> 00:49:58.173
If you're going to shoot for 350, I'm going to shoot for 350.
1107
00:49:59.150 --> 00:50:00.392
We could probably make it work.
1108
00:50:01.032 --> 00:50:01.994
It's very doable.
1109
00:50:02.014 --> 00:50:03.996
We have quite a bit of work lined up for April.
1110
00:50:04.056 --> 00:50:04.737
Okay, cool.
1111
00:50:05.058 --> 00:50:06.259
So what I would say is this.
1112
00:50:07.162 --> 00:50:09.043
You have the two employees, you're pretty confident on them?
1113
00:50:09.604 --> 00:50:09.764
Yeah.
1114
00:50:09.944 --> 00:50:10.884
Has Anna sniffed them out?
1115
00:50:11.145 --> 00:50:11.305
Yes.
1116
00:50:11.565 --> 00:50:11.945
Let's go?
1117
00:50:12.045 --> 00:50:12.185
Yeah.
1118
00:50:12.365 --> 00:50:12.725
Good.
1119
00:50:12.906 --> 00:50:15.547
So, you know, we're getting into training, et cetera.
1120
00:50:15.988 --> 00:50:19.870
I would say if you don't have enough work, we need to lay one of them off.
1121
00:50:20.170 --> 00:50:20.390
Okay.
1122
00:50:20.450 --> 00:50:22.492
We can't be like, oh, well, we hired them.
1123
00:50:22.732 --> 00:50:24.153
We've got to keep them full time.
1124
00:50:24.313 --> 00:50:30.677
Because I have a bad feeling that if we don't have enough work, you will just keep them on staff.
1125
00:50:30.897 --> 00:50:31.157
Really?
1126
00:50:31.657 --> 00:50:33.278
I hate to say it, but yeah.
1127
00:50:33.879 --> 00:50:37.141
And so it needs to be, this is why tracking the labor efficiency is so important.
1128
00:50:37.521 --> 00:50:46.287
Because as soon as you start having people work four or five hours a day, you're trying to kind of just fill their time, you're having to do stuff around the shop, that number will drop like crazy.
1129
00:50:47.048 --> 00:50:56.014
And so if we're not getting, if we're spending more than 40% of their wages, 40% of their labor revenue on wages, that should be like red flags all over.
1130
00:50:56.394 --> 00:50:57.455
We're just not going to be profitable.
1131
00:50:57.475 --> 00:50:57.595
Okay.
1132
00:50:57.715 --> 00:51:03.279
So one thing I want to ask you is, should I plug myself into that calculation of, okay, I thought so.
1133
00:51:03.339 --> 00:51:03.499
Yeah.
1134
00:51:03.899 --> 00:51:04.439
I just want to make sure.
1135
00:51:04.619 --> 00:51:07.221
And the thing is, I would not be paying yourself what you're paying them.
1136
00:51:07.441 --> 00:51:09.142
You should be paid what you're really worth.
1137
00:51:09.202 --> 00:51:13.445
In the equation, it's what I'm paying them, but obviously I pay myself more.
1138
00:51:13.625 --> 00:51:13.865
Yes.
1139
00:51:14.385 --> 00:51:16.307
If they're bringing 20, you should be at least $30 an hour.
1140
00:51:16.487 --> 00:51:19.048
You're literally bringing half the revenue of the business.
1141
00:51:19.328 --> 00:51:32.256
But the notion that we are going to run a less risky business for the family's sake by having employees is actually false because if you got hurt, the business would be negative profit.
1142
00:51:33.236 --> 00:51:36.518
If you were solo, revenue would stop, but you would have all these expenses.
1143
00:51:37.019 --> 00:51:39.300
So we've gotta make the other side of the business profitable.
1144
00:51:39.600 --> 00:51:42.242
And that's gonna come in the form of better stringent leadership.
1145
00:51:42.682 --> 00:51:44.263
It's like, we make money here.
1146
00:51:44.884 --> 00:51:49.167
And so, this was a big turn for me when I just started being like, we're here to make money.
1147
00:51:49.927 --> 00:51:52.428
And when you make it about that, it makes it so much easier for everyone.
1148
00:51:52.448 --> 00:51:58.370
Instead of like, we're here to kind of improve and we wanna be better landskeepers and we wanna be about making the customers happy.
1149
00:51:58.390 --> 00:51:59.990
No, no, we all wanna make money here.
1150
00:52:00.111 --> 00:52:00.731
How do we make more money?
1151
00:52:00.751 --> 00:52:02.571
We make customers happy and they keep coming back to us.
1152
00:52:02.851 --> 00:52:04.672
That's the conversation I have with Anna all the time.
1153
00:52:04.872 --> 00:52:06.133
She's like, this is a business.
1154
00:52:06.233 --> 00:52:06.853
I like Anna.
1155
00:52:06.993 --> 00:52:10.034
Anna, I've never met Anna, but Anna's now like an amazing person.
1156
00:52:10.554 --> 00:52:11.754
We would get along very well.
1157
00:52:11.774 --> 00:52:15.935
I think I hear this is not a business, or this is a business, not a charity.
1158
00:52:16.015 --> 00:52:17.316
I probably hear that like once a week.
1159
00:52:17.356 --> 00:52:18.316
Hallelujah.
1160
00:52:18.436 --> 00:52:19.496
Can I get an amen?
1161
00:52:19.576 --> 00:52:20.296
Let's go.
1162
00:52:21.336 --> 00:52:22.977
So it is important though.
1163
00:52:23.237 --> 00:52:27.718
And I think talking to my team about it helped because I just got sick of being so stressed about money.
1164
00:52:27.778 --> 00:52:29.998
I just came to the conclusion, I'm going to make this all about money.
1165
00:52:30.598 --> 00:52:32.319
If I make more money, I'll be able to give them more money.
1166
00:52:33.039 --> 00:52:40.583
And so once we made the change, all of a sudden, okay, we need health benefits, okay, we're gonna pay time off, we can offer this other stuff, which all aligns with their goals too.
1167
00:52:41.023 --> 00:52:44.105
And so you're not being selfish, you're just making the goalposts really clear.
1168
00:52:44.485 --> 00:52:46.226
Like we are here to make a bunch of money.
1169
00:52:46.826 --> 00:52:48.447
And if you're not going to make me money, you're out.
1170
00:52:49.378 --> 00:52:49.558
Yeah.
1171
00:52:50.438 --> 00:52:55.520
And like, it seems harsh, but it's like, if you make more money, the customers are being served well.
1172
00:52:55.640 --> 00:52:57.181
It means they're coming back to you over and over again.
1173
00:52:57.201 --> 00:52:58.281
It means they're referring you out.
1174
00:52:58.461 --> 00:53:00.902
It means they're willing to pay a higher price to get you on their property.
1175
00:53:01.702 --> 00:53:03.323
And so it's really a win, win, win.
1176
00:53:04.323 --> 00:53:07.844
But talking like that is a very different tone and it's very difficult.
1177
00:53:07.944 --> 00:53:13.006
I was usually like the airy fairy, like, hey, we're here to improve our lives, and you know that stuff.
1178
00:53:13.206 --> 00:53:18.208
And it was like, no, we're gonna make a bunch of money, and by doing that, hopefully it'll give you more money, and then you can do whatever you want with it.
1179
00:53:18.668 --> 00:53:35.344
I'm not gonna dictate that you like be a better landscaper like listen to books I'm just gonna make as much money as possible so I can give you more money and then you can do whatever you want in life Yeah, that makes a lot of sense I just got to put it to the action And then when the reason it was so important for me to do it is then when I started pulling out numbers Because they're not gonna be used to this.
1180
00:53:35.464 --> 00:53:38.446
Yeah, it makes sense Like oh the goal is to make money.
1181
00:53:38.546 --> 00:53:42.370
Therefore, we should probably track our labor efficiency Should I be transparent with them?
1182
00:53:42.814 --> 00:53:46.577
in terms of labor revenue, how much they're bringing in, how much I need to be making and stuff?
1183
00:53:46.597 --> 00:53:47.197
Yeah.
1184
00:53:47.398 --> 00:53:48.618
Well, this is what I would do at first.
1185
00:53:48.679 --> 00:53:50.660
I would track it at first so you get some confidence.
1186
00:53:50.960 --> 00:53:53.182
So at the end of every day, we're gonna say wages.
1187
00:53:53.642 --> 00:53:54.423
Who was on the crew?
1188
00:53:54.703 --> 00:53:55.404
How much did I pay them?
1189
00:53:55.684 --> 00:53:57.065
How much did they earn in labor revenue?
1190
00:53:57.165 --> 00:53:58.106
So we pick out the materials.
1191
00:53:58.586 --> 00:53:59.546
There's my percentage.
1192
00:53:59.626 --> 00:54:00.607
I would do that for a few weeks.
1193
00:54:00.807 --> 00:54:03.808
You get confident actually what that number is, what it should kind of be.
1194
00:54:04.088 --> 00:54:06.869
You're also gonna figure out who your highest and lowest performers are really fast.
