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From Door Knocks to $300K Year One: How To Get The First 100 Customers | ft. Azgari Lipshy
00:45:18
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- [00:00]
A
First is the person wondering right now who, let's say they're like, oh, I want to start a lawn care business today. How do they get their first one customer and then their first 100 customers? Like, what is the strategy that you think is the best to go after.
- [00:12]
B
If you don't have, you know, capital to invest in ads and marketing, the simplest way is just knock on doors in neighborhoods where they don't have no solicitation, have simple conversations. Hey, I'm thinking about starting a lawn care company. I live five minutes from here. I just want to ask you some questions so that I can figure out if it's a good business for me to start. Do you have five minutes? You might get 10 people who say no, but you'll absolutely get two. At least two people who'll say yes.
- [00:40]
A
Hey there. I'm Cody McGuffey. I'm a husband dad of three and I'm the founder of Everbee, Everbee, Everbee, Everbee, where we serve over a million creators across the globe, helping them grow thriving online businesses. I believe every single human is a creator and I believe every single creator should own a business, a business that gives them the freedom to build the life that they dream of. Built online is where creators, entrepreneurs and leaders get real insights, real stories and the edge to build something that actually lasts. This is where the next generation of builders get built. As G. How are you?
- [01:16]
B
Cody? Hi. Thank you so much for having me here.
- [01:20]
A
Super excited to have you on. We already chatting a little bit before this about kind of, you know, what we're going to talk about and, and wanted to make it valuable for people and I'm just excited to have you on to talk about your story and also just talk about kind of how you're helping people and how you've like some of the accomplishments that you've, you've had in the past and hopefully I can learn from them and other people can learn from them as well. So thank you and welcome again.
- [01:45]
B
Thank you. Really excited to be here. This is going to be fun. I can tell.
- [01:49]
A
Totally. Can you tell us like start us off like maybe a high level. What's your background? How'd you even get here? Why are we talking today?
- [01:58]
B
Okay, two second summary. I started my first company at 16. Basically used my then clientele to actually fund my first production of product. And from there I, you know, I was young but one thing clicked. It's like, don't make shit people don't want. Talk to your customer prior to making anything that you think somebody Wants. And that's been the theme in every business that I've started or purchased since then. I started my career with physical products, cpg, consumer manufacturing garments. And then over the last half a decade of transition to service based businesses which are much less capital intensive to launch. Super low overhead, high margin. So this space makes a lot more sense to me.
- [03:05]
A
I love that. Just wanted to kind of double click on your first businesses. So when you said cpg, just for anyone here that doesn't understand what CPG is, I didn't either, like years ago.
- [03:15]
B
I apologize. Okay.
- [03:17]
A
No, no, it's not. It's okay. Consumer packaged goods, correct?
- [03:20]
B
Yeah.
- [03:20]
A
So we're talking like anywhere from chips to toothpaste. Right? Is that kind of what we're talking about here?
- [03:26]
B
Face wash. So anything that you're using on a day to day basis and consuming fast.
- [03:32]
A
Consuming fast. Okay, cool. So this could even be like beauty supplies. Like, like you said face wash and things like this too. Yeah. Makeup.
- [03:38]
B
Yep. Things you're using every day.
- [03:40]
A
That's funny. I never think about CPG as like those things. I always thought of it as like chips for some reason and like things that we consume like physically, like eat.
- [03:48]
B
Yeah.
- [03:48]
A
But now that you say that, it makes total sense. It's a huge category.
- [03:52]
B
You're topically consuming it.
- [03:54]
A
It's true. Yeah. Yeah, super true. Okay, cool. I want to just stay on that for a second because there are people right now that can learn from that, including myself. Of what does a business like that look like? Can you share like maybe what industry you were in? How did you grow it? We don't need to spend the whole entire episode on that, but it's very interesting. And then what was. You said you sold it. I believe you said you sold it.
- [04:18]
B
Right? Correct.
- [04:19]
A
Like what does that outcome look like for somebody like that, that wants to do something like that? Can you share whatever you can share?
- [04:25]
B
Sure. So I started my career in Bangladesh. That's where I'm from. I've officially been in the States for four and a half, five years.
- [04:33]
A
Cool.
- [04:34]
B
So prior to that, my entire career has been in Bangladesh. And I've had some, I would say very unfair advantages that I was smart enough to take advantage of early on. So my family was in manufacturing. So my father owns manufacturing plants for pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, supplements, food products. So I leveraged a lot of his manufacturing plants to create a lot of my early companies and products. And even, I mean, even even though he's family, he was very strict when it came to business. Any production I wanted out of his factory, I had to pay him just like anybody else would, of course.
