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Lawntrepreneur Academy live is back November 7th in Novi, Michigan at the newly named Vibe Credit Union Showplace. This year brings a new format, new speakers, expanded breakout sessions, hands on learning, and more chances to put ideas into action right away. Bring your entire team and get ready for a bigger, better experience at Launchpreneur Academy Live.
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You're now listening to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. Straightforward, no nonsense business advice. Completely unfiltered.
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Grow your business, grow your life. Now here's your host, Brian Fullerton.
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All right, gang, so today's video, we're going to be talking about designing and building a business that you actually want before it's too late. And I guess the antithesis of this is don't build a business that you don't want. Okay, we're going to give you guys some tips and some suggestions here today. If you're new to the channel, it's all about helping you guys grow a more successful lawn landscaping business so you guys can go out there and crush it. We're on a roadmap to $1 million business over here in the greater Wixom, Brighton, New Hudson, Novi, Michigan area. If you guys are new here, maybe consider subscribing. We do videos like this and so many, so many more. So we'd love to have you part of the team. All right, so here's what I want to talk about today. Four different conversations. Number one, getting the right type of business put together. Number two, getting the right type of customers. Number three, getting the right type of work. And number four, talking about one that hasn't been talked a lot and in a while is building the right route, the right type of service area. I think a lot of people are still leaving money on the table there. Before we jump into it and I throw up on you for the next 10 minutes on the whiteboard, I do want to just mention three quick things. Number one, somebody just signed up the other day with gusto. We do earn a kickback. I'll leave my affiliate link or whatever you call it in the description. Thank you for that. I make some money on that. You make some money on that. So big thank you to you guys. That's what we've been using for payroll for over a year. I just had to mention that because it just came through like 20 minutes ago. So thank you, thank you, thank you. All those little, like kickbacks and dollars here and hundreds of dollars there. It goes right back into making content like this for you guys. So thank you in advance. Number two, the SOP Bundle. Can't thank you guys enough for the support with that. If you're looking to grow multiple crews, hire Office Admin help. That's what the SOP bundle is for. 50 to 60 plus training videos now for the field to help you train and teach your team and another 20 plus videos including videos that we're filming right now for Snow to help you guys with your office admin help. So thank you for checking out the SOP Bundle and and your support there. Last but not least, it's Landscape Operator Efficiency Week at Granum and your boy is hosting Tuesday through Friday, 2 o' clock each day. I'll leave a link in the description so you can register for that webinar like a thousand plus people already registered for that. It's going to be a great conversation teaching you all about how to know your numbers, how to get a budget, checking revenue per hour, man hour rates, and all the fun conversations that we normally do with the LMN folks. So hope to see you guys on those webinars real time this week, every day at 2 o'. Clock. Put it on your phone, put the earbuds AirPods in and listen to it as you mow or go do whatever you guys are doing out there. We'd love to have you guys join us so all those links will be in the description. Listen, this really quick. What I want to talk about for a couple of minutes is as we're continuing to build a business, or maybe you guys are just getting started in business, the very first thing we want to do, and I wish that I thought more of this through as I was getting started, was number one, building a business biz that I wanted. I think all too often a lot of us get started in business, we're just cutting grass on the side, we're doing some landscaping on the side, it's making us some money. And then one thing turns into another. Maybe we get two clients, five clients, 10 clients, 20 clients, 50 clients. And then we have the more realistic conversation is do we make this a full time gig? I'm making 50 grand at job A and I'm making 50 grand with plan B. Is this something that I want to make a lateral, get the boat close to the dock, maybe do both for a year or two, get out of debt, put some money in the bank, pay off your equipment and then jump into being self employed or running and growing a business of your own? Sure, that's fine. But most of us, if you really think about have we built a business that we actually want or was it something that we kind of fell into? And to be completely honest with you guys, I'm the first comfort conversation. This is something that was just a good idea that turned into a bigger thing. And, and as we're going 20 years into this bad boy, believe it or not, we're now just starting to have those more intentional conversations the last couple of years about building a business that we actually want to further play off of that conversation. Let's talk about things like number one, revenue goals. Re V, E, N. I can't spell revenue goals. Maybe that's why I didn't make it for that long. Revenue rev. Is that how you spell type of revenue? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? Do we want to have reoccurring revenue? Do we want to have landscape enhancement revenue? Do we want to do snow removal? Right. All different conversations that we can have as we grow our business type of work, Right? Do we want to be very profitable? Do we want to have large owners compensation and profit? Do we want to build a business that's for the people, that has great salaries, bonuses, 401k matching health care, right, etc. Etc. You don't have to have this all figured out in stone as you would imagine. But here's one thing that I would just exercise some caution. If you're just getting going or maybe you've been doing this for 5, 10, 15 years, are you on path and on track to build a business that you actually want? And I don't just mean like, you know, passion versus purpose. Another conversation for another time. I mean, is the business today, like are you actually doing what you wanted to do? A buddy of mine, he does landscaping and mowing and he noticed that a couple of years ago his business was becoming a large mo business when his whole passion was doing landscapes, hardscapes and design build work. And over the couple of years it went from one day of mowing, two days of mowing, four days of mowing, and one day of landscaping. And he said, you know what? Enough is enough. I'm going to start backwards backpedaling, getting rid of some of those mow route days and going back into design build. That was his prerogative. Today he does no mowing and exclusively does landscaping and design build. So again, building a business that you want, this is great to dial in if you're just getting started or if you've been doing this for 10 or 15 years and do a little litmus out there of what your business is currently doing today. Let's do this. Let's go into number two and we're keep this moving and grooving. The first one was designing a business that you actually like. Number two, if it was up to my humble but accurate opinion, it is doing the work that you're passionate about. I think all too often, again, we get into growing a business and it's all just good ideas. It sounds good. It's just low hanging fruit. We get asked, hey, do you do mulch? Sure we do. Hey, do you guys do pruning? Yeah, sure. Hey, do you guys do French drains? Nope. But I got YouTube University, so I'm going to go learn about it. And as they talk about it in the good to great book, the Hedgehog Principle, you want to be good at it, passionate about it, and have it make economic sense, make money at it. Well, here's the whole conversation. Doing the work that you're passionate about. Right. So we want to build a business that we actually are proud of and enjoy, but also doing the work that we're passionate about and enjoy. If you hate mowing and your business is like, I want to build a successful business, but you hate mowing, well then, like, why are we doing mowing now? If you're a means is the end kind of a guy, Sure, I get that. But for the most part, most of us aren't going to be built like that. We have to somewhat enjoy what we do. Well, Brian, you always complain that it's cold out in snow and your hands get cold and you don't like snow. Yeah, yeah, I don't mind doing snow. I don't thoroughly love doing snow, but I don't mind doing snow. But I do love the money that we make and the profit we make doing snow. For me, that gets me over the hump to do what? Snow. Now, other guys, they eat, sleep, breathe snow. Other guys eat, sleep, breathe, design, build. That's awesome. You know why? Because that's the work that they're passionate about. And I know this kind of seems obvious, but as you guys are getting started in this, if you decide French drains aren't for you, don't do French drains. If you lose your shirt doing a burlap job or some type of outdoor planting and you're like, you know what? I really just enjoy green straight stripes. You can absolutely. Yes, you can absolutely make a lot of money having a giant mo business. Why? You know, all the money's in the landscape. All the money is in the design build. No problem. Talk to Jerry Schill, who just sold for like A couple hundred million dollars. And they make tall grass short and plow snow from here to there. You can make money in any part of the industry. I was just reading the Lawn and landscape magazine, top 100. A lot of those companies, commercial reoccurring work. A lot of mo businesses, all right, Millions and millions of clients, but a lot of mo business, right? Doing the work that you're passionate about. On that note, let's talk about three things that I think are going to be very helpful if you want to continue to double down on this. Number one, be known for that work. Be known for that work. A lot of you guys know Troy Clogg. Like, he's the snow guy in Michigan or the hot pink. He's the salt guy in Michigan. A lot of you guys know Lucas Lagoons, right? I haven't had Lucas on my podcast or haven't got a chance to meet him. I'm sure he's a hell of a dude and. But I love his stuff. I see it all the time on Facebook. Be known for that type of work. If I wanted a lagoon at my house in Michigan, I wouldn't call my local pool company, Pond Company. I probably end up calling Lucas Lagoons. Or I call, you know, Greg Wigstock, the pond guy, right? So, number one, be known for that work. Number two, as you're building out that brand, right? Let's continue to build the reputation and the brand. This is shorthand. This is just some ideas that I'm proposing to you guys. Be