← Green Industry Podcast
Green Industry Podcast
5 Fatal Mistakes Crushing Your Profits This Spring (Part 3 in Spring Rush Series)
00:30:04
Loading summary
Transcript5 lines
- [00:00]
A
You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet like the just one tapping ridiculously fast acting sky high sales stacking champion at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today@shopify.com winner.
- [00:33]
B
Hello and welcome to the Green Industry podcast, your go to guide for building a more profitable and thriving lawn care and landscaping business. Your host, Paul Jamison is the author of five best selling books including Cut that grass and make that Cash and his latest Level up your money, all available on Amazon and Audible. Now get ready for more expert insights and practical strategies to boost your business and level up your life. Here's Paul Jameson.
- [01:09]
C
Welcome back to the program. I'm Paul Jameson. Down here in sunny, and I mean sunny Florida. We I love living down here. Well, today we're going to talk about the five fatal mistakes crushing your profits this spring. This is essentially part three of in my Spring Rush series because I've been around the industry since 2011, my friend, and I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly of the spring rush. Bobby Unger once said that success is where preparation and opportunity meet. Success is where preparation, an opportunity meet. Now, the thing about the spring rush is it's the best opportunity of the year because the demand for your services is at an all time peak. There's something special about when there's two nice days in a row. I mean, the birds come out, the birds are chirping and singing their song and the weather's warming up and the weather there just is pleasant, that does something. And this happens every single year where it just creates this urgency, if you will, for homeowners. They're like, hey, we need to get, we need to get our outdoor space spruced up here. We need to get this looking better. And if you are prepared with proper marketing, they're going to think about you and they're going to reach out to you, which can be a blessing. But it can also be overwhelming when you have too much on your plate. You talk to any business owner in the lawn care, landscaping industry and they'll just laugh at you when you say, hey, are you busy? Yeah, I'm busy. But with each hour of the day, which each hour of the morning, the afternoon, the evening, how are we making sure that we're giving our best effort to the things that are actually financially moving the needle and not just being busy with tire kickers and things that aren't profitable. And how do you create and maintain healthy relationships? For example, if you're married with your spouse, if you're a father with your children, your grandfather with your grandchildren, with obviously your team members and obviously with your customers, how do you keep all of those relationships healthy and things of that nature? So we're going to talk about that on today's program. And I, I share that as a foundation because what I'm really focused on is the profit part, the money part of the spring rush. Because you can do mistakes that will make that profit disintegrate. So what are those mistakes and how can you avoid them? Because it is the busiest time of the year. Hopefully your phone is ringing off the hook and your schedules are jam packed, but they're jam packed with the right customers for the right services at the right price. Because being busy isn't the same as being profitable. I was kind of good. Mr. Producer, can you write that down? What did I just say? Being busy isn't the same as being profitable. I like that. I'm gonna put that on Facebook, actually. I'm serious. Can you write that down? Yeah, I said being busy isn't the same as being profitable. I'm gonna, I'm gonna post that on Facebook this afternoon. And by the way, if you want to follow us over on Facebook, I created a Facebook page. And the thing, what, at the recording of this episode, we're at 98, 000 followers. That's crazy. So hopefully we'll hit a hundred thousand followers this week, which is just absolutely crazy. But I like to put little quotes on there that are, you know, little one liners like that. So anyway, today we're going to look at the five traps that turn a high revenue spring into a low profit summer. Meaning yet you went out there and you thought you made all this money. You did. You probably did make all this money. But then when the dog days of, dog days of summer come around, you're like, where did it all go? Why? Why am I not profitable? Like the money came in and then the money went out. All right, Mistake number one is I'm gonna. What I jot down in my notes is I call it the, the estimate trap. And I'm guilty of this. And honestly, I'm guilty of this. This year I made, I, I made a blunder on this this year. What do they say? Do as I say, not as I do. I, I literally Made this mistake this year. Here's the mistake. It's speed over accuracy. Now hear me out. We should be quick to turn around an estimate, a quote. That is the name of the game if we want to. If we want to land the job. Because if, if, If. If somebody calls you up and says, hey, I need you to give me a quote. We, we. We need our. Our mulch beds. We're actually gonna go with