- [05:18]
A
And so it's like. And, and I just wanted to say too, I've also sold physical products and had physical product brand and things like this multiple actually. And that is a very challenging business. And it's actually the manufacturing is, is part of the challenge, but it's actually not the biggest challenge of the business. Like, you still have to have a product that's in demand and then you still have to like create demand or at least bring it to the market. Which is the hardest part of any business, I would say, is distribution. So actually manufacturing the product, not that I'm saying that's easy, it wasn't easy for you, but I just want to like make sure that people understand that Asgard didn't have an advantage that made her successful. It was an advantage that she took advantage of, but it wasn't something. That's not the reason why you were able to grow this business. Wanted to mention that.
- [06:08]
B
So in terms of growth, you know, I was very young. It's not like I read a bunch of books on sales or marketing. But I also didn't have any money. And I think that was my biggest advantage, to be honest, because not having money allowed me to be more like, I need to find out what did they actually want, what will they pay me for? So I started talking to all the large wholesale distributors who were purchasing from my, from my father's companies already and asking them about gaps in the market. Right. The packaging, the product, the ingredients, that we're supplying them for, existing products and what's in the market and what's being imported into the market. Where do they see a gap? There was. And at that time, you know, this is 20, I'm aging myself, but this is 20, 23 years ago, when in Bangladesh when you imported products, it was about 800% taxed. So, you know, a baby Gerber food, which in the U.S. is what, 67 cents at the time maybe was around three, four dollars. Right. But people still wanted to buy that because there was so much brand trust, because it's a U S brand. And then you had local Bangladeshi brands like my father's, which were heavily focused on herbal, natural. So there was a gap for the urban population where they had the money but not enough where they, you know, they could buy in bulk or in larger quantity of foreign, foreign imported goods. But they also didn't like the local, everything is herbal, more ethnic type product. So there was a gap in the market. And instead of making the product, I just started creating pictures of packaging and having research conversations with the wholesale distributors. Like, what do you think of this? Do you think this will move in the market? And they got to be part of the process of designing products, which, you know, prior to that, they've never been part of. They, they would just buy products and distribute them. So including them in the process and leveraging their knowledge. Right, because they were, they were the business owners and the buyers of the product. So they had a very good understanding of what's moving in the market, what's moving fast, what's moving slow. So I got to use all of their knowledge to build products that they actually wanted to buy. In fact, they paid me upfront deposits before I even went into production with my first batch.
- [09:05]
A
That's huge. I have a question here because I don't have the experience with talking to wholesale distributors. And so I don't understand the landscape fully, but high level, just to kind of break it down. And you can educate me as if I'm fourth grade. When we walk into a convenience store and you see like every single product on, on the shelf, right? Which is so many. And then you walk over to another convenience store across the street, different brand, different store, you see basically the same products, basically, right? And you walk to another one and it's kind of the same thing, same products. And so this means that they're all basically being supplied by the same distributors.
- [09:47]
B
Is that correct? Yes.
- [09:49]
A
Now, now how does, how does one get in touch and actually get into those distribution channels? Is that like voodoo? Is it magic? Do you have to have a father in manufacturing or is there actually a way to do this?
- [10:08]
B
So I mean, you know, this is 23, 22 years ago. It was very different. Now the market is crazy saturated, right. And you have massive players in the market where having conversations with them is quite difficult. But I think even in Austin, there's a huge community that supports CPG products that, you know, come into market. I would say in, in 2025, if you want to get a hold of large wholesale distributors, you have to first build out the product and product demand. It, it's not the same as it was two decades ago.
- [10:55]
A
So the step one is go ddc, which is like, hey, I have this drink. And you have to establish demand online, probably through your own brand, correct? Yeah. And then you establish so much demand, so much of a like cult like following that people love it. And then distributors actually want you to, they want to put you in there, put you in all their stores and their distribution channels, is that correct?
- [11:15]
B
Correct. And they have so much option now. Right. It wasn't like 20 years ago when there was a shortage of supply of high quality product.
- [11:27]
A
You know what, that's so, it's so in line with my experience too, building our brands. Previously I, I was building online DDC and then I somehow just, it occurred to me, or maybe some. I listened to a podcast and they're just like, you should actually sell to the stores. And I'm just like, oh yeah, of course, that'd be so cool. You know, of course. It just seems like your ticket. Right? Like I'm just gonna go sell it to like I'm gonna go pitch it to Dick's Sporting Goods and I'm gonna get in their store and I'm gonna like just my, you know, ticket is, is going to be there.
