Know Your Numbers: Exposing the Hidden Costs of Your Lawn Care Business

Summary

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Green Industry Podcast — Episode Summary

Episode Title: Know Your Numbers: Exposing the Hidden Costs of Your Lawn Care Business
Host: Paul Jamison
Date: May 15, 2026
Main Theme: Understanding the true operating costs of a lawn care business and why raising prices is essential for profitability.

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Episode Overview

In this fired-up, solo episode, Paul Jamison pulls back the curtain on the hidden operational costs strangling most lawn care businesses. Speaking directly to professionals often working “dark-thirty” hours and still finding little left at month's end, he emphasizes that most business owners are “severely underpriced” and essentially “paying their customers to cut their grass.” Paul details the full scope of business expenses, underscores the importance of tracking every outlay (including the owner’s own paycheck), and argues with urgency for immediate price increases—with actionable strategies and examples from real landscapers who’ve already made the leap.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The True Cost of Running a Lawn Care Business

(Starts at 01:09)

• Paul, broadcasting from Florida's heat, relates the all-too-common problem of working extensive hours and still running out of cash before month’s end:
  “If you’re terrified to raise your prices... you’re letting your lawn business slowly bleed out.” (01:27)
• He recounts his own experience and those of countless landscapers at Equip Expo—most of whom are “severely underpriced.”

List of Overlooked Expenses (“Silent Killers”):

• Fuel for trucks and mowers (sky-high at peak season)
• String trimmer line, trimmer/mower batteries, two-cycle oil, edger blades, mower blades, spark plugs, oil/air filters
• Disposal/dumping fees for yard debris
• Materials: mulch, pine straw, sod, fertilizer, with delivery fees
• Vehicle expenses: truck payments (Paul’s tip: avoid loans—he shares his story paying for his F150 in cash at 06:00)
• Trailer and mower payments/maintenance
• Insurance: commercial auto, general liability, workers compensation
• Payroll—by far, the largest recurring expense
• Bookkeeping/Accounting fees (shout-out to Megan and Joey Koberly, “pay them every month”)
• Software (CRM tools like Jobber), phone/internet/website
• Marketing: door hangers, uniforms (advice: “Don’t buy your team cotton shirts for the middle of summer!”), print/web
• Repairs: tires, oil changes, breakdowns, pull cords
• “And one more most people forget: your paycheck as the owner.”
  • “If you aren’t paying yourself a salary and putting aside profit, you don’t own a business. You own a terrible low-paying job.” (13:31)

Memorable Anecdotes:

• Paul’s vivid story of negotiating and paying cash for his F-150 (06:00–08:30)
• Helping (or trying to) a fellow landscaper who bought a new truck and quickly became overloaded with debt:
  “There’s 0.00001% chance of turning a profit... Absolutely unnecessary.” (09:20)

2. The Critical Importance of Raising Prices

(Starts at 15:50)

• Skyrocketing costs aren’t just hurting profits—they’re putting businesses at risk:
  • Payroll, insurance, and materials are all trending upward.
• Crucial calculation:
  • “Most people are only yielding, like, $40 per man hour on a property. But you have to make at least $75, really $85 per man hour, to be profitable.” (17:06)
• Most business owners, “if they really, really ran the math,” are operating at unsustainable pricing.

Paul’s Solution and Action Step:

• Pull your client list; identify underpriced accounts.
• Raise their prices—immediately and uniformly.
• For new clients, always bid higher.

3. Customer Price Increase Success Story

(15:50–16:50)

Guest: Braden

• Braden’s business, in operation for 32 years, had never increased prices.

  “We actually got your price increase letter, increased the price by 20%, and we were doing around a million gross, up that to 1.2, and we had eight cancellations to the entire thing. So we raised our prices through that letter. About 200 grand.”
  — Braden (15:50)

• Paul reiterates:

  “So it helped you out big time?”
  — Paul Jamison (16:14) “Absolutely. It's probably the best investment we've made in 32 years.”
  — Braden (16:27)

• Results: $200,000 more per year, virtually no customer attrition.