pine straw this year. But we. We just need you to come and get rid of all the. The weeds out, trim up some of these bushes, and give us all fresh pine straw. And you're thinking, oh, this is going to be a big, big money job because they have a whole bunch of bushes. We're going to have to trim all of those up. Then we're going to have to haul all that debris off. We're going to have to clean up all these. All these weeds, like, get rid of all the weeds, and we'll put some ground cover down in there, and then we'll just. We'll just crank this pine straw. I mean, they're going to need so many bales of pine straw. Okay, good. But then you get busy. I'm going to talk about this later in Episode. But then you get busy and you forget to give him a quote. And then old Johnny shows up and he's like, hey, here, here it is. Going to be $3,500, Mrs. Smith. And Mrs. Smith's like, when can you get started, Johnny? Well, we can do it tomorrow, Mrs. Smith. Then, boom, Johnny gets your job. You drive by and you see the bed. This happens so many times. You drive by and you see, man, that looking fresh over there. Oh, yeah, I forgot to give him a quote. So you do need to have speed, quick delivery. But that's not my point. My point in the estimate trap is, is accuracy is what you really need. So the biggest mistake in the spring rush when it comes to estimating and quoting is you're so overwhelmed that you just spitball something together. You ballpark it. You're rushing. You had a super long day. You're out of the customer's yard. You just kind of rush through it, and you. You give them the quote, but it wasn't actually accurate. And so now you got to go do this job in the middle of the spring rush. Some of y' all are like, I've done this so many times, Paul. I know exactly what you're talking about. You're out there on the job, slaving away in the spring rush. There's all this other work you could be doing, but you're stuck on this one job that ain't even profitable. I mean, your reputation's online, so you got to do a good job at it. But by the time it's all said and done, you spend so much on material, you spend so much on labor, there's so many little hidden things you didn't even account for. And now you're just, you just. You wasted so much time on this job, but it, but it's just a wash. So you got to know your numbers. You got to know, let's say your, your man hour rate this year. You put on your big boy pants, your, your, your leveled up, and you're like, I'm charging $80 per man hour this year no matter what, then you need to stick to that rate. If that's, if that's your, your, your man hour rate, which is about average, maybe slightly above average if you calculate the whole United States of America. But that's average. And $80 per man hour. If a yard takes you one hour, man hour, one hour. So maybe two guys, 30 minutes be one man hour. Then you got to charge $80 on that yard. And you just got to, you got to know your numbers. You got to stick to your guns. You can't go out there and be like, oh, well, that yard looks like it's going to be a piece of cake. That'll be $60 just because you're in a hurry. No $80, man hour. We got it. We got to calculate. We're in the business selling time. Jonathan. Petitioning taught me years ago, you got to make sure that your price is reflective of your man hour rate. So when you get out there and you actually do the maintenance, you're clocking at $80 per man hour and you fill in the blanks for the mulch. If you're charging $110 this year per yard of mulch installed and you're out there giving a quote, make sure it's accurate, that you calculate the right amount of yards of mulch that that customer needs. Shout outs to Jobber, the software that we recommend, because this can help you send your quotes a lot more accurately. You can use the measuring tools, you can use the data that you've collected. I've been using jobber since 2019, so I can go back and look at any year, at any service I did for any customer, and I can see exactly what is going on. So that can help with future estimates, quotes, things of that nature, having that information in place. So we're gonna hear a quick word from today's show sponsors. And coming up, I have four more mistakes that you want to avoid this year. So we've already talked about. Don't just rush out a quote and then not be accurate because now you're stuck with the work at the wrong price. So make sure there's accuracy in all of your quotes that you're sending out. And don't hear me wrong. You still want to be quick to turn that around timely so that you get the job. But the actual numbers on your estimate and on your quote need to reflect profitable pricing. For mulch, for pine straw, for. For any job that you could possibly be doing. Mo edge trim below. You need to know your numbers ahead of time. What was that? What was that quote? Mr. Producer know about success? Oh, yeah. Success is where preparation, an opportunity meet. So hopefully by this point in the season, you're prepared with your prices. You know what you charge per yard of mulch? Say $110 per yard of mulch. You know what you charge per mowing? $80 per man hour mowing. I'm just throwing out average numbers. Maybe you're, you're like, shoot, we, we charge more than that. Go get it, boy. Go get it, girl. But you know your numbers, you know what