- [11:59]
B
And you need millions, right? To get into Dick's store. You need to have millions in, in inventory before you can even have a conversation with them.
- [12:10]
A
I think for sure that. And also I think you actually need demand. You actually need to have proven, you know, a great product. To have product market that you have to have, you have to prove to them like, dude, I have a following. I'm gonna make selling this really, really easily for you. Whereas I was naive, you know, 15 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, going into Dick's, literally I was doing this, by the way, going to Dick Sporting Goods and like showing them my invention that I created and super proud of it. But also like, they're just like cool, like, do you have any sales? And I'm like, well, no, not yet. That's, that's why I gotta get in the store, you know, and it just, it was backwards. And I guess I want everyone to learn this, at least from my experience is. And Ascari is what she's mentioning is go get demand first. Prove it through your actual store sales online. Then you can get into like wholesale distribution. It opens those doors later on and those doors just like fly open. It's more of a scaling strategy rather than like a go to market strategy.
- [13:10]
B
Yep. And with a lot of CPG products in 2025, influencer marketing is still huge. Right. People see you use, see someone using the product, even if they're not a large scale influencer, it still has an impact on you to start building your brand.
- [13:31]
A
Did you have, did you leverage that at all or what have you seen in the market? Like, how do influencers like impact brands? Because I see it too.
- [13:38]
B
So when it's, you know, a lot of micro influencers, they're just happy to get free products from you, but as soon as they make those content, now you have a little more higher quality professional content that someone's already sharing. Even if five people see that, that's five people more than they would see on your own page. So if you're trying, you know, starting off very grassroot at that point, your only cost is that product that you've sent to this influencer. So it's a, it's a good way to start if you have a low budget, small budget.
- [14:14]
A
Yeah, I agree with you, actually. I really, really agree with you. I, I feel like also you can reuse that content too, on your sites and, like, in social channels. In fact, it gives you a lot of credibility because your biggest struggle as a new brand, as a new company is like, credibility a lot. And trust. No one knows you, they don't trust you. And that only comes with, like, you kind of have to force that into the market a little bit. You can't just throw up your product on a web page.
- [14:40]
B
I mean, that's how Monster blew up, right? 15 years ago.
- [14:44]
A
Tell me more.
- [14:46]
B
Well, that was their entire. I mean, I think they were one of the first CPG brands that really went in hard with influencer marketing.
- [14:57]
A
Who are they using? Like, they were using. Did they go after, like, motocross first.
- [15:00]
B
Or were that Everybody? Everybody. They were giving Monster to everybody who had a social platform. I mean, they BMW up in two years doing that.
- [15:13]
A
Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, if you think about all the creators out there, content creators in this case, like you said, if you just like, reach out to them, offer them a product that aligns with their audience, aligns with their values, if it's a good product, you know, then they would share it. You probably share a commission with them. Or do you feel like you have to do that with cpg? Do you have to share, like an affiliate link?
- [15:35]
B
Honestly, micro influencers, they don't ask for anything really. They're just happy you send them a product, like usually under 5,000 followers. They're, they're trying to still build their audience, right? They're. They're just happy to have things they can make content on.
- [15:53]
A
And your experience, do you have to, like, have these people. Let's say that there's somebody with 5,000 followers and they have to make multiple videos. Like, should you partner with them? Or is it like, it should be an ROI that's positive from the first, first relationship first, first video.
- [16:11]
B
So if you're not paying them, you're just sending them a product, you should just count that as, you know, cost of your marketing.
- [16:20]
A
Got it. Okay. I want to transition a little bit into what you're working on now and what, what makes you most excited because you've taken these learnings from building, building this company and you're moving into, you already mentioned, like into the service businesses that you feel like there's, there's big opportunity there. I, I totally see that opportunity too. By the way, can you talk a little bit about what you're most excited about next?
- [16:45]
B
So the last five years since I've, you know, moved out of Bangladesh, moved back to the States, I started my own construction company in renovation. And then I had the idea in my head that oh, I should buy a franchise. Because the, the mindset or the marketing language is that when you buy a franchise, you get a proven system, it's gonna work, it's safe until you pay them and you buy and you're like, oh, wow.
- [17:20]
A
Oh really? I haven't bought a franchise, but I feel like I've looked into it in the past and, and I'm like, I told, I'm totally on the bandwagon right now of oh, that's a great idea to do that. So like tell me like why it wasn't such a great idea after you did it.