known for that work, but have a reputation and a brand that promotes that everywhere you go. I gave you a couple of good suggestions just now. East coast facilities with snow. Lucas Lagoons, Greg Witsock, the pond guy. I'm sure there's other great folks out there that when you think that field or that service, you think those guys. Does that make sense? Number three, as we're piggybacking off of this and again, all the business that we're developing in general. Number three, build systems that continue to do one and two, build a systems business that can help you keep and stay passionate about the business and the work that you're doing. One of the things that's challenging and frustrating and really just disheartening out there in general is we love mowing grass, we love landscaping, and then we get bogged down with the office side of the business, the admin side of the business, the invoicing, the bookkeeping, the compliance, the hr, right? Nobody wants to necessarily get started doing that in business. I know I did it well, no problem. Be known for the band, the brand, build a reputation, be known for that work and build a business that you like. All the other stuff, you have to learn it, you have to pay attention to it, but build a system that manages it for you. Oftentimes you guys hear me promote folks like elements cycle, CPA, coast fuel, cards, etc. Etc. Etc. Those are the systems and the people and the team behind Brian's Law Maintenance that allows me to go hard in the paint doing what I like to do. All right, let's do this really quick. Number one, we want to build a business that we like. Number two, we want to build a business that we're passionate about. Number three, this is a big one. You guys can imagine this. It is. Any guesses? Drumroll please. Get your ICP dialed in. What is ICP? It's not a band from the 90s 2000s that actually grew up five minutes down the road from where I grew up. No joke, your boy comes from the double wide trailer in dirt roads of Milford, Michigan. Some of. Some of those people do as well. I digress. Get your ICP dialed in. What is icp? I didn't know that word until two years ago until I plugged into a leanscaper event with Mark Bradley. I'm embarrassed to tell you that 18 years. Never heard the term before in my life. I probably should have watched a Mike Andes video, right? Get your ICP dialed in. Ideal customer profile. You guys need to know who that is, right? Is it customers that have 800 to $1.2 million homes that are looking for, you know, $80 to $100, $110 weekly? Mo's Are these folks that are into ponds? Are these commercial sites that have 20 to 50k snow contracts? Are these clients that have 300 yard bed mulch jobs like HOAS? Is that your ICP? Look, you can literally crack down probably 12 or 15 different services in our industry. Ponds, irrigation, lighting, mulch, commercial, residential, et cetera, et cetera. Who is your icp? And this again, as you can see, full circle goes back to building the business that you want and getting the right type of customers that you want, but also building a brand and doing the work that you're passionate for. Who is this for us? I just got started with low hanging fruit. I had a couple of residentials, we had a couple of trailer park lawns, we had a couple of three to five hundred grand home value lawns. Then we found our bread and butter with 50 to 80 residential 5,000 square foot subdivision lawns, but a couple five acre properties. We had some commercials popping up. We had $60 weekly mo commercials, we had $225 weekly mows and we got into some HOA's that were 4 and $500 weekly mo's. We were all over the place. Is it wrong? No. We busted out a great little business doing a half a million dollars in revenue at a decent percentage profit margin. But as the saying goes, if you're everything to everyone, you're not one thing to someone, right? So that means you're nothing to everyone or whatever the heck the statement is. Right? But you guys know what I'm trying to say. Are you guys a mo business? Are you a snow business? Are you a landscaping business? Are you a hardscaping business? And if so, who is your icp? Are you guys doing half a million dollar backyards installs like Jason Cromley with Hidden Creek out of Columbus, Ohio? Or you guys doing 10 to 25,000, I don't know, 12 by 12 little patios in somebody's backyard for $25,000? Both are awesome. Both. You can build a business around where you make money, but we got to make sure that we're not trying to do both at the same time. That's where I've noticed a lot of folks, including myself, really get jammed up. And again, you end up being everything to everyone and not one thing great to one ideal customer. Does that make sense? Focus on folks that align with your goals, your pricing and what you're trying to price out there to create profit in your lawn and landscaping business. So so far, just to take it to the top, number one, we want a business that we actually like and enjoy. Number two, the work that we like and enjoy. Number three, our ideal customer profile. We want to do the work and get the money out of the business that we actually enjoy. Right? We're here to make profit. Let's not be confused. And then let's do this really quick. I'm going to throw in a little fourth one. This is a little bonus tip. I didn't put this on my notes. I'm not going to go long on it. Number four, build a team that you enjoy. You're going to spend more time doing work than you are probably likely going to spend time with your family, believe it or not, 40, 50 hours a week at the shop, at your work, doing whatever you're doing. Make