1195
00:54:07.129 --> 00:54:08.430
You also have half of your crew.
1196
00:54:08.950 --> 00:54:09.930
You and one person are good.
1197
00:54:10.030 --> 00:54:10.911
The other two people are new.
1198
00:54:11.131 --> 00:54:12.871
You're gonna have low efficiency for the next few weeks.
1199
00:54:13.532 --> 00:54:14.192
Get them trained up.
1200
00:54:14.852 --> 00:54:20.134
Once you know those numbers, then you go to your team knowing, okay, I know what these numbers should be at, and I know what they are for some people.
1201
00:54:20.774 --> 00:54:22.255
That's when you can start incentivizing it.
1202
00:54:22.795 --> 00:54:30.557
So for example, you say, okay, if you're under 30%, like if under 30% of your labor revenue goes to your wages, you're gonna need bonuses.
1203
00:54:31.060 --> 00:54:34.121
So just track this before payroll hours are sent out?
1204
00:54:34.321 --> 00:54:35.581
Like, just looking at it?
1205
00:54:35.601 --> 00:54:36.321
No, this is every day.
1206
00:54:36.942 --> 00:54:37.322
Every day.
1207
00:54:37.522 --> 00:54:37.902
Every day.
1208
00:54:38.582 --> 00:54:40.602
And for now, I just keep an Excel spreadsheet.
1209
00:54:40.622 --> 00:54:43.423
Jobber does not have the budget hour thing nailed.
1210
00:54:43.643 --> 00:54:47.484
So you just have an Excel spreadsheet, date, and name of people.
1211
00:54:47.804 --> 00:54:53.606
In that cell, I am taking how much did I pay them in wages divided by labor revenue they earn for the day.
1212
00:54:54.370 --> 00:54:56.510
And if that number's under 40%, green.
1213
00:54:56.590 --> 00:54:58.411
And you can literally make it an Excel spreadsheet, green.
1214
00:54:58.911 --> 00:54:59.971
Over 40%, red.
1215
00:55:00.411 --> 00:55:02.632
If it starts hitting under 30%, you know they're crushing it.
1216
00:55:03.112 --> 00:55:04.252
And you can afford to pay them more.
1217
00:55:04.932 --> 00:55:07.392
But you just track it for a few weeks and then you bring it to the team.
1218
00:55:07.612 --> 00:55:09.673
Hey guys, this company's about making money.
1219
00:55:09.873 --> 00:55:10.193
Why?
1220
00:55:10.213 --> 00:55:12.393
Because if I make more money, I can give you all more money.
1221
00:55:12.713 --> 00:55:15.594
So what we're going to do now is align the incentives of the company with yours.
1222
00:55:15.934 --> 00:55:19.535
Which is if you make really efficient and you hustle throughout the day, you're gonna make more money.
1223
00:55:19.995 --> 00:55:20.975
Here's how, beat 30%.
1224
00:55:22.455 --> 00:55:28.325
I guess a part of it that's a bit confusing for me is on the landscape side.
1225
00:55:28.726 --> 00:55:31.570
For the mowing, I know how long a lawn should take for two guys.
1226
00:55:32.272 --> 00:55:33.534
On the landscaping side,
1227
00:55:34.533 --> 00:55:35.474
it's a bit harder for me.
1228
00:55:35.494 --> 00:55:42.699
So like if we're in the red, how much of that I need to figure out is because I priced it wrong and how much of that is because they're not efficient.
1229
00:55:42.859 --> 00:55:43.059
Yes.
1230
00:55:43.440 --> 00:55:45.701
So there'll be other factors like weather, right?
1231
00:55:45.741 --> 00:55:47.423
There'll be a piece of equipment breaks down.
1232
00:55:47.443 --> 00:55:51.866
There's all these other factors and this is why no one likes to do P4P or pay for performance of any sort.
1233
00:55:52.186 --> 00:55:53.587
It's like all these variables.
1234
00:55:53.927 --> 00:55:54.488
But guess what?
1235
00:55:54.508 --> 00:55:56.829
You're gonna estimate a job for eight hours and they're gonna die in three.
1236
00:55:58.182 --> 00:56:04.503
So it kind of comes with the territory up and down that ladder, but it's more or less, you're not even actually doing P for P, you're just tracking it.
1237
00:56:05.024 --> 00:56:08.004
And then you're giving the incentive if they can beat it, down the road.
1238
00:56:08.624 --> 00:56:14.306
And you can just tie it to like, hey, if you get under 30% for the whole week, you get like a $300 bonus.
1239
00:56:15.006 --> 00:56:18.187
You know you can afford that now because that's better than 50 or 60%.
1240
00:56:18.227 --> 00:56:19.407
Yeah, yeah.
1241
00:56:20.147 --> 00:56:23.888
And it's extra money in my pocket, even if I'm paying out an extra 300, that's nothing to what I've,
1242
00:56:24.392 --> 00:56:24.712
Yeah.
1243
00:56:24.852 --> 00:56:28.074
And now when they leave the shop, you're like, I know they're hustling.
1244
00:56:28.274 --> 00:56:28.415
Yeah.
1245
00:56:28.455 --> 00:56:30.116
And you don't care about them looking at their phone.
1246
00:56:30.276 --> 00:56:34.678
You're not wondering, like battling your mind, like, okay, should I be telling them not to look at their phone?
1247
00:56:34.958 --> 00:56:37.380
Like, should I be telling them that they need to show up earlier?
1248
00:56:37.420 --> 00:56:40.642
Like I, you know, because like, look, the harder you work, the more money you make.
1249
00:56:40.662 --> 00:56:40.922
Yeah.
1250
00:56:41.082 --> 00:56:41.282
Yeah.
1251
00:56:41.442 --> 00:56:42.843
And if they don't perform well, they're gone.
1252
00:56:43.043 --> 00:56:43.244
Yeah.
1253
00:56:43.444 --> 00:56:43.644
Right.
1254
00:56:43.724 --> 00:56:43.844
Right.
1255
00:56:43.864 --> 00:56:47.466
So I would try to create some sort of thing like, Hey, 30% great employee.
1256
00:56:47.486 --> 00:56:48.867
You're going to make more money.
1257
00:56:48.927 --> 00:56:50.928
40% meeting expectations.
1258
00:56:51.028 --> 00:56:52.009
50% you're on the cutting,
1259
00:56:53.890 --> 00:56:54.730
They gave me a lot of insight.
1260
00:56:55.271 --> 00:56:55.931
So for sure.
1261
00:56:56.231 --> 00:56:59.052
I think the leadership side is just holding people accountable.
1262
00:57:00.473 --> 00:57:05.275
Holding accountable to labor efficiency.
1263
00:57:05.775 --> 00:57:16.600
The other thing is when people make mistakes, like a skid mark, a damaged lawn, whatever, I'm assuming right now you're taking the phone call, you're going back to do the call back.
1264
00:57:17.070 --> 00:57:17.970
I make them do the callback.
1265
00:57:18.050 --> 00:57:18.391
Oh you do?
1266
00:57:18.491 --> 00:57:19.651
Very good, fantastic.
1267
00:57:20.031 --> 00:57:22.772
Yeah, if it's like a fence post that they don't know how to fix, I'll do that.
1268
00:57:22.832 --> 00:57:29.675
But if it's they missed a large area of trimming or yeah, if there's something they got a seat over, they're going back so they know.
1269
00:57:29.695 --> 00:57:30.915
Does it happen like once a week maybe?
1270
00:57:31.655 --> 00:57:32.436
Last year, yes.
1271
00:57:32.616 --> 00:57:34.176
We had an employee that was terrible.
1272
00:57:34.576 --> 00:57:35.517
Yeah.
1273
00:57:35.537 --> 00:57:38.238
I trusted him too early and they were doing callbacks like twice a week.
1274
00:57:38.778 --> 00:57:41.899
And I was hoping like, okay, you're going back, learn from your mistakes.
1275
00:57:42.219 --> 00:57:43.040
He just never did.
1276
00:57:43.140 --> 00:57:43.340
Yeah.
1277
00:57:44.632 --> 00:57:49.754
Now with Brad, it happens, I would say, like once a month, maybe.
1278
00:57:50.535 --> 00:57:53.676
So what I would do on the leaship side too is implement the yellow slip system.
1279
00:57:54.396 --> 00:57:56.837
So what that is, you just literally get some yellow paper.
1280
00:57:57.078 --> 00:57:58.838
We like yellow because it stands out a lot.
1281
00:57:58.958 --> 00:58:02.020
You can make it pink, but pink slips don't have a good reputation.
1282
00:58:02.640 --> 00:58:04.161
So go with yellow.
1283
00:58:04.401 --> 00:58:14.105
But all it does is says when you get a phone call and you can put them in your truck or whatever, you get a phone call or a complaint or email or whatever, you put the customer's name in, you're already doing this, they're going back to the property.
1284
00:58:14.385 --> 00:58:19.410
But then what I want is them having to go to the customer, resolve it, have them sign off on the yellow slip.