- [17:39]
B
So the idea people think is, oh, it's a, it's a well known brand. Okay. So when you buy a franchise. Let me separate this out first. Franchises like McDonald's or Subway, very different. Absolutely. A great idea to buy. If you're looking to get into fast food industry. Right. There's huge. You open a logo up with the McDonald's sign on it, it's going to do better than you just opening a fast food store.
- [18:07]
A
Sure. It's going to also cost you $500,000 to get into that business. So it's not necessarily on the table for everybody. Correct.
- [18:14]
B
So I guess I'm just separating out what franchise I am referring to. I'm referring to service based business. Franchises. Franchises for lawn care, for home care. Those types of franchises.
- [18:29]
A
Okay. Yeah, we'll care. Like I've seen them online. Right. Like start your pool business and like.
- [18:33]
B
Yeah.
- [18:34]
A
Or just buy into this pool business. Okay, gotcha.
- [18:37]
B
Yep. On the same page, you can start one of those with a well built out structure and reach your ROI in less than a year. A lot of cases under six months. But as soon as you buy into a franchise and you do the franchise fee that's up front and the monthly royalty fees and the marketing, the national marketing fees, you push your ROI out to two, three, sometimes four years.
- [19:08]
A
Oh, wow.
- [19:09]
B
So that in itself is problematic for people who, you know, like you said, not everybody can afford. So if you only had a loan for 250,000 or 150,000, and you were able to utilize that entire amount in building a brand for yourself that you had full control over, you would not only reach your ROI faster. You have autonomy to grow the business as you see fit. But when you're with the franchise, you're basically getting another job because you now work for that franchise. You have to follow all of their rules. You have to do things exactly how they want. You have to use what they tell you can't use what they don't make a profit from. So when franchises make you use different software, they're getting a. They get a cut of every software that they make you use.
- [20:04]
A
Got it. And so what we're talking about here is just to summarize or kind of come bring us back for a minute. Franchises in general are probably a good idea, depending on.
- [20:16]
B
Exactly.
- [20:18]
A
And McDonald's and Jack in the Box and fast food and Subway, maybe, maybe good idea, maybe not. Depending on thing. But the point was, is that at least you have the brand value. Like you're. You're setting up for like this, this, it's large enough, but you have these other franchisees that are, that are smaller, that don't have really brand value. Um, there you're saying that it's just harder to actually turn an roi and then within three to four years, that you may as well just actually start your own pool business or lawn care business from scratch and use that, use that same capital, same energy, and actually build it from scratch, you're saying.
- [20:54]
B
Right. Well, think of it this way. Are you in a house now or apartment house? Okay, so do you have someone who cuts your lawn?
- [21:03]
A
I do.
- [21:04]
B
Okay. Do you care if that's a national brand or did you just like the guy and like the price he gave you? And he's good at it. He shows up on time, which, you know. Are you not gonna hire him because he's not a national brand?
- [21:19]
A
Yeah, he's not a national brand. And if he was, it would actually probably turn me off even more. Probably.
- [21:25]
B
That's my point. It's for service businesses. Having a large brand doesn't really add a whole lot of value to the owner or the customers.
- [21:37]
A
Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, you're right. Actually, now that you say that makes total sense. In fact, I think that I'm getting charged probably more when for my lawn care, for example. If you were like this big national thing, in fact, his, his prices would have to be probably more.
- [21:54]
B
Yeah, he has to make money, he has to pay the monthly royalties and.
- [21:58]
A
Yeah. Versus the guy that I used today is. I don't care about that at all. If anything, he's going to give me the fair price. I'm going to pay the fair price. Interesting. That's good. That's a good, It's a cool way to relate it to.
- [22:12]
B
Yeah.
- [22:13]
A
Whereas if you go to eat fast food and you're on a road trip, you actually do care about the brand because you want the consistency and the quality of food and the experience. You want it to be the same almost every time. Just like if I go to a gas station, if I'm on a road trip, I go to this gas station, I'm like, okay, cool, where's the next gas station? Same brand. I actually care about that because I kind of want the same experience for my family, for my kids. The consistency, safety, the cleanliness of the bathrooms. So that stuff really matters. Interesting.
- [22:41]
B
Yep, exactly. You said it way better than I did.
- [22:47]
A
You explained it good. That's a good example. Okay, so what are the best services businesses to get into? Are they all physical? Like, like physical. You need to be there here. Service businesses that you kind of like specialize in.
- [23:01]
B
Small local service businesses. I mean you can, you don't have to physically run your operations, you can hire managers for that. But if you wanted to, you can manage your own operations. But the idea is to have hyper localized small businesses that individuals can own, be proud of and run. Run themselves if they want. Or run with a small team, maybe a manager, one estimator, one fulfillment team, super small.