sure the folks that you're doing life and business with, the team that you build are people that you actually enjoy and do you want to build a culture of people that everybody gets in. We're all there at seven o', clock, two minutes early. We start at seven. You know, early is on time, on time is late. That kind of culture where everybody comes on in, we do a big circle huddle, we do a stretch and flex morning prayer. Maybe we have somebody share something exciting that happened with the day before, and it's a camaraderie event and everybody busts out the door like, dude, we're team whatever and we're gonna go kick butt. Or if you want another team that's out there and Everybody comes in five and 20 minutes late, there's gossip, there's drama. People are r darts. People are just like, not in uniform. One guy's breath smells like something he was drinking from the bar the night before. Like, what kind of team in business do you want to build? And as the saying goes, like, whatever you accept, whatever you tolerate, that's what you're going to get and get more of. This wasn't in my notes, but I do want to tell you guys, this is something that's been on my heart and on my mind for a long time, probably the last two or three years. It is building a team of folks that I enjoy, that are passionate, that I don't have to babysit, that show leadership ability, that want to own it, that have grit. That's the guys that have working on our team so far, and I couldn't be more happy with them. And by the way, as my team has continued to get stronger, not only is the brand growing and the client list is growing and the profitability is growing, but guess what? My headaches are diminishing. Who doesn't like the sound of that? All right, so as you continue to build up, maybe you have some team members that you might need to promote to another company. Maybe the messaging and the branding that you're putting out there needs to change and evolve. And from when it was just you and you and your buddy in the truck to now you and a team of 10 or 12 or 15 guys. Maybe the talent pool that we're recruiting from or the job ads we're putting out needs to elevate. Maybe it needs to change. We need to get rid of a couple folks that were bad culture fits and have bad attitudes. And unfortunately, if you don't pull those teeth, if you don't, you know, fix those issues, that cancer is just going to spread to other areas and it's not going to do us any good. Number five. And again, Drop me down below in the comments if you're working on any of these specifically, I'm pouring out my heart here. Hopefully you guys are enjoying this. It is route density, but more specifically I want to put service area. If you could read my chicken scratch. Route density is important. But in the same note, I'm probably going to change this to our service area. I see all too often still folks that are spending more time driving per day than they are mowing. And I'm dead serious, eight or ten hour day and I'll meet up somebody or talk to somebody, like yeah, I got lawns on, you know, where I live and on this side of town and then later over here and I'm over here later that evening. But you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'm over here, here and here and I'm thinking to myself, dude, if you look at the major thoroughfares through our, you know, tri county area, Oakland County, Livingston County, Washtenaw, wherever I'm at, right? And I'm like, dude, what are you talking about? Like you should have, in my humble opinion, if this is your area of town, you can do across through it. You should have everybody over here not, you know, 5 to 25% of your business, 25% of your business like way too scattered, right? 15%. Well, this is a big day over here. So we got 30%. Like no offense, right? I was just for a little while, not a long while, for a little while. And then I. One of my only saving graces where we had decent route density, I knew that if we stayed in the same eight to ten subdivisions back at home and that we would make up any lack of efficiency or pricing just by sure. Stupidity or dumbfound lock by route density. Does that make sense? So that's something we have to get good at is being in a route density service area of what we're trying to do and not driving all around town. Remember, you don't want distractions pulling you away. You don't want customers that don't fit this mold pulling you away. You want to make sure that you have a goal, right? Imagine this, a goal five. And I know this might be hard to imagine when you're just getting started, set a goal five to 10 years out, a vision for where you see the company. Like right now, locally, we're trying to build a $5 million company in a five mile radius of town. And I know we're going to get there. There's absolutely no doubt that we couldn't do it where we're at right now, there is four or five big cities where you could pop up a $5 million branch and have a $25 million company right here locally. So some of my guys or even a customer says, well, I'm just five minutes down the road or 10 minutes down the road, or we're over here, over there. I'm like, look, if it doesn't fit into this box based on our major mile roads or geographical areas or where I just want service to be offered, then it doesn't count. Well, I got somebody across the street right here. We talked about this on an old route density video seven years ago. It doesn't count. You've got to be inside the route because eventually you stretch, then you stretch, then you stretch, then you stretch, then you stretch.
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And then.