1285
00:58:19.990 --> 00:58:23.413
And then when they come back to the next team meeting, they go over it with the team.
1286
00:58:23.953 --> 00:58:24.414
I love that.
1287
00:58:25.112 --> 00:58:36.496
Because the accountability that is caused when you have internal quality control, sometimes they have more pressure on making mistakes and telling their team members about it than having to go back to the property.
1288
00:58:37.157 --> 00:58:42.279
Now, also, if we want going back to the property, now they're not going to be generating as much labor revenue the next day.
1289
00:58:42.759 --> 00:58:44.359
So that number is getting worse.
1290
00:58:44.980 --> 00:58:51.282
So now we're going to try to incentivize that down the road so that actually going back to their customer's property, they don't like it.
1291
00:58:51.829 --> 00:59:01.675
Yeah, last year I did something, if we didn't, like, I really wanted to focus on quality last year, so if they didn't get any complaints for a week, they'd get a $50 bonus.
1292
00:59:02.616 --> 00:59:05.758
And it was just, it's still hard to track, but yeah, I need to do that.
1293
00:59:06.158 --> 00:59:11.101
So now what we're going to do is we're going to incentivize making more money, which is the quantity side.
1294
00:59:11.341 --> 00:59:17.525
But then the quality side, like, if you have to go back to a customer's property, it takes so much of your time the next day, you can't hit your numbers.
1295
00:59:17.625 --> 00:59:17.905
Yeah.
1296
00:59:18.125 --> 00:59:19.926
Right, so it would break them from any sort of bonus.
1297
00:59:19.966 --> 00:59:20.627
Yeah, for sure.
1298
00:59:20.807 --> 00:59:21.007
Right?
1299
00:59:21.027 --> 00:59:21.127
Yeah.
1300
00:59:21.367 --> 00:59:27.270
So the yellow slip system implemented is essentially, you already kind of didn't, which is they go back to the property.
1301
00:59:27.290 --> 00:59:32.592
We just want to add the extra layer of, you are now accountable to the entire team on the next team meeting, and you're going to talk about it.
1302
00:59:32.973 --> 00:59:37.335
Why are they wrong on whose property, what I learned from it, and how I'm going to avoid it in the future.
1303
00:59:37.475 --> 00:59:39.816
They sign off on it, goes into their employee profile.
1304
00:59:40.345 --> 00:59:44.691
And they're ruining their chance for a bonus for their other employees, too, and it's visible to everybody.
1305
00:59:44.731 --> 00:59:45.292
I love that.
1306
00:59:45.452 --> 00:59:50.138
And then in your employee handbook, you say X amount of yellow slips equals, right?
1307
00:59:50.178 --> 00:59:52.020
You're in a performance improvement plan after three.
1308
00:59:52.040 --> 00:59:54.544
You get more than three in a month, performance improvement plan.
1309
00:59:54.864 --> 00:59:57.127
You do that next month after that, you get more than three, you're fired.
1310
00:59:57.247 --> 00:59:57.488
Yeah.
1311
00:59:58.083 --> 00:59:58.323
Right?
1312
00:59:58.583 --> 00:59:59.603
So then you have it all in writing.
1313
00:59:59.623 --> 01:00:04.664
They've signed off on the fact that they get that number that they've already signed to the fact that they're gonna be cut.
1314
01:00:05.564 --> 01:00:06.204
Good stuff.
1315
01:00:06.885 --> 01:00:08.445
I feel like there's a lot there, sorry.
1316
01:00:08.965 --> 01:00:10.705
I'm kind of fast.
1317
01:00:11.445 --> 01:00:12.886
Any questions on any of that stuff?
1318
01:00:15.326 --> 01:00:24.088
Is there like a certain amount of X amount of revenue that I should see, a percentage of revenue that I should see in liquidity?
1319
01:00:26.079 --> 01:00:28.922
Like, obviously I had way too much in ad spend last year.
1320
01:00:30.243 --> 01:00:42.014
I just don't know what I guess is normal or healthy in terms of cash flow and how much I should have in the bank for, like, I read a book, obviously you've probably heard of it, it's called Profit First, and we're implementing that this year.
1321
01:00:42.034 --> 01:00:43.075
Okay.
1322
01:00:43.876 --> 01:00:45.377
But I don't know how that's gonna go.
1323
01:00:45.397 --> 01:00:47.860
I don't know what metrics to look for, and I feel like,
1324
01:00:49.333 --> 01:00:52.717
If we ran it like we did last year, I would not be able to do Profit First.
1325
01:00:52.777 --> 01:00:53.538
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1326
01:00:54.119 --> 01:00:58.204
So there's gonna be, yeah, a lot of things I need to change to be able to do that.
1327
01:00:58.524 --> 01:01:02.829
So Profit First, in my opinion, works really good if you have a bad habit of spending money when you see it.
1328
01:01:03.050 --> 01:01:03.290
I do.
1329
01:01:03.650 --> 01:01:04.031
You do?
1330
01:01:04.251 --> 01:01:04.451
Yeah.
1331
01:01:04.712 --> 01:01:05.533
Oh, okay.
1332
01:01:06.033 --> 01:01:06.914
He calls it bank accounting.
1333
01:01:07.675 --> 01:01:08.396
I'll look at my bank account.
1334
01:01:08.416 --> 01:01:10.057
I'll say, sweet, I got six grand in here.
1335
01:01:10.217 --> 01:01:11.357
I really need this piece of equipment.
1336
01:01:11.377 --> 01:01:12.118
I'm going to go buy that.
1337
01:01:12.598 --> 01:01:19.322
And then next thing I know, employee taxes come out, payroll taxes come out a week later that I wasn't planned for because I don't follow my numbers.
1338
01:01:19.862 --> 01:01:20.743
And then I'm back.
1339
01:01:20.763 --> 01:01:22.964
Okay, then ProfitFest will work good for you.
1340
01:01:23.004 --> 01:01:24.685
Because I didn't think you had that.
1341
01:01:24.926 --> 01:01:27.607
Because I didn't see a lot of spending on equipment and stuff like that.
1342
01:01:27.807 --> 01:01:28.608
I'm very frugal.
1343
01:01:30.569 --> 01:01:32.050
Like, there's a reason I have this.
1344
01:01:32.070 --> 01:01:32.670
Oh, I noticed.
1345
01:01:32.710 --> 01:01:33.291
I noticed, yeah.
1346
01:01:33.351 --> 01:01:34.011
And I'm very old.
1347
01:01:34.171 --> 01:01:34.832
Yeah, I like it.
1348
01:01:34.872 --> 01:01:37.153
But in terms of like,
1349
01:01:37.927 --> 01:01:40.569
I don't know, in the field, I wanna make things easier for the guys.
1350
01:01:41.129 --> 01:01:47.973
And I feel like if I make things easier for the guys, they'll be happier and I'll be happier, I'll be more efficient, and so I buy things for them.
1351
01:01:48.334 --> 01:01:50.555
One way they will be more happy is if you can give them more money.
1352
01:01:50.595 --> 01:01:51.215
That's true, yeah.
1353
01:01:51.315 --> 01:01:56.018
So let's optimize to make more money, give them more money, and then they can spend on whatever they want.
1354
01:01:56.479 --> 01:01:59.340
Instead of like, they will like if I get them my circle, maybe.
1355
01:02:00.541 --> 01:02:06.051
I guarantee you if they give you more money so they can go do something else they like, like a vacation or get a nicer car.
1356
01:02:06.672 --> 01:02:06.852
Right?
1357
01:02:06.912 --> 01:02:08.915
So, okay.
1358
01:02:09.376 --> 01:02:11.780
So if you have that, then yeah, profit versus work well.
1359
01:02:11.960 --> 01:02:13.363
Have you set it up with your bank accounts already?
1360
01:02:14.379 --> 01:02:15.380
in this early stages.
1361
01:02:15.420 --> 01:02:18.764
So we just set up an LLC, because we're still a sole proprietorship.
1362
01:02:19.325 --> 01:02:22.188
That just got approved, and he did the EIN to set up the bank account.
1363
01:02:22.449 --> 01:02:25.532
And now the bank account's there, now we just gotta implement everything.
1364
01:02:25.592 --> 01:02:32.981
Okay, just in case you might wanna look at this, if you're gonna do Profit First legit, Relay Financial, online bank, you do?
1365
01:02:33.562 --> 01:02:35.943
Oh, dude, yeah, it works really good with Profit First.
1366
01:02:35.963 --> 01:02:36.223
Great.
1367
01:02:36.243 --> 01:02:37.204
I messed around with it a little bit.
1368
01:02:37.304 --> 01:02:38.244
It's super cool.
1369
01:02:38.264 --> 01:02:38.764
Cool, yeah.
1370
01:02:38.944 --> 01:02:41.505
And I have a CPA who's a Profit First professional.
1371
01:02:41.565 --> 01:02:42.026
OK, perfect.
1372
01:02:42.186 --> 01:02:45.107
And we're going to do monthly CFO meetings and .. Hallelujah.