you need to charge to be profitable. So now when the opportunities come, you're able to meet them because you're prepared and you're not under quoting work just because you're busy. All right, we're supposed to be having a commercial break here because. All right, Mr. Producer is going to play today's show. Sponsors, I am so fired up. I got more to talk about on these, the four other mistakes coming up next. Your lawn care business deserves to be seen. Footbridge Media crafts optimized mobile ready websites to. To put you ahead. These guys are great. That's why they have so many five star reviews. They're simply the best. To get started with Footbridge Media and have them create you a banger of a website, visit today's show notes. Click on that link and let Footbridge Media transform your online presence. If you guys are looking to level up your marketing, you want your website looking fresh. You want to be optimized for AI, optimized for SEO. When people are out there searching for lawn care near me, things of that nature, you want to show up, check out Footbridge Media. They are when I say vetted. I've been to their headquarters in Pensacola, Florida, and I've had Chris Lonergan from Footbridge Media on the program so many times, they've taken care of so many of you guys's websites and marketing and their, their information is in today's show notes. So if you want really fresh looking website and professional marketing and, and, and, and strategy to really look like you're the best lawn care business in town, check out Footbridge Media. They're absolutely fantastic. Proverbs chapter 14:23 says, all hard work brings profit. All hard work brings profit. But mere talk only leads to poverty. Mere talk only leads to poverty. So that brings me to mistake number two that we make during the spring rush that affects our bottom line. The mistake is being so overwhelmed that you stop returning calls to potential new clients. So mere talk leads to poverty. Right? That's what the proverb says. So if you're like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call them back, oh yeah, I'm gonna do that. Oh yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that. And then, then what happens is you get so overwhelmed. So overwhelmed that you just don't do it. And the overwhelmedness, it's real. The you have bit off more than you chew. It's real. The how in the world am I going to handle all this? It's real. And honestly, they, not that I'd ever eat an elephant, but they say the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. And in our business we can set things up with systems and processes and different things so that hopefully everything becomes manageable. The fix is communication. So a customer calls you, says, hey, can you come quote me on this job? And you, you can just communicate. You could actually say this, you know, depending on what month you're listening to this, maybe this doesn't make sense, but you could just be honest and say, hey, we're actually currently booked with landscaping jobs until June. We have a whole bunch of corporations we're doing later this month then, and we're doing, we're still got a whole bunch of landscape installs set up. Literally. We're booked until June. We're currently at capacity. But if you want us to add you to our wait list, we can, we can reach back out and see how things are going when, when you know, when we get caught up or I mean, just communicate. Communicate. Communicate. That's better than you just ghosting them because when you ghost a client, they could leave you a bad review. They could say, hey, we called old Tony's lawn care and they never even called us back. Or they could be at a Party. You know, Johnny's got a birthday party and they're all sitting around talking. Oh, yeah, we called Tony's lawn care. He didn't call us back. Not. All right, maybe the producer. But the point is, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate. If you truly don't think you have the bandwidth to handle a new customer, you don't necessarily want to tell them no, but you can say you could add them to the wait list. If you're using Jobber, you're using whatever systems and processes you have. Create a customer profile for them. Put some notes, put some reminders, follow back up with them. Because today's. No, you could listen to this. You communicated to them essentially. No, we can't actually do that job next week, Mrs. Smith. We're booked for the next three months. Cost, I mean, you have to explain all this to them. But real customers that really paid you deposits for jobs that needed done and you've communicated that to them. Well, maybe now you fast forward a whole year and now you're in good standing with Mrs. Smith and you're caught up and now you land her as a new customer for Mo Edge, Tremblo and Core Aeration. And once you got the whole night, the whole nine. Because this year she, she hired Johnny and Johnny did a half butt job and she got so fed up with Johnny and she is like, you know what? I know that Tony's lawn care, he's so busy because he's the best, but I want him to do my yard. I'm gonna call him back this year. Hey, Tony, I don't know if you remember me, but last year we called you and you were booked. And listen, Johnny ain't cutting it. No pun intended. He ain't cutting. He sucks at mowing grass. We got weeds everywhere. Our yard looks like this lady cusses. So she says what her yard looks like, right? Can you come save the day? And you say, you know what? We can, we can add you. Your quote are the right price. You picked her up. So anyway, don't ghost people is what I'm trying to say. I call them the B list, right? Your, your, your B list customers that are. They're potential new customers. What most chuck in the trucks do is they just ghost them all day long. Ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost. You don't want to be chucking the truck. You want to be a communicator. Even if the communication is we're booked for the next three months. If you're looking to get this job done in the next three Months. Call someone else. But we can. You can communicate. Communicate, communicate. And that can kill. Still keep you in line for future works. Mistake number three, and this one's a big one. This is not communicating clearly now with your team members. So we talked about not communicating clearly with. Not even just customers, with potential new customers. A lot of you been around for a while. You're like, I know exactly what you're talking about, Paul. You're barely able to communicate with your regular customers near current active jobs, so you'll let the. The potential customers slip by the wayside. That's a mistake. Fatal mistake. But another. Another one to future profits. But the other mistake is you start neglecting the morning huddles, you start neglecting your crews, and you're just so busy that. That your worker, we'll call him Alberto. Alberto shows up in the morning on time. He's a good worker, and there's no clear plan. It's just this chaos. And Alberto's kind of thinking, man, boss man. I know he's stressed out, but what are we doing again today? And. And there's a. There's a little doubt now, a seed of doubt that's been planted in Alberto's mind where he's like, you know what? This company seems a little disorganized. Imagine Alberto showing up to work at a lawn care company that actually had their stuff together. You show up in the morning, and there's a morning huddle. Let's say there's. There's a few crews. Everybody huddles up. Hey, today. Crew one over here. They're going to be doing maintenances in this country club all day long. Everything's ready, set, go. All the. All the vehicles are filled up. All the batteries are charged. Everything's ready to rock and roll. It's time to kick butt and take names. We're going to have the best darn yards in the neighborhood. And they're all fired up and they're. They're ready to go. Crew number two, these guys are going to finish up the side yard at Mrs. Smith's yard. Yesterday. They did amazing job prepping. You guys absolutely crushed it. That looks so fantastic. Well done. Now today is time to make it look absolutely amazing. The sod's already delivered this morning. It's sitting there waiting for you. They have a clear plan of what they're doing. They double, triple check that they got all the right, you know, the. The machete to cut the edges, the blower to clean up afterwards. Everything's all set. Bam. They're ready Crew number three, they're doing a mulch install today. They know what they're doing. Everybody's on the same page. There's clarity, the, the, the, the morning huddle. There's a, there's a camaraderie. Now I honestly, Mr. Producer, I've actually stopped watching sports and I'm going to talk another episode of why I stopped watching sports, because I don't have time to explain the difference between being a spectator of somebody else's dream versus being a participator in your own life and reality and dreams. But when I did used to watch sports, I could tell typically what teams were going to achieve greatness that year and what teams weren't based on if they had this, this team chemistry. I remember when Ohio State won national championship, they blew everyone out in the playoff. The first time they had that long playoff. They, they beat Tennessee at home. Then they went out to the Rose bowl and they absolutely crushed the number one team in the nation, Oregon out west. Then they went down to Texas and played against Texas in Texas and beat them. And then they went to the national championship and beat Notre Dame. They won it all. But that team, they had this camaraderie. They had this oneness and harmony and unity. And I was like, you know what? They're not, they might not be the, I mean, they're really good, but they had that, that, that, that, that team chemistry. They were on the same page. They wanted to win the national championship and they went out and they did it. Fast forward to the next year. The Indiana Hoosiers. Same thing, actually. Ohio State had better players in Indiana last year, but Indiana won it all. They had that, they had that chemistry. So how do you create that with your crew and keep everybody headed towards the same goals? So the morning huddle, if you will. You spend the first five, ten minutes every morning on a huddle. Everyone grouped up. You're reviewing the route. Okay, this crew, you guys are going to this house first, then you're going to this house. I mean, literally, you got 12 houses today. Let's talk about it. Here's where you're going first, then you're going here, then you're going here, then you're going here. You're going to have your