Resource:

• Paul’s “Price Increase Letter”—a plug-and-play template available on GreenIndustryPodcast.com and via show notes.

4. Concluding Takeaways and Mindset Shifts

(16:58–26:59)

• Paul’s summary: This was just the intro—the upcoming episode will break down his “Top 10 Reasons To Raise Prices Immediately.”
• Practical advice:
  • Calculate your actual man-hour rate; ensure it’s at least $85/hr, not $40/hr common in the industry.
  • Understand your worth and the market’s willingness to pay for world-class service.
• Busts the “I’m too scared” objection:
  • “Most customers will pay you more than you think they will. Raise your prices.” (25:52)
• Real-world client examples:
  • Even customers thought of as “cheap” hire out specialty services like grill or patio furniture cleaning—people spend money on premium work.

Paul’s closing (passionate and direct):

“The takeaway? Raise your prices and make more money. That’s the takeaway.” (26:39)

• He leaves listeners with a call to action to check out the price increase letter, implement it, and share success stories.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Paul Jamison:

  “If you aren’t paying yourself a salary and putting aside profit, you don’t own a business. You own a terrible low-paying job.” (13:31)

• Braden (guest):

  “$200,000 that was sitting on the table that we weren’t getting access to just through a letter. So it helped us out big time.” (16:16)

• Paul Jamison:

  “You don’t need a new truck to run a landscape business. You want a nice enough vehicle that the thing can get from point A to point B, but a cheap enough vehicle you can make a profit—we're in the business of making a profit, all right?” (09:05)

• Paul Jamison:

  “Raise your prices and make more money. That’s the takeaway.” (26:39)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:09 — Host opens, lays out problem of working hard for little net income
• 03:00–15:00 — Detailed rundown of every hidden cost in the business (materials, equipment, payroll, insurance, repairs, YOUR paycheck)
• 06:00–08:30 — Paul’s F150 “pay cash” story
• 09:20 — Story: landscaper overwhelmed by debt from a new truck
• 13:31 — Importance of owner’s paycheck
• 15:50 — Braden’s price increase success story: $200K gain from simple letter
• 16:50 — Paul’s introduction of his “Top 10 Reasons To Raise Prices”
• 17:06–18:00 — Minimum man-hour rates: $85/hr as target, $75/hr “bare minimum”
• 24:00 — Mindset: Don’t be afraid of customer reaction to price increases
• 25:52–26:39 — Final push: “Raise your prices. That’s the takeaway.”

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Final Summary & Resources

Action Steps from Paul:

• Review your actual costs and calculate your real operational overhead, including your own paycheck.
• Evaluate your pricing—use the Green Industry Podcast’s price increase letter/template to update clients professionally and confidently.
• Don’t fear customer attrition; the market will bear higher prices for high-quality, reliable service.
• Tune in for the next episode with the “Top 10 Reasons You Must Raise Your Prices Immediately.”

“Raise your prices and make more money. That’s the takeaway.” — Paul Jamison (26:39)

Resource:

• Price Increase Letter Template (linked in show notes)

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This episode is a must-listen for green industry professionals struggling with low margins, overwhelmed by hidden costs, or hesitant to charge what they’re worth—all filled with Paul’s signature storytelling, direct advice, and actionable inspiration.

Transcript

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[Paul Jamison Intro/Outro]

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 youp 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.

[Paul Jamison Host]