1373
01:02:45.147 --> 01:02:45.907
Hallelujah.
1374
01:02:46.007 --> 01:02:46.508
OK, good.
1375
01:02:46.608 --> 01:02:47.808
Good, good, good.
1376
01:02:48.128 --> 01:02:50.529
So liquidity then I guess really is Profit First implemented.
1377
01:02:50.629 --> 01:02:50.849
OK.
1378
01:02:50.929 --> 01:02:52.030
I think we can get that in the next.
1379
01:02:52.110 --> 01:02:56.112
That's kind of what, as I was asking the question, I was like, yeah, that's kind of the answer there.
1380
01:02:56.352 --> 01:02:56.552
Yeah.
1381
01:02:57.032 --> 01:02:58.533
I didn't think you had that problem, you know?
1382
01:02:58.833 --> 01:03:00.294
It's a good confession, you know?
1383
01:03:01.214 --> 01:03:07.077
Because usually I'm more of a fan of like, look, if you're not gonna spend the money when you see it, what's the point of splitting the five accounts?
1384
01:03:07.097 --> 01:03:13.881
Because what's gonna happen, especially at the beginning, as you read the book, moving money between, like, oh man, we're short a little bit and moving stuff around.
1385
01:03:14.341 --> 01:03:20.384
But if that can constrict you from, you know, seeing $2,000 and going and buying something, then let's do it.
1386
01:03:20.544 --> 01:03:21.164
I think it'll.
1387
01:03:22.325 --> 01:03:26.188
And it wasn't so much like, because you don't see any like super fancy equipment out there.
1388
01:03:26.348 --> 01:03:26.508
No.
1389
01:03:26.688 --> 01:03:30.371
Like, I'm more so like, I don't need this fancy equipment.
1390
01:03:30.391 --> 01:03:30.871
I can do this.
1391
01:03:30.891 --> 01:03:32.172
I can rent until I need it or whatever.
1392
01:03:32.672 --> 01:03:34.774
It's just like the little things that add up, I guess.
1393
01:03:34.814 --> 01:03:35.014
Yeah.
1394
01:03:35.214 --> 01:03:35.574
I don't know.
1395
01:03:36.435 --> 01:03:38.777
Like a truck box for the truck or whatever.
1396
01:03:38.797 --> 01:03:39.037
Yeah.
1397
01:03:39.057 --> 01:03:40.878
Over the rail, like making the trucks look nice or whatever.
1398
01:03:40.898 --> 01:03:41.218
Yeah.
1399
01:03:41.238 --> 01:03:42.239
Things I don't really need.
1400
01:03:42.259 --> 01:03:42.679
Right.
1401
01:03:42.780 --> 01:03:43.260
That'll buy it.
1402
01:03:43.658 --> 01:03:44.519
OK, so profit first.
1403
01:03:44.559 --> 01:03:47.140
I think we can get in one in six weeks, have the EIN numbers, have it up.
1404
01:03:47.180 --> 01:03:49.142
If you're in Relay, easy peasy.
1405
01:03:49.522 --> 01:03:51.363
It's really easy to split between the accounts.
1406
01:03:53.649 --> 01:04:02.792
And then what I would do, and this is the part that I would stray from PropFirst a little bit on, is to determine how much money I need in the bank account before I get distributions.
1407
01:04:03.133 --> 01:04:03.613
Okay.
1408
01:04:03.633 --> 01:04:06.154
So he takes profit out first, and that's fine.
1409
01:04:06.614 --> 01:04:07.094
Go for it.
1410
01:04:07.654 --> 01:04:12.776
When your operating account gets a certain amount, I would then say then it's licensed to take more money from the business.
1411
01:04:12.816 --> 01:04:13.997
From profit, yeah.
1412
01:04:14.017 --> 01:04:15.157
From what the business is holding.
1413
01:04:15.277 --> 01:04:18.799
Yeah, so for me personally, I'm trying to get at least one month of revenue in the bank account.
1414
01:04:19.159 --> 01:04:21.880
Anything above that, I'm willing to take as distributions.
1415
01:04:23.160 --> 01:04:27.242
Now, in the off season, your revenue is dropping precipitously, which we can address later.
1416
01:04:27.342 --> 01:04:30.103
But we're looking at the last three months.
1417
01:04:30.143 --> 01:04:35.285
So if I did 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 in revenue the last three months, the average of the past three months is 50,000.
1418
01:04:35.945 --> 01:04:38.946
Anything above $50,000 in the bank, I will take as distributions.
1419
01:04:39.467 --> 01:04:48.430
And the reason that's helpful is because down the road, if you do profit sharing with your team or a general manager or anything like that, you've already set this dollar amount that must be in the bank, and anything above that, we can now split with the team.
1420
01:04:48.750 --> 01:04:50.051
My idea for this year was like,
1421
01:04:51.031 --> 01:05:05.756
Not so much taking distributions, but more so like paying, I guess not really the definition of attribution, but more so paying ourselves more, stacking some of that in a savings account that we can't touch that we can use for the winter.
1422
01:05:06.557 --> 01:05:13.019
And then anything that is left over in the profit account would be just invested back in the business.
1423
01:05:13.099 --> 01:05:14.260
Because there's things I do need.
1424
01:05:15.940 --> 01:05:19.662
There were a lot of times last year where we couldn't pay ourselves.
1425
01:05:20.082 --> 01:05:30.547
We haven't paid ourselves in two weeks because I spent a lot of money getting equipment worked on or working on myself and doing all that and no money coming in.
1426
01:05:30.687 --> 01:05:31.747
This is our first week back.
1427
01:05:32.307 --> 01:05:33.488
Yeah, a little bit of a cash crimp.
1428
01:05:34.088 --> 01:05:36.049
That leads me into the off-season.
1429
01:05:36.069 --> 01:05:43.493
Because I remember when I was burning 75 to 100 grand during three months of the year because we just lost money.
1430
01:05:43.513 --> 01:05:44.334
We didn't have any leads.
1431
01:05:44.834 --> 01:05:48.436
So we can't have that happen anymore.
1432
01:05:48.456 --> 01:05:50.897
At least you can be generating 8 to 10 grand a month.
1433
01:05:51.477 --> 01:05:53.098
That needs to be the expectation.
1434
01:05:53.498 --> 01:05:54.259
And so how do we do that?
1435
01:05:54.279 --> 01:05:57.721
Well, if we have this year, if we get to 100 million customers, which I think is very doable.
1436
01:05:57.901 --> 01:05:58.661
We've got 75 now.
1437
01:05:58.681 --> 01:05:59.241
If we get to 100,000.
1438
01:06:00.454 --> 01:06:01.595
We need to do winter services.
1439
01:06:01.996 --> 01:06:04.879
So like if we don't get snow, what do you think?
1440
01:06:04.899 --> 01:06:06.200
Like I'm handy.
1441
01:06:06.420 --> 01:06:11.445
Like I can do drywall and I can do painting in terms of interior stuff.
1442
01:06:11.485 --> 01:06:14.989
But like if we don't get snow, what other winter services are there?
1443
01:06:15.197 --> 01:06:16.638
Yeah, so we have a list of nine things.
1444
01:06:16.678 --> 01:06:18.458
We hardly ever get snow at our place either.
1445
01:06:18.838 --> 01:06:25.361
And so if there is snow, you pull the next visit forward and you go shovel their walkways, put some salt down, et cetera.
1446
01:06:25.681 --> 01:06:30.343
You can even just not do the driveway, just like, hey, we'll do walkways and we'll do salting, and that's included in your service.
1447
01:06:30.743 --> 01:06:32.924
But what we're trying to do is keep recurring revenue coming in.
1448
01:06:33.384 --> 01:06:44.208
So out of 100 customers, I'd be shooting for at least 50 to stay on recurring services on a biweekly basis at their mowing price, and you spend the same amount of time that you would spend on mowing, you spend on these other services.
1449
01:06:44.953 --> 01:06:48.075
So like, are they paying this amount no matter what?
1450
01:06:48.295 --> 01:06:49.116
Every week or two?
1451
01:06:49.196 --> 01:06:49.756
Every two weeks.
1452
01:06:49.896 --> 01:06:50.176
Really?
1453
01:06:50.237 --> 01:06:51.617
The same length they're paying for mowing.
1454
01:06:51.998 --> 01:06:58.762
So if they're paying $60 every two weeks for mowing, every two weeks, I'm just gonna continue after mowing season into winter services.
1455
01:06:59.403 --> 01:07:01.004
Now, how we do that is you say, hey look,
1456
01:07:01.784 --> 01:07:02.525
There's two options here.
1457
01:07:02.685 --> 01:07:03.645
I can do a fall cleanup for you.
1458
01:07:03.665 --> 01:07:04.726
I can do a spring cleanup for you.
1459
01:07:05.067 --> 01:07:06.167
It's going to cost you $800 and $700.
1460
01:07:06.207 --> 01:07:07.809
It's going to be up $50, $100.