lunch break after you finish Randy's house, Then you're going here, here, here. Like they know exactly the. There's a clear plan. See, that's a big difference than Chuck in the truck who just shows up and Alberto's just kind of figuring it out. Well, I just Grab this and go. And I think there's chaos. That's how you describe it. Chaos versus a leader who has a clear plan, who actually shows up there well before you're telling everyone to get there at 6:30. You're there at 6. You got everything. Maintenance crew has all their equipment loaded up, fueled up, fully ready to go. And there's an actual goal for each crew for the day. Like a goal time. Like, hey, our goal is to get this sod job done by 2pm you guys get it done by 2. We're going to get you back to the shop by 2:20. Unload everything. You're. You're literally going to be done by 2:45 for today. You're getting paid for the full day. My goal is to see you guys leave here 2:45 this afternoon. Y', all, the afternoon off. Go, go home and make some more babies with your wife or do whatever you do. I don't know, go home and, and eat ice cream, right? But you're going to be home early today. Let's get out there. Let's not wait, let's not. Let's not waste time this morning. Let's get out there and lay that soda. Roll that sod, Water that sod. Let's get back, let's get. Let's literally leave the customer's property by 2pm that they're thrilled. They'll pay us shout outs to Jobber. We're going to charge a card on file. We've already charged it, you know, half up front. We're going to charge the other half when we get out, when we're done. And we're going to get you guys back to the shop. We're going to unload the sod roller. We're going to clean out the truck because it's going to be all dirty. You know, give it a little car wash here, little car wash service. Make sure the vehicle gets all cleaned up. Unload the wheel, unload everything, put it all in place. Y' all are home, but y' all are out of here. 2:45 and go. Go bring your kids ice cream or go take your wife some flowers and chocolate and see, see, see how the day goes. See how the evening goes. Right now they got a clear plan. They show up, it's 10am they ain't wandering around. They're like, man, we can get this. I think we can get this done by two. Let's. Come on. Come on. Pookie, what are you doing over there? Let's go, let's go. Come on, Come on, Steve, what are you doing? Let's go. Come on, let's. They're pushing each other, right? That's what great teams do is they're a championship caliber team in sports. They're pushing one another. They're not mailing it in. I've worked jobs before where they mailed it in. I work jobs. I'm not going to name the name of this place. But no, nobody liked the boss. And as soon as he left, you could literally feel relief from everybody that worked there because they're like, oh, he's gone. Like, literally people are, are, are cracking open the door in the back, peeking out just to make sure his car's gone. And then everyone's celebrating, he's left, he's gone. And everyone can relax now. And then everyone kind of mails it in. And everyone, they were on edge when he was around, but he was, he wasn't respected. He was just a, I don't want to say a jerk. But nobody liked him. Nobody like working for him. And, and, and then that's a different from a leader. The leader's not there physically. Let's say the leader was on the job site for a little bit but then went somewhere else. But the people on the job site, they hold each other accountable. They don't need boss man to be there bossing them around. They know, hey, here's the goal. We're going to try to get this property done by 2pm and the customer is thrilled and happy. So everyone's on the same page when we're going to try to get this job done by like a timeline. And obviously the end result is that it's perfect. So job, it's rolled, it's watered, the customer's thrilled, everything's great. And we're back by the shop at 2:20. Now we're all on the same page. So when you see, you see Steve over there scrolling through TikTok, you, you say, hey, man, let's go. Come on, come on, let's go. You don't need the boss to show up and be like, hey, Steve, are you on TikTok? No. You have built a team that keeps each other accountable. This is so good, Mr. Producer. All right, we have ran over on time. I, I only got through tips. 1, 2, 3. I got through 3 of 5 and we have a hard stop. So. All right, well, that was, that was a good episode though. I mentioned Footbridge Media earlier in the program. Guys, if you want to step up your marketing efforts this year, you want to, you want a really good professional website. You want your marketing to be literally the top of the line, the best of the best. Footbridge media. Their information is in today's show notes. Reach out to them. Let them know you're a friend of the show, friend of Paul Jameson. They'll get you a discount and they'll get you set up with your website and all your marketing. So hope that helps. Thanks for listening to today's program. Catch you on the next one. Peace.
- [30:20]
B
Hey, it's Marty, producer of the Green Industry Podcast. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services that you heard about during the episode. And thanks for listening.
- [30:32]
D
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.