- [23:35]
A
What's the cleanest business? Like the cleanest meaning, like it's the simplest and just like that thing just works every time. Like what, what service business comes to your mind when I say that?
- [23:44]
B
Window cleaning. Anything that's recurring revenue. Lawn care.
- [23:48]
A
Ah, interesting. Building, cleaning, mobile detailing. I know a couple mobile detailers, so I think about this business often.
- [23:56]
B
Yeah, they do great if they're doing it right. Anywhere between 250 to 650 with one truck, depending on what their niche and specialize in. It's great business.
- [24:07]
A
I think about mobile detailing a lot though in this one nuance that I always think about is like you are dealing with someone's vehicle, whereas like it's scratch prone. So like you have to have a decent type of talent or at least somebody that really cares about someone else's vehicle. Whereas like cleaning a window, okay, you know, you know you're not going to scratch the window so much, but if you scratch a car, it becomes. So that means you like have to have this caliber of person. It's consistent with, you know, doing the right things. Do you think about this stuff or is this the wrong think mindset to be in?
- [24:37]
B
Not at all. Whenever I help a client launch a business, it's always focused more on who that person is and what's going to align with them as a person and their personal skill sets. But I'm going back to your mobile detailing. You want to get, I would say young guys who love cars, right? Guys who just light up and won't shut up about the wheels, about, you know, the latest this and that that came out for the cars. Those are guys you want to hire because they're going to love cleaning that thing. They're going to be super careful with it because they know the value of it.
- [25:17]
A
Okay, and you mentioned window cleaning is like the like bread and butter is one of them. How does that compare to like lawn care? Just like let's say that I was, I'm a, I'm a potential business owner that wants to get into this and I'm like, ah, I can really do window cleaning. I could also do lawn care. Which one should I go after? Like what should my be my line of thinking.
- [25:41]
B
The next question I would ask is where do you live? Let's do a competitive analysis. You know, how many lawn care is in your particular area with a 10, 25 mile radius, how many window cleaning and what are the different niches they have? Let's actually do a deep dive and figure out do any of them have any specific offers? That's going really well. What are those offers? How can we create differentiators from the existing market and then based on that, we'll choose a model.
- [26:16]
A
When you say offers, can you explain more what you mean by that?
- [26:19]
B
So you could have one window cleaner who's doing an offer like, oh, if you sign up for a six month package, then it's this price or if you do a full house plus pressure wash, then it's this price. So understanding what are the offers that your potential clients are already seeing in the market?
- [26:37]
A
You'd see, you, you'd research that stuff online, of course, and then.
- [26:43]
B
Good online, talking to your competitors, talking to their employees. You'd Be surprised what people tell you when you call them.
- [26:52]
A
Oh, for sure. Yeah, definitely. I always think about lawn care a lot. I'm. I mean, I'm in Texas, right. So there's like grass everywhere, and it grows everywhere all the time, you know, and so, like, even if you don't plant grass, like, you need to mow the grass, which. Which we love. I just think about lawn care a lot as a business. And it's true, right. I think about lawn care as a business and mowing as a business. And I'm like, this is so simple of a business.
- [27:23]
B
Exactly.
- [27:26]
A
Pretty hungry. But you don't have to be super smart. Not that that's like. It's just. You don't have to even. You just have to, like, be good, care about, like, business. Care about your business and care about your customer. And you could crush it in this business. I mean, you could what, a hundred dollars, $100amo, or $70amo? And how many can you do a day? And you hire employees. You have one guy, general manager, overseeing it all. And then that's probably pretty much it. It's recurring too, because, like, everybody's on a monthly. Monthly thing.
- [27:54]
B
Yeah. And you really have to fuck up to get somebody to fire you.
- [27:59]
A
You really do. Yeah, that's true. Interesting how much I always think about the opportunity to. Because we always. We all know people that want to start businesses and they should start a business, but for some reason they haven't really, like, done it.
- [28:16]
B
It's scary.
- [28:18]
A
It is scary. And so. Or can be, what is the opportunity for someone here? Like, let's say that I wanted to start a lawn care business in Austin. You know, Austin. I'm in Austin too. What's the opportunity like? Let's say I do want to be wealthy and I want to be. Have a financial freedom. I want to have time freedom, I want to have a location freedom. Is that all that possible if I own a lawn business? Because all that seems very local. And it kind of scares me the fact that I might have to be like, tied to a specific, you know, local, local environment.