Dan1 hey guys. Welcome back to the Green Industry Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Jameson. Down here in sunny Florida, where it is sunny and it is Florida, it's hot. It's very, very hot. Well, if you are tired of working your tail off from sun up to sundown, we call it dark 30. What times you get done working dark 30, you work to sundown and then you look at your bank account. Maybe you look at it every day like I do. I try to look at at the end of the month and where's all the money? There's barely anything left. Dave Ramsey has a saying about there's more month than money, meaning it's not the end of the month yet and you still got bills, but where's the money to pay the bills? Guys, if you're terrified to raise your prices because you think your customers will cancel, you're letting your lawn business slowly bleed out. Between these crazy gas prices and the hidden, which I'm gonna, I'm gonna uncover it here in a moment. But the hidden overhead expenses you aren't tracking. Most of you are severely underpriced and essentially you're paying your customers to cut their grass. I go to Equip Expo every year. There's 27,000 landscapers there, maybe, maybe close to 30,000 now. Show just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Most of them are severely underpriced. Not just underpriced. Severely underpriced. And it's a problem in our industry. So in today's show, I'm gonna share what it actually costs to run a business and the top 10 reasons you must raise Your prices immediately. I'm gonna share the action steps to do this without losing your best clients. So grab a notepad if you can, if you're driving. I understand. Please listen carefully and hopefully later you can go and grab that yellow pad and write these down. So I'm gonna go through the cost quickly. We've been talking about this on the program for a while, so I'm gonna go through this list very quickly to recap what I've been preaching from the mountaintops here of what it costs to run a business. You got your fuel for your truck, for your mowers, which these prices right now are high. Hopefully they'll come down. But at the moment, during the busiest time of the year, they're high. You have to buy your string trimmer line. If you're using Crest commercial, you got to buy all your batteries for your, your crest commercial equipment. If you're using gas powered equipment, you got all your two cycle oil. You have your edger blades. Hopefully you're swapping those out. Your mower blades, hopefully you have a whole bunch of mower blades and you're swapping those out for sharp mower blades every day. I just assume everybody's doing that. But it's crazy how many folks are out there mowing with dull blades. If you want the grass to be looking really, really sharp, use sharp mower blades. And anyway, those cost money. Spark cloaks, spark plugs costs money. Your oil filters, air filters cost money. When you take a, a loaded debris to the, to the dump, the yard weights cost money. It costs. I explain this. People don't own a business like I gotta pay to throw stuff away, right? You know, you got a bunch of debris. You got paid pay the dumping fee, right? All those clippings. And I know some of y' all figured out ways to do it for free and which is crafty and cool, but most of us have to pay a disposal fee. Then if you're hopefully upselling mulch, that costs money. Pine straw costs money. Sod costs money. Fertilizer costs money. All the delivery fees. Because I, I wouldn't pick that stuff up. That's a waste of time. I would have it delivered. Yeah, I paid a delivery fee for all of that. Hopefully. You don't have a truck payment, but many y' all do. You got your truck payment. My vehicles are paid in cash. It's something that I drew a line in the sand four vehicles ago or three vehicles ago. 1, 2, 3. But I bought my, I bought my dream F150 in cash went to the dealership. And I had called him beforehand. I played hardball and I, I was like, hey, listen, I see you got this, this Ford F150 on the website. I want it. How much you want for it? They gave me a price. I said, well, listen, I'm not going to come in there and you, you jerk me around and tell me that there's all this stuff you got to add on. The price can be different. I'm gonna, I'm gonna literally go to my bank right now and get a cashier's check for the exact amount. And I'm gonna come in there, I'm gonna give you the check, and I want the title and the keys and this. I was very, very firm, very stern, very bold. And I was like, so there's not gonna be any gimmicks, any games when I get there. I'm gonna. Going to have the check already. So you can't, you can't tell me, oh, well, there's going to be more. No, no, no, I'm going to. You tell me them out right now. This is, this is what I'm seeing on your website. Is this, is this good with you? And, and you know how these car guys are, right? What do they tell you, Mr. Producer? What do they say? Exactly. I gotta go talk to the manager. That's what he says, let me go talk to the manager. I say, all right, we'll go talk to the manager. Comes back, he's like, hey, sounds good. So I was like, this is too good to be true. So I go to the bank, I get a cashier's check, the exact amount I actually remember the amount. That's how, like, life changing this was. I got the check for the amount I had saved up, the money in cash. I worked, worked hard, saved, Worked hard, saved. Worked hard, saved. My dream truck, F150. So nice. I go in there like, hey, I'm here to pick up the Ford F150. Hey. And somehow the