1461
01:07:08.389 --> 01:07:14.394
Or you pay me $60 every two weeks, and I come all throughout the winter, and I get it all cleaned up over the course of the winter.
1462
01:07:14.434 --> 01:07:15.755
Your property looks good all year round.
1463
01:07:16.155 --> 01:07:16.335
Wow.
1464
01:07:16.535 --> 01:07:19.898
Now, getting creative with what services you do is important because the grass isn't growing.
1465
01:07:20.038 --> 01:07:20.298
Right.
1466
01:07:20.438 --> 01:07:22.700
But okay, well, we can check your gutters.
1467
01:07:23.201 --> 01:07:25.043
Make sure there's downflow in the downspouts.
1468
01:07:25.483 --> 01:07:26.765
We can blow off your walkways.
1469
01:07:26.865 --> 01:07:29.107
If there's a windstorm, we're picking up all the branches.
1470
01:07:29.368 --> 01:07:31.390
We're edging the lawn so it'll still look sharp.
1471
01:07:31.570 --> 01:07:34.313
We're going to trim any bushes that are touching the house so there's no algae that's growing.
1472
01:07:34.513 --> 01:07:35.654
We're going to rake out the beds.
1473
01:07:35.854 --> 01:07:38.617
Like, you can stay busy for 30 minutes on someone's property.
1474
01:07:38.757 --> 01:07:38.958
Yeah.
1475
01:07:39.338 --> 01:07:40.279
That's a really good idea.
1476
01:07:40.399 --> 01:07:46.442
And then how we sell it is not just like, especially if you've been in the past like, well you don't come to the UG for three or four months.
1477
01:07:46.482 --> 01:07:47.342
What in the world?
1478
01:07:47.662 --> 01:07:50.104
You pitch them, this is the cost of your property cleanups.
1479
01:07:50.484 --> 01:07:54.646
Here's the cost of us just coming every two weeks and keeping the property looking good all throughout the winter.
1480
01:07:55.126 --> 01:08:04.873
And that extra additional, you know, if it's a $50 mow versus an extra $10 a week for every two weeks for additional services, it's really not that much.
1481
01:08:05.193 --> 01:08:07.695
And then how you picture them is like, hey, here's the list of stuff we're doing.
1482
01:08:07.735 --> 01:08:09.076
And it's going to be like 10 things.
1483
01:08:09.276 --> 01:08:15.360
We start at the top every single visit and we work our way down and we spend the same amount of time on this as we would with mowing your grass.
1484
01:08:15.380 --> 01:08:18.022
Because they already kind of know like they're here for 20, 30 minutes.
1485
01:08:18.082 --> 01:08:18.302
Right.
1486
01:08:18.502 --> 01:08:19.963
So then expect you to be here for 20 or 30 minutes.
1487
01:08:19.983 --> 01:08:24.026
You're going to blow things off, pick up the sticks after a windstorm, check their downspouts.
1488
01:08:24.287 --> 01:08:28.570
There's also people of your customers, especially because you go more downtown, they're not here during the winter.
1489
01:08:28.950 --> 01:08:29.511
They're snowbirds.
1490
01:08:30.071 --> 01:08:34.115
So we have the last one on ours is property inspection and send video to a customer.
1491
01:08:35.095 --> 01:08:38.636
So if we get to that one on the winter services, they're going to get a video of their property every...
1492
01:08:39.177 --> 01:08:45.079
Some people, they've said, we just do winter services, so we get a video of our property every two weeks, because we're in Florida for six months of the year.
1493
01:08:45.579 --> 01:08:52.642
And they just want the place looking good, no one... We had one person get burglared, and we get sent in the picture of the window broken, and say, hey, this isn't messed up.
1494
01:08:53.122 --> 01:08:54.462
And then they went from there.
1495
01:08:55.182 --> 01:08:56.443
Yeah, that's a really good idea.
1496
01:08:56.913 --> 01:09:00.176
And just think of it as like more like you're selling insurance and peace of mind.
1497
01:09:00.196 --> 01:09:00.516
Yeah.
1498
01:09:00.716 --> 01:09:02.337
Not the actual like service itself.
1499
01:09:02.357 --> 01:09:02.538
Right.
1500
01:09:02.618 --> 01:09:04.299
Even just an inspection is huge.
1501
01:09:04.479 --> 01:09:04.739
Right.
1502
01:09:04.839 --> 01:09:05.060
Yeah.
1503
01:09:05.580 --> 01:09:05.780
Yeah.
1504
01:09:05.940 --> 01:09:10.224
And now how you sell that is a month before the end of mowing season, you're going to pitch it to them.
1505
01:09:10.364 --> 01:09:13.186
You're not going to wait till the end when they're canceling like, oh, do you want winter service?
1506
01:09:13.226 --> 01:09:13.346
No.
1507
01:09:13.847 --> 01:09:15.248
A month before you end mowing.
1508
01:09:15.428 --> 01:09:17.770
Hey, I'm going to say October 1st, you finish mowing.
1509
01:09:18.831 --> 01:09:19.951
November 1st.
1510
01:09:20.312 --> 01:09:22.352
November 1st, we're ending mowing season.
1511
01:09:23.713 --> 01:09:25.073
This is what we go into this year.
1512
01:09:25.133 --> 01:09:29.995
We have an affordable way to keep your property looking good all year round to avoid the extra cost of property cleanups.
1513
01:09:30.435 --> 01:09:31.415
Here's what it includes.
1514
01:09:31.655 --> 01:09:36.637
If you'd like to opt out of this, let us know and we'll just get you on the schedule for next spring starting in mowing.
1515
01:09:36.917 --> 01:09:40.338
And then that way if they opt out, you can put them on the schedule for next spring.
1516
01:09:40.418 --> 01:09:44.499
If they don't say anything to you, you keep moving forward, you go into winter services and you keep going.
1517
01:09:45.739 --> 01:09:46.500
But does that...
1518
01:09:48.280 --> 01:09:50.901
Because my current clients didn't agree to any of that, right?
1519
01:09:51.162 --> 01:09:53.343
That's why you're going to literally contact every single one.
1520
01:09:53.423 --> 01:09:53.683
Okay.
1521
01:09:53.863 --> 01:09:55.444
And so what we do is we have a PDF.
1522
01:09:56.224 --> 01:09:58.185
I can send you the breakdown of it.
1523
01:09:58.205 --> 01:09:58.826
Yeah.
1524
01:09:59.026 --> 01:10:00.587
And there's different ways to do it.
1525
01:10:00.807 --> 01:10:02.468
One is you just send them an email like I just mentioned.
1526
01:10:02.568 --> 01:10:03.688
Very much like, here's the list.
1527
01:10:03.708 --> 01:10:05.569
If you don't want this, opt out, let us know.
1528
01:10:06.070 --> 01:10:07.050
Some people aren't going to see the email.
1529
01:10:07.470 --> 01:10:07.670
Right.
1530
01:10:07.911 --> 01:10:10.332
And they're just like, oh, it's another email from him, and they don't even see it.
1531
01:10:10.812 --> 01:10:12.633
The goal is, if you need to answer, you can.
1532
01:10:12.913 --> 01:10:13.574
It's a spam call.
1533
01:10:13.854 --> 01:10:14.554
Oh, okay.
1534
01:10:14.694 --> 01:10:15.315
Potential spam.
1535
01:10:15.375 --> 01:10:15.715
Let's go.
1536
01:10:16.895 --> 01:10:22.996
That's the least conversion you're gonna get, but the problem with that is there are people who won't see the email, and we refund them.
1537
01:10:23.537 --> 01:10:28.178
So if they accidentally see the email, and they say, hey, I didn't want this service, we will just refund them that month.
1538
01:10:28.198 --> 01:10:30.138
And they're like, no worries, we'll get you started mowing.
1539
01:10:30.598 --> 01:10:33.839
What I would recommend doing when you have 100 customers is talking to every single one.
1540
01:10:34.359 --> 01:10:35.799
I would knock on the door of every single one.
1541
01:10:35.879 --> 01:10:38.640
Because if you knock on the door and actually explain that they're saving money,
1542
01:10:39.720 --> 01:10:40.661
Everyone goes for it.
1543
01:10:40.681 --> 01:10:41.722
It makes a lot of sense.
1544
01:10:42.183 --> 01:10:45.366
If you just pitch it like, I'm trying to make more money, that's how they hear it.
1545
01:10:45.606 --> 01:10:48.489
But if you say, hey, here's the cost of your fall cleanup, here's the cost of a spring cleanup.
1546
01:10:48.769 --> 01:10:52.633
For half of that, we can come every two weeks and chip away at it, make the property look good all year round.
1547
01:10:53.214 --> 01:10:59.500
And if it snows, in that list of services, it says if snow is present, shovel walkways, put salt on steps.
1548
01:10:59.761 --> 01:11:00.702
We put that all in there.
1549
01:11:01.142 --> 01:11:05.005
I'm guessing this is probably something that I would do solo, right?
1550
01:11:05.125 --> 01:11:05.365
Yes.
1551
01:11:05.505 --> 01:11:05.665
Okay.