- [28:51]
B
So I always recommend that the business owner is very much involved, at the very least in the front end customer interaction, the bare minimum, the first year. So, yeah, I would say you do have to be local, tied to your community the first year. But then you. You train up your managers to take over that role for you, and then you can, you can not be here. You can be anywhere.
- [29:19]
A
Interesting how you worked with a lot of these people. How much revenue can A local business do I mean, help us dream a little bit. Right. Because a lot of people listening to this, they've never seen, they've never like seen the inside, seen the books of a local business. What's big, what's small, what's expected and what should, what's, what's benchmark? Right.
- [29:40]
B
When you launch the right way, the first year for a lawn care business should do at a bare minimum 250, especially in an Austin market. 250, 300. And that's if you're not pushing. Right. If you're not looking to aggressively scale.
- [29:56]
A
250 to $300,000 in revenue and then profit wise should 30 to 40. 30 to 40% profit margin.
- [30:05]
B
Yep.
- [30:06]
A
And are we talking like net profit like after expenses, after marketing, after salaries.
- [30:10]
B
Even, or what nets around 20, 25.
- [30:14]
A
Okay, so someone should be netting 20 to 25 of EBITDA, I guess you.
- [30:20]
B
Can say net profit the first year. Right? That, that only gets better by third year.
- [30:27]
A
What's like a good humming profit margin? Let's say year three.
- [30:31]
B
Should a local business be operating at 7, 800. If you have two trucks, you could you get close to a mill, three trucks for sure you'd cross a mill.
- [30:42]
A
And still the same profit margin. Kind of targeting.
- [30:46]
B
No, because by then, you know, you probably have most of your equipment and van probably paid off. So it probably increased by 5, 7, 10%.
- [30:56]
A
Okay, so we're talking like 27 to 32% net profit is kind of like a solid local business doing about 800 to a million dollars per year. And let's say in three years.
- [31:08]
B
Yeah, just cutting grass.
- [31:11]
A
Crazy, right? And just cutting grass. And the interesting thing is this is the beautiful thing about like capitalism and business is like you said, just cutting grass. And like we kind of laugh. But the reality is it's a problem that you're solving repeatedly over and over for people. Like people, in this case, the people that pay someone to cut the grass do not want to cut the grass. They have a problem. They're like, they don't have the time. They know the bandwidth. They don't maybe they don't know how to operate a mower. And you are solving that problem for them. There is beauty in solving problems. It's not, oh, it's just a lawn care business. No, no, it's. You're solving a problem for the market and that's a beautiful thing.
- [31:50]
B
And it's simple enough where almost any American can do it. Right. It's not complex, it's not technology. You don't need a ton of front end investment to get started. And with service businesses, it's much easier if you structure things the right way to get a government funded SBA loan, which, you know, you can't say that for starting up startup tech.
- [32:20]
A
No, we can't. Yeah. Building Everbee is certainly not. Not simple. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say like. Or cheap for what? There's a couple questions coming to my mind. First is the person wondering right now who. Let's say they're like, oh, I want to start a lawn care business today. How do they get their first one customer and then their first 100 customers? Like, what is the strategy that you think is the best to go after.
- [32:50]
B
If you don't have, you know, capital to invest in ads and marketing? The simplest way is just knock on doors in neighborhoods where they don't have no solicitation, have simple conversations.
- [33:04]
A
For sure.
- [33:05]
B
Yeah. Just, hey, I'm thinking about starting a lawn care company. I live five minutes from here. I just want to ask you some questions so that I can figure out if it's a good business for me to start. Do you have five minutes? You might get 10 people who say no, but you'll absolutely get two. At least two people who will say yes. They'll talk to you. You're just wanting to start a business and asking them questions. Why wouldn't they?
- [33:31]
A
Yeah. And the non sales people that are listening to this right now, their hearts just dropped. They're like, oh my God, talk to somebody. Which is cool because that gets better. You can get better at that. But you could just like, literally just like go and drop off your business card on their doorstep too.
- [33:49]
B
And you can, it doesn't build the same rapport or get you the same market data that you would need. Right. Because that person, now that you've asked them for support and asked them their feedback and opinion, they themselves might say, hey, when you open, let me know. I'll, you know. Or you can even offer like, when I open, would you mind if I, you know, just cut your grass for one time just so that you can give me feedback on how well I did? And now you have testimony.
- [34:22]
A
That's such a, that's a really good point. And honestly, like the, the lawn care that, that we've hired in the past, we hired them because they're mowing our neighbor's lawn.