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And before you know it, you're three miles away or five miles away or 30 minutes away from where you first got that original customer. And now you're driving all over Timbuktu at $6 a gallon of gas. That ain't going to do anything for anybody. Get your route density figured out. Get your service area figured out. The last big one I'm going to put here is learn to say no. Learn to say no on customers that don't fit, customers that don't fit your route, customers that don't fit your revenue per hour, customers that don't fit your profitability goals, customers that don't fit the type of work that you want to do, customers that don't appreciate you. Right. Let's just, you know, slow down a little bit here. I know I'm kind of talking at you fast. Half of this is me. The other half is Yolani. But I'll tell you what, there's so many customers out there. One of my favorite sayings is that I came up with or I borrowed from somebody a long time ago was go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated. There's customers that say, where yet. Where. Yeah. Where? Yeah. How come you're not done yet? When are you guys going to do it? Your price is too high. You don't need to deal with those folks. There's enough people out there. There's enough fish in the sea for folks that say, oh, my God, thank God that you picked up. Oh, my God, we love you. Oh, my God, thank you that you're here. Not only thank you that you're Here, here's a 10% tip on the invoice total. Here's some Gatorades for your team. And also, do you guys need a tent out back, because I've got a tent that your hardscape guys can chill out underneath as they're cutting those bricks. Because I saw that you guys might have forgot yours. Those customers exist, by the way. Right? So get your route density figured out. Get your service area figured out. It might be a time to start pruning. I'm telling you, a lot of you guys out there, and I say this with tough love, a lot of you guys are out there are spending way too much time driving around for a simple postcard or marketing campaign. You can absolutely dial this in and be able to replace those outlier customers in no time at all. Maybe one season max, but probably in just a couple of months. A lot's getting thrown up on you. This whole conversation stems from folks asking me, hey, if you're going to do it, what's some things that you would change, what are some things that you change different in your lawn landscaping business if you're going to do it all over again? And I always love questions like that because, well, hindsight's 20 20, of course I would change, if not a half dozen, probably 500 things in my business, just like most of you guys. But I would, number one, figure out what kind of business am I trying to build, what kind of work am I trying to do, what kind of customers am I trying to get, what kind of team am I trying to assemble, and what kind of area am I looking to do all the above. And I think if you start with that, there's a solid roadmap that in two years, five years max, definitely within 10 years, you can build and chisel out a fantastic business, whether that's a half a million running 20% net or $10 million business running 10 or 15% net. Fantastic businesses, regardless of whatever size revenue you decide, you can build a business that you love, that you can enjoy, that is making an impact that your team can be proud of, that they have options to grow up through that organization. And all of this coming together can help you make a huge impact on your local community and for your family. And to me, that is what makes me talk fast and that's what gets me excited about making YouTube videos just like this. All right, there's a lot here. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments down below. If you don't want to leave a public comment, totally understand that. Shoot me a DM on Instagram, give me a follow there. Shoot me an email. I'm wide available. I can answer a question. Anytime, any place, I'm always here for you guys. And if you do have anything specific that you do want to leave in a fun conversation, leave it in the chats down below while you guys are smashing that big thumbs up. All right, that's what I'm going to leave you guys today. Check out the Granim Tour links in Description thank you for signing up. With gusto. You know who you are and I forget the last one, but oh, the SOP bundle. If you guys want to look at scaling your business and hitting some of these larger revenue numbers that we're talking about as we're doing this here too, and documenting that whole process as we go, we'll leave links@launchpreneuracademy.com and you guys can check that out as well over now. Guys, thank you so much for watching. We look forward to catching up with all of you guys here on the next video. Thank you.
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There are thousands of brands building gear for our trade. You could drive, say 33,000 miles and visit all of them, but ain't nobody got time for that. October 20th through the 23rd in Louisville, Kentucky. They are coming to you at Equip Exposition. Visit them all in a gigantic indoor exhibition hall and the 30 acre demo yard outside. Mowers, skid steers, chainsaws, irrigation, hardscape, tree care. All of it in one place. Demo the machines. Talk to the experts who make them try the new stuff before you even spend a dime. Early bird is only $30 if you register now equip exposition.com register now@equip exposition.com or use the link in the podcast description. Save 50% off your registration when you apply the code. Brian at checkout we can't wait to see you in Louisville.
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Thanks for taking the time to listen to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast with BR Fullerton. We hope you enjoyed this production. If so, please consider leaving us a five star review for the show. While the techniques and ideas presented here are designed to help you grow a more successful and profitable business, no one can guarantee these results for you. We want to emphasize that entrepreneurship is not easy and the ideas presented here are just the opinions of Brian Fullerton and his respective guests. No one can guarantee success for you. That being said, we hope the ideas presented here help you and motivate you to go on out there and crush it with your own business.
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Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast thanks for listening and
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we hope to see you on the next episode.
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This has been a Bryan Fullerton and Mr. Producer Production.