1552
01:11:05.685 --> 01:11:10.549
Because if you get 50 customers, you could absolutely do it solo and make $7,000 to $10,000 a month.
1553
01:11:10.869 --> 01:11:15.172
And right now, that's the difference of us going negative and having to put money aside versus at least breaking even.
1554
01:11:15.233 --> 01:11:15.413
Yeah.
1555
01:11:15.433 --> 01:11:15.893
I love it.
1556
01:11:15.913 --> 01:11:19.195
Yeah, because it wouldn't make sense for two guys to go out for- You don't need to.
1557
01:11:19.215 --> 01:11:19.416
Yeah.
1558
01:11:19.676 --> 01:11:19.916
Okay.
1559
01:11:20.276 --> 01:11:27.682
And then you'd still lay everyone off, but you know you're at least going to cover all your bills and not have to save up money and take it from the family during the winter.
1560
01:11:27.702 --> 01:11:27.882
Yeah.
1561
01:11:28.207 --> 01:11:31.632
So, okay, yeah, I was going to have something else, but...
1562
01:11:32.542 --> 01:11:35.363
So on leads, I'm gonna add that in, which is winter services.
1563
01:11:35.383 --> 01:11:36.443
Okay.
1564
01:11:36.563 --> 01:11:45.566
What I would recommend, as you get started this year, on your estimate for mowing, just put in there, winter services continues throughout the off season.
1565
01:11:46.246 --> 01:11:48.107
As part of your mowing estimate, every single one.
1566
01:11:48.587 --> 01:11:55.529
No one bats an eye, and then what happens is during the fall, you say, hey, you accepted this, I wanna make sure you're fully aware of what that is and why we do it.
1567
01:11:55.869 --> 01:11:59.410
And you pitch this 100% as a budget-friendly option to keep your property looking good year-round.
1568
01:11:59.950 --> 01:12:00.691
Now, the thing is this.
1569
01:12:00.711 --> 01:12:05.115
Well, why would I want someone to pay me $500 or $600 instead of $1,500?
1570
01:12:05.135 --> 01:12:07.738
Because I'd just rather do two cleanups.
1571
01:12:08.258 --> 01:12:12.743
The thing is, right now, during the fall cleanup and spring cleanup stage, you're having tons of leads pouring in.
1572
01:12:13.203 --> 01:12:14.424
And you can't get to all the work anyways.
1573
01:12:14.805 --> 01:12:20.050
I'd rather you go out and getting new customers and then service the existing customers during the off-season.
1574
01:12:20.070 --> 01:12:21.031
Yeah, that makes sense.
1575
01:12:21.351 --> 01:12:21.591
Right?
1576
01:12:21.872 --> 01:12:22.072
Yeah.
1577
01:12:22.585 --> 01:12:23.125
That'd be huge.
1578
01:12:23.466 --> 01:12:24.146
That's crazy.
1579
01:12:24.306 --> 01:12:28.488
So usually what we see is on new customers, we can get about 60% to 70% conversion.
1580
01:12:28.909 --> 01:12:29.149
Okay.
1581
01:12:29.449 --> 01:12:39.254
The old customers, the ones that you currently have, the 75%, let's just say 60 of them are still around at the end of the year of the existing customers, they're the ones you really got to explain things to because they don't know what's going on.
1582
01:12:39.394 --> 01:12:39.634
Right.
1583
01:12:39.754 --> 01:12:40.895
And they think you might take an advantage.
1584
01:12:41.215 --> 01:12:42.196
We go knock on every door.
1585
01:12:42.356 --> 01:12:44.937
It'll take you a week, but you can go knock on every person's door.
1586
01:12:45.077 --> 01:12:45.458
Okay.
1587
01:12:45.518 --> 01:12:48.079
And here's the advantages of it.
1588
01:12:48.279 --> 01:12:48.839
Here's what we do.
1589
01:12:49.000 --> 01:12:49.700
Here's how it works.
1590
01:12:50.080 --> 01:12:51.021
Then you have no refunds.
1591
01:12:51.741 --> 01:12:53.744
And so those ones, usually we convert 30% to 40%.
1592
01:12:53.904 --> 01:12:55.906
So that's why I'm saying between... Oh, you're existing?
1593
01:12:56.207 --> 01:12:56.647
Exactly.
1594
01:12:56.667 --> 01:12:59.611
Because they're kind of used to not having fees.
1595
01:12:59.751 --> 01:13:04.076
But the better you can explain that, I've seen it go higher, but I'd say conservatively 30% to 40%.
1596
01:13:04.476 --> 01:13:08.982
So if we get new customers this year, get to 100% total, I think 50% of them you can convert into that.
1597
01:13:09.522 --> 01:13:11.325
Keep yourself busy all throughout the winter.
1598
01:13:12.012 --> 01:13:15.714
And that would allow to, because like this year, I don't really want a second mow crew.
1599
01:13:15.774 --> 01:13:24.378
I think the demand could be there, but I am looking for ways other than just higher prices to sort of throttle the incoming accepted mowing client.
1600
01:13:24.750 --> 01:13:29.173
Yeah, well, we're going to get so many leads from fixing the website that we're going to hit that capacity very quickly.
1601
01:13:29.213 --> 01:13:37.338
Either A, be forced to raise prices, or you go do get a second crew, or you potentially convert your landscaping, which you didn't make any money on last year, into mowing.
1602
01:13:38.218 --> 01:13:43.722
And now that we have an off-season where we know we can make money on those recurring customers, that might not be a bad option.
1603
01:13:44.422 --> 01:13:50.147
Also, easier to manage those jobs, easier to do estimates for those jobs, easier to train employees on the simpler services.
1604
01:13:50.788 --> 01:13:51.709
So not a bad option.
1605
01:13:51.729 --> 01:13:56.713
Like if you know last year we are making 40, 50 bucks an hour on landscaping, you didn't make any money.
1606
01:13:57.134 --> 01:13:58.815
Let's just do mowing.
1607
01:13:59.416 --> 01:14:00.997
Like if that's where the things are coming in.
1608
01:14:01.117 --> 01:14:02.398
Like if leads are coming in from that.
1609
01:14:02.979 --> 01:14:10.526
It's good, I mean, you've probably thought through this, but in my head, like, it's good for weekly cash flow and even throughout the winter, but like,
1610
01:14:12.465 --> 01:14:17.927
I guess if, like we can do a lot with landscaping whether it's raining or not.
1611
01:14:18.107 --> 01:14:18.287
Right.
1612
01:14:18.387 --> 01:14:20.488
And we can do a lot whether there's a drought or not.
1613
01:14:21.208 --> 01:14:24.489
So that's my bonus to landscaping.
1614
01:14:24.569 --> 01:14:26.290
Yep, that's why we keep landscaping too.
1615
01:14:26.370 --> 01:14:30.451
Because I want to be able to upsell my mowing customers when things slow down in the summer, it gets really hot.
1616
01:14:30.851 --> 01:14:33.972
I want to be able to throw my guys in a property cleanup when it's raining outside.
1617
01:14:34.252 --> 01:14:40.254
So it's not a bad thing to keep it, but when it comes to like marketing, I'm focusing on the recurring services because I want them during the off season.
1618
01:14:41.034 --> 01:14:41.855
That makes a lot of sense.
1619
01:14:42.035 --> 01:14:46.560
And then what you're gonna do is you're gonna use upsells to get those recurring customers into the projects.
1620
01:14:47.443 --> 01:14:47.663
Okay.
1621
01:14:48.403 --> 01:14:51.444
So the mowing is a vehicle for the... 100%.
1622
01:14:51.484 --> 01:14:52.044
Yeah.
1623
01:14:52.164 --> 01:14:56.645
Because if you can get someone on mowing, the likelihood that when they need mulch installed, you will get that job as well, very high.
1624
01:14:56.745 --> 01:14:57.026
Yeah.
1625
01:14:57.286 --> 01:15:00.386
And the likelihood that they have you doing their mowing, they're going to do their own mulch, very low.
1626
01:15:00.526 --> 01:15:00.706
Yeah.
1627
01:15:00.947 --> 01:15:11.389
So the likelihood of getting a customer at the lowest cost per lead, lowest customer acquisition cost for mowing, then upsell them into project-based work, but then now I have the ability to get them on winter services.
1628
01:15:11.929 --> 01:15:13.410
And that's really what I'm trying to target.
1629
01:15:13.550 --> 01:15:13.790
Yeah.
1630
01:15:14.250 --> 01:15:15.892
And we also know that's where you're making money.
1631
01:15:15.912 --> 01:15:17.774
Because last year, the landscape was already tough.
1632
01:15:18.355 --> 01:15:24.601
And from a project management perspective, that's where the biggest mistakes happen, the biggest headaches happen, customer complaints happen, etc.
1633
01:15:26.081 --> 01:15:29.624
Yeah, I never even thought of winter as a money-making opportunity other than snow.
1634
01:15:29.804 --> 01:15:30.244
It's huge.