- [34:31]
B
Yeah.
- [34:32]
A
Like across the way. And I'm like, oh, yeah, he's, he's right here. I'm gonna go talk to him. Oh, he seems like he's doing a good job. Oh, cool. He could have been doing that lawn for free for the first one.
- [34:40]
B
Yep.
- [34:40]
A
You know, and that would have been a great strategy. Like, you do your first lawn for free.
- [34:44]
B
Yeah. With service businesses, it's so stupid simple in so many ways that I think people just think it's not true because it's. People just have this concept like, making this much money should be hard. So it's a mindset problem, too.
- [35:05]
A
Interesting. What are the biggest, biggest things you repeatedly see? People like service businesses like the mistakes that they make.
- [35:15]
B
Underestimate how important their technician is. Most people don't train their technician for customer interaction, but anybody who's going to come in contact with your client needs to be trained in how to behave in front of a client, what to say, what to not say. And actually train repeatedly on a weekly basis because they're. They're good at their job. Right. They may be great at fixing that H vac or mowing the lawn, but they don't have the customer service skill set. So. But it's all things that can be learned. But most business owners don't think about that. They think, oh, my sales guy, he's good. He's good with customers. They don't think, my. The guy who's actually going to provide the service.
- [36:06]
A
Spending five hours there at the house.
- [36:08]
B
Correct.
- [36:09]
A
Interesting. You know what? I. I know a lot of local business owners and I repeatedly see a similar theme pop up. And the. I see the biggest challenge that they do, the biggest mistake that they make is they underestimate the business aspect of the whole thing. Oh, yeah. They get obsessed with their craft. They get obsessed with their, like, what they do. Oh, I. I got this new mower. Like, I mow it this way and I like, cut it this way. And like, I just love this mower and the trailer I got and this truck I got. And like.
- [36:42]
B
Yeah.
- [36:43]
A
And what they, what they don't do is they don't actually, like, put. Elevate themselves for a second and look down on the business and say, ah, got it. Finances. Here, this is how it works. Okay. This is the management. Here's the system that we need. Okay. I got this debt service here. I got. Actually I have this loan or, you know, all this, like, profitability and like, they don't even hire a bookkeeper most of the time, unfortunately. Yep. And they're still running their books or their. The husband is running the books or the wife is running the books. And I'm like, dude, like Value your time more. Let's. That's, that's a hundred dollars a month job who's really good at running, getting books. And you suck at doing books. You don't know how to do it, but you're doing the books. That's crazy. Anyway, that's my thoughts.
- [37:28]
B
No, yeah, you're right. Well, it's not just crazy. You can also get yourself into quite a bit of trouble at the end of the year.
- [37:35]
A
Seen it many times. I've seen that.
- [37:39]
B
Yep.
- [37:41]
A
It's.
- [37:41]
B
People are constantly walking over dollars to save pennies. Right. It's like it's that hundred dollars now. It's going to cost you thousands at the end of the year.
- [37:50]
A
Yeah. And I think it's probably, it's not like they do it on purpose.
- [37:54]
B
Yeah, of course. It's a mindset thing.
- [37:56]
A
It is a mindset thing. Absolutely. It's a, it's probably a limited mindset, like a scarcity mindset. A little bit like I need to save this money when, when reality is like, hey, just build the system and so that way you can go get more customers. You know, the abundance. That's a, that's an abundance mindset versus scarcity mindset though. I would say.
- [38:15]
B
Yeah. People, when they haven't started a business before and they start the first time, most of the time they fail because they start panicking when they have to invest and spend money. Right. Especially in marketing and they're not seeing the results and they immediately blame that the business didn't work and I'm going to shut it down. But they don't understand that maybe you're not marketing the right way and it's just a process of you figuring it out. And of course it's going to cost you money and you're not going to see results because you're learning.
- [38:45]
A
Yep, I completely agree. I think about businesses all the time about like local businesses and about how they're so like not digitized yet. Like they're not modern yet, you know, and so like there's a big opportunity for this next wave of entrepreneurs, local business entrepreneurs to just like modernize their stuff. Like take the lawn care, take it and put it online. Like put and create a nice store, create a nice like web page and like marketing pages and like blog and like make, you know, modernize this thing. Because all your competitors like the 65 year old baby boomer. Right. Who's that? Didn't, he didn't have to do that. But you kind of have this opportunity in front of you. You can Actually digitize the entire business, which is really cool.
- [39:28]
B
So with that, I mean, I agree with you, but the other side of it is not everybody is looking to make millions and billions. Right. They're happy with the business that's making 4000-005000-00300,000 a year, and they're taking home 100, 200, 300 for their family. They're happy with that. And they're getting that from referrals. And they already have a established book. They don't need to spend so much time and money being in front of new clients anymore. So, you know, doing all that extra work is. May be redundant for them because they're not looking to expand anymore.
- [40:05]
A
Interesting. Ready for the rapid fire question?
- [40:09]
B
Go for it. Ooh, cool.
- [40:12]
A
All right. What is your favorite business book?
- [40:17]
B
Business book. The Art of Start was pretty good. Well, the new Alex Hormozi book from the webinar. Did you buy that?
- [40:27]
A
One Million Dollar Models. Yep.
- [40:29]
B
Did you end up buying it?
- [40:31]
A
I bought it. I haven't read it yet.
- [40:33]
B
Yeah, same.
- [40:35]
A
Nice. Okay, cool. What's the one thing that you wish that you knew before starting your business?
- [40:41]
B
Which? The first one or this one?
- [40:44]
A
Yeah, first one.
- [40:54]
B
So I would. Okay. So the biggest mistake. One of the biggest mistakes and failures, I would say, was when I pivoted away from building something that my customers want and customer focus first to. So I'll go back to my first company. Right. When I built the CPG brand, my customers were my wholesale distributors, but my profit margins were 35%. And if I sold, or at the time I thought if I sold directly to retail shops, that my profit margin would be over 50%. So I all of a sudden bypassed my actual customers, and that was a massive, massive failure.
- [41:42]
A
Wrong.
- [41:44]
B
So staying focused to your customer.
- [41:49]
A
Interesting. Staying in your lane. Almost like.
- [41:51]
B
Stay in your lane.
- [41:52]
A
Yeah. And work that lane, because it's probably deeper than you think instead of going horizontal.
- [41:57]
B
Yep, it was working. I didn't need to break it.
- [42:00]
A
Interesting. And you probably could have continued to go deeper there too.
- [42:03]
B
Oh, yeah. Young, cocky kid.
- [42:08]
A
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. Who do you think should be a business owner? Last question.
- [42:14]
B
In my personal opinion, everybody, if you want to avoid the anxiety of being laid off at will or whenever because the company isn't doing well, has nothing to do with your performance. You should absolutely start your own thing where you have control over how much you're going to make. You know, where your future trajectory and time is going to go.
- [42:39]
A
I completely agree with you. I haven't had many people probably say that because I agree every single person should own a business and it doesn't even have to be your full time job. Like, but it gives you freedom, it gives you options, optionality, gives you the opportunity to have time, freedom, location, freedom, financial freedom, escape, like the anxiety. Of all the things you just mentioned, I completely, completely agree with you.
- [43:06]
B
Makes you a better person. I think. You know, when you've gotten your ass kicked trying to build something and everything that goes along with, you know, entrepreneurship just makes you a better human. You're kinder to other people.
- [43:20]
A
Right, because you have, yeah, you're, it forces you to be more empathetic. It thinks it makes you even have, have hospitality because everyone's your customer, potential customer. It makes you a good leader in your community. In this case, like if you're a local business, you have to be a good leader. Like you can't just be a shitty leader inside of your community and have a long business. Like this doesn't work. Nope. Yeah, it's, I, I agree with you and I, I, I would, I would argue or I would challenge anyone who's like, doesn't agree with that. I mean like, not everybody's built for entrepreneurship, you know. Well, maybe in the past, but like modern day entrepreneurship, you can have a business and also work a job that you absolutely love. Also like, like you can do both nowadays.
- [44:02]
B
What are your thoughts? There are systems and operations and there are people like me who can help you right from the mistakes we've made so that you're not making them. It's like golf. Like I, I try to teach myself golf for over a year, you know, the books, the YouTube. And then I went and got a one hour lesson with an instructor and my swing improved drastically.
- [44:31]
A
Coaching, we underestimate it. Yeah, I completely agree. Where can people find you? Where can people learn more from you and follow you?
- [44:41]
B
Zari.com would be a great place if you're looking for free resources to start a business. And if you want one of our client advisors to walk you through what would be a good business for you can book a call with us.
- [44:55]
A
Awesome. Azgari, thank you so much for your time. This was super fun. And I'll have to have you on again for a checkup on, on what, what changes in the next, you know, maybe six months or something like that. But thank you again. Really cool.
- [45:07]
B
Thank you Cody. This was honestly fun.
- [45:11]
A
Awesome. Talk to you soon.
- [45:12]
B
Talk to you soon.