1635
01:15:30.925 --> 01:15:31.685
I definitely need to do that.
1636
01:15:31.786 --> 01:15:32.826
Yeah, no, it's super good.
1637
01:15:33.487 --> 01:15:33.687
Cool.
1638
01:15:33.807 --> 01:15:34.648
Any other questions?
1639
01:15:34.688 --> 01:15:36.449
We got a couple things on each one.
1640
01:15:36.469 --> 01:15:39.412
So basically, liquidity, we're trying to get out of the Google contract in the next six weeks.
1641
01:15:39.432 --> 01:15:39.612
Yeah.
1642
01:15:39.892 --> 01:15:44.636
In the next six weeks, we want to implement profit first inside a relay, get everything set up with the LLC.
1643
01:15:44.656 --> 01:15:44.756
Yeah.
1644
01:15:45.156 --> 01:15:51.721
From a leads perspective, we've got to know our cost per lead if we get that from Google, whether it be from this agency or we figure it ourselves.
1645
01:15:52.002 --> 01:15:54.604
But we're going to get out of the Google contract, so we're going to figure it ourselves.
1646
01:15:54.884 --> 01:16:02.390
We're going to increase the conversion of the website using the banner, using the estimate request form, and adding winter services verbiage into our estimate notes.
1647
01:16:02.550 --> 01:16:02.810
Okay.
1648
01:16:02.830 --> 01:16:05.072
So even current MOWE and customers, it's just going to be a line.
1649
01:16:05.352 --> 01:16:06.734
Winter services are completed year-round.
1650
01:16:06.754 --> 01:16:07.334
Okay.
1651
01:16:07.474 --> 01:16:12.897
Labor, we're going to start tracking our labor efficiency, which is wages paid that day divided by labor revenue.
1652
01:16:13.077 --> 01:16:17.919
If you want to do a whiteboard, Excel spreadsheet, have Anna put something together for you so it's really quick.
1653
01:16:18.039 --> 01:16:18.780
She likes numbers too.
1654
01:16:18.900 --> 01:16:19.720
Fantastic.
1655
01:16:19.900 --> 01:16:20.460
Let's go.
1656
01:16:20.901 --> 01:16:22.281
Love you, Anna, wherever you are.
1657
01:16:22.441 --> 01:16:22.922
Thank you.
1658
01:16:22.942 --> 01:16:25.443
And then she's going to help us create a bench.
1659
01:16:25.903 --> 01:16:32.165
which is one employee that you know you've interviewed, and you're gonna be honest with them, like hey, we don't have any open positions, but we're always interviewing for great people.
1660
01:16:32.685 --> 01:16:35.546
And then when you're like, I want this person, you tell them, hey, we want you on the team.
1661
01:16:35.806 --> 01:16:37.527
As soon as they're in an available spot, we'll let you know.
1662
01:16:37.887 --> 01:16:39.007
And they might go find something else.
1663
01:16:39.167 --> 01:16:41.688
That might happen, but you have that person in your back pocket.
1664
01:16:42.215 --> 01:16:49.100
Well, leadership, we're going to hold people accountable using the Yellow Slip system and using labor efficiency as a tracking mechanism.
1665
01:16:49.540 --> 01:16:55.304
I just, yeah, there's going to be a little bit more management involved and back-end stuff.
1666
01:16:55.584 --> 01:16:56.004
Yeah.
1667
01:16:56.344 --> 01:17:03.009
Do you think at some point, you said $400,000, I should start considering hiring out some of this back-end stuff?
1668
01:17:03.809 --> 01:17:07.432
Like in terms of hiring someone in the office or to answer phones or whatever?
1669
01:17:07.702 --> 01:17:08.743
Yeah, the thing is this.
1670
01:17:09.924 --> 01:17:11.826
Right now, the constraint is profitability.
1671
01:17:11.846 --> 01:17:12.707
We don't have enough cash.
1672
01:17:13.167 --> 01:17:16.591
If we were like, hey, we have $100,000 in the bank, and we're just trying to grow, like, great.
1673
01:17:16.851 --> 01:17:20.655
Just get an office person now, throw out tons of money in marketing, and let's grow this thing.
1674
01:17:20.755 --> 01:17:20.915
Yeah.
1675
01:17:21.055 --> 01:17:22.216
But we need to stay profitable.
1676
01:17:22.576 --> 01:17:24.618
I think that's what I was, like, thinking last year.
1677
01:17:24.658 --> 01:17:25.619
I just wasn't there yet.
1678
01:17:25.639 --> 01:17:25.799
Right.
1679
01:17:25.880 --> 01:17:26.060
Right.
1680
01:17:26.620 --> 01:17:26.860
Yeah.
1681
01:17:27.421 --> 01:17:28.182
Okay.
1682
01:17:28.262 --> 01:17:36.490
And if this guy that you're spending three grand a month on was giving you leads at 20 bucks a pop or 30 bucks a pop because they're so good, we'd be drowning in leads.
1683
01:17:36.530 --> 01:17:36.790
Yeah.
1684
01:17:36.930 --> 01:17:37.070
Right?
1685
01:17:37.090 --> 01:17:37.451
We're not.
1686
01:17:37.831 --> 01:17:38.051
Okay.
1687
01:17:38.071 --> 01:17:39.973
So that's where I say, okay, we need to be profitable.
1688
01:17:39.993 --> 01:17:45.518
We don't have enough cash in hand to be able to say, let's just dump money in marketing, hire more people, get an admin person, and scale this thing.
1689
01:17:45.538 --> 01:17:45.639
Yeah.
1690
01:17:45.679 --> 01:17:46.239
We don't have the money.
1691
01:17:46.259 --> 01:17:46.579
Yeah.
1692
01:17:46.599 --> 01:17:47.020
So that's fine.
1693
01:17:47.040 --> 01:17:47.200
Yeah.
1694
01:17:47.220 --> 01:17:53.342
We're just gonna do it a little bit slower, which is gonna be, we're not gonna spend a million in marketing, we're gonna increase our conversion, we're going to raise prices when we hit capacity.
1695
01:17:53.502 --> 01:18:06.686
Like if you get so many leads this coming spring, can you make these changes, you're gonna have this dilemma in two to three months, which is, we've hit 120 customers, do I raise prices to keep that down, or do I go out and get another truck?
1696
01:18:07.226 --> 01:18:10.487
And that's gonna be determined based upon your cash state, how much is in the bank.
1697
01:18:11.427 --> 01:18:14.729
If you have more than one month of revenue in the bank, I would be giving you the green light.
1698
01:18:14.849 --> 01:18:15.730
Go get the other truck.
1699
01:18:15.890 --> 01:18:16.750
Scale this bad boy.
1700
01:18:17.431 --> 01:18:19.232
And then if it's like, no, we're still tight.
1701
01:18:19.712 --> 01:18:20.232
We're growing.
1702
01:18:20.292 --> 01:18:20.553
Great.
1703
01:18:20.573 --> 01:18:21.413
We have 120 customers.
1704
01:18:21.433 --> 01:18:22.034
But we're tight.
1705
01:18:22.514 --> 01:18:24.255
Raise prices by at least 20%.
1706
01:18:24.275 --> 01:18:24.415
20%?
1707
01:18:24.435 --> 01:18:24.715
Yes, 100%.
1708
01:18:25.275 --> 01:18:25.796
Holy cow.
1709
01:18:25.856 --> 01:18:26.476
Yep.
1710
01:18:26.496 --> 01:18:27.177
Yeah.
1711
01:18:28.697 --> 01:18:30.619
I did it by 5% this year.
1712
01:18:30.639 --> 01:18:33.500
And I felt like after I sent it out, I was like, I don't know if that was enough.
1713
01:18:33.640 --> 01:18:34.261
It's not.
1714
01:18:34.321 --> 01:18:34.501
No.
1715
01:18:35.081 --> 01:18:36.922
Anyone that leaves over 5% will leave over 15%.
1716
01:18:36.942 --> 01:18:37.242
Yeah.
1717
01:18:37.443 --> 01:18:39.684
When I look at the 15%, double our profit margins.
1718
01:18:40.180 --> 01:18:47.631
Would it be, would you advise possibly increasing prices like mid-year even, even on the ones that have already increased?
1719
01:18:47.912 --> 01:18:51.136
How many customers do you think you could take on before you need another truck?
1720
01:18:51.737 --> 01:18:52.857
Probably like 90.
1721
01:18:53.218 --> 01:18:53.618
When you hit 90?
1722
01:18:53.678 --> 01:18:54.478
100, yeah.
1723
01:18:54.518 --> 01:18:59.360
Let's do 100 because my goal is hit you 100 and then get 50 winter service customers.
1724
01:18:59.380 --> 01:18:59.540
Yeah.
1725
01:18:59.860 --> 01:19:02.141
When we hit 100 mowing customers, we raise prices.
1726
01:19:02.462 --> 01:19:02.662
Okay.
1727
01:19:02.922 --> 01:19:03.722
That's capacity.
1728
01:19:04.042 --> 01:19:06.803
And we're not going to have the capital to go buy another truck and hire more people.
1729
01:19:07.184 --> 01:19:09.705
So instead, we're going to raise our price by 20%, no less.
1730
01:19:10.545 --> 01:19:10.905
No less.
1731
01:19:11.365 --> 01:19:13.006
On a $40 mow, it's $8.
1732
01:19:13.346 --> 01:19:13.586
Yeah.
1733
01:19:13.947 --> 01:19:14.487
That's not much.
1734
01:19:14.727 --> 01:19:15.107
It's true.
1735
01:19:15.347 --> 01:19:15.747
You're right.
1736
01:19:15.827 --> 01:19:18.949
You raising them to 42 versus 48, the person's going to leave or not.
1737
01:19:19.089 --> 01:19:19.589
It doesn't matter.
1738
01:19:19.769 --> 01:19:21.890
Yeah, and the money I make from the raise.
1739
01:19:22.210 --> 01:19:23.210
It doubled your profits.
1740
01:19:23.230 --> 01:19:24.311
Yeah, and doing less work.
1741
01:19:24.411 --> 01:19:24.671
Yes.
1742
01:19:25.671 --> 01:19:30.653
And this is the thing, the reason you raise at capacity is because you can't get above 100 customers.
1743
01:19:30.853 --> 01:19:38.757
So either A, you turn off new customers, like no more leads, sorry, or you have to go make room by cutting customers out.
1744
01:19:39.277 --> 01:19:41.698
So the reason you have to do 20% is because you need to lose 10 customers.
1745
01:19:42.118 --> 01:19:42.778
It makes sense, though.
1746
01:19:42.979 --> 01:19:43.159
Yeah.
1747
01:19:43.339 --> 01:19:43.539
Yeah.
1748
01:19:43.979 --> 01:19:44.239
Okay.
1749
01:19:44.800 --> 01:19:46.140
So we're hitting 100 customers.
1750
01:19:46.381 --> 01:19:48.342
We're raising prices by a minimum of 20%.
1751
01:19:48.802 --> 01:19:51.704
Like we did 27%, 28% at my location this past year.
1752
01:19:51.724 --> 01:19:52.724
Really?
1753
01:19:52.744 --> 01:19:54.045
And we lost 10% of customers.
1754
01:19:54.545 --> 01:19:55.046
And this is the thing.
1755
01:19:55.086 --> 01:20:00.469
Once you can make that margin, that's when we, like, by raising the prices, guess what that does?
1756
01:20:00.789 --> 01:20:01.830
Increases labor revenue.
1757
01:20:01.930 --> 01:20:02.130
Yeah.
1758
01:20:02.310 --> 01:20:04.531
Which now the labor efficiency looks better for your team.
1759
01:20:05.152 --> 01:20:07.393
Which means they're going to get under 30% more often.
1760
01:20:07.453 --> 01:20:09.034
Which means you can pay them more.
1761
01:20:09.685 --> 01:20:24.609
So are you looking, so on Java, I have the ability, I don't know if I'll be able to show you because it's a new year, but like, I have the ability to go to timesheets and see like where, how long the guy spent on each job.
1762
01:20:24.649 --> 01:20:30.070
So if I go to July 17th, it shows they were clocked in this long to this long on this property.
1763
01:20:30.511 --> 01:20:32.771
Are you going through individual accounts?
1764
01:20:32.791 --> 01:20:34.992
Are you just doing a blanket increase to everybody?
1765
01:20:35.132 --> 01:20:39.293
Yeah, so when we do- Because some of them are priced really well, you know, to where like, I would almost
1766
01:20:39.821 --> 01:20:41.502
you know, it'd be bad to increase their price.
1767
01:20:41.602 --> 01:20:42.082
Here's the thing.
1768
01:20:42.903 --> 01:20:48.326
I agree with you that technically we should go with precision-like accuracy and go through everyone and raise the hourly rate.
1769
01:20:48.446 --> 01:20:48.626
Yeah.
1770
01:20:49.306 --> 01:20:51.427
The reason I never suggest that is because people don't do it.
1771
01:20:52.048 --> 01:20:53.489
They'll just be like, oh, I'm too busy.
1772
01:20:53.549 --> 01:20:55.410
Because we're talking like peak of the season.
1773
01:20:55.690 --> 01:21:01.893
Are you going to really go through 100 customers, track every single thing, and be like, oh, I need to raise this person 15%, this person 18%, this person 32%.
1774
01:21:02.073 --> 01:21:02.794
You're not going to.
1775
01:21:03.354 --> 01:21:05.215
And so, like, I need to look at the challenge part.
1776
01:21:05.235 --> 01:21:06.316
You know all these people's names.
1777
01:21:06.336 --> 01:21:07.897
You know about, like, personally, et cetera.
1778
01:21:08.837 --> 01:21:09.798
We need to raise prices by 20%.
1779
01:21:09.818 --> 01:21:10.079
Okay.
1780
01:21:10.639 --> 01:21:15.825
So whether that be surgically doing it where some of them are 15 and some of them are 25, I need to raise prices by 20%.
1781
01:21:15.845 --> 01:21:16.366
Yeah, okay.
1782
01:21:16.746 --> 01:21:21.271
So usually the people that actually raise their prices are the ones who just across the board do it.
1783
01:21:21.491 --> 01:21:21.611
Okay.
1784
01:21:21.832 --> 01:21:23.694
And in one day, make the decision to make more money.
1785
01:21:23.914 --> 01:21:24.114
Yeah.
1786
01:21:24.735 --> 01:21:27.338
And then if I ever do get a call like, hey, what are you doing with that price?
1787
01:21:27.988 --> 01:21:31.369
oh, sorry, you were already, you know, I would word it differently.
1788
01:21:31.389 --> 01:21:40.173
Well, here's the thing, because you don't like making confrontation, at the bottom of price increase, you say, if this is gonna put you in financial hardship, please reach out to us, we don't wanna leave you as a customer over this.
1789
01:21:40.473 --> 01:21:41.033
Yeah, okay.
1790
01:21:41.053 --> 01:21:42.974
So instead of them canceling, they're just gonna call you out on that.
1791
01:21:43.194 --> 01:21:45.255
And I can guarantee you, it's a whole lot less than you're thinking.
1792
01:21:45.555 --> 01:21:53.358
And then, at that point, I can do, yeah, there would be less than what I would think, and at that point, I can decide who I wanna let go and who not, yeah.
1793
01:21:53.819 --> 01:21:54.779
That's a good idea.
1794
01:21:55.050 --> 01:21:59.714
Right, and so you don't even give the option of like, call this for a question, just be like, if this puts you in financial hardship.
1795
01:21:59.854 --> 01:22:00.054
Yeah.
1796
01:22:00.515 --> 01:22:07.000
Because above that you explain why, you need to raise prices in a couple sentences, you said here's the prices, and then we roll with it.
1797
01:22:07.020 --> 01:22:07.200
Yeah.
1798
01:22:08.043 --> 01:22:10.124
But yes, you could do this, and this is the right way to do it.
1799
01:22:10.525 --> 01:22:11.305
Yes, 100%.
1800
01:22:11.365 --> 01:22:12.766
It just takes too long.
1801
01:22:12.806 --> 01:22:13.307
No one does it.
1802
01:22:13.467 --> 01:22:13.647
Yeah.
1803
01:22:13.667 --> 01:22:17.590
Because you're going to be at the very peak of season, bleeds are pouring in, guys, everything's going wrong with the jobs.
1804
01:22:17.790 --> 01:22:21.492
You're not going to sit down here for a week and make sure every single job down to the minute is done right.
1805
01:22:21.532 --> 01:22:21.672
Yeah.
1806
01:22:22.033 --> 01:22:22.533
No, you're right.
1807
01:22:22.893 --> 01:22:23.634
I didn't even do that.
1808
01:22:23.734 --> 01:22:27.536
I just sent out the price increase like a couple weeks ago, and I still didn't even do this.
1809
01:22:27.717 --> 01:22:28.617
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1810
01:22:28.777 --> 01:22:30.058
And it was in the middle of the winter.
1811
01:22:30.158 --> 01:22:30.418
Yeah.
1812
01:22:31.319 --> 01:22:34.321
So, yes, this is good, but I wouldn't worry about it for now.
1813
01:22:34.341 --> 01:22:35.182
Okay, cool.
1814
01:22:35.522 --> 01:22:35.642
Yeah.
1815
01:22:36.107 --> 01:22:36.910
Yeah.
1816
01:22:37.191 --> 01:22:37.673
Anything else?
1817
01:22:37.974 --> 01:22:38.796
No, I don't think so.
1818
01:22:38.977 --> 01:22:39.218
Cool.
1819
01:22:39.318 --> 01:22:40.442
Cool, cool.
1820
01:22:40.984 --> 01:22:43.111
Do you want to talk to him here, outside, or what do you want to do?
1821
01:22:43.131 --> 01:22:46.222
Yeah, if we could get an interview with you, it'd be cool if we could talk to Anna if she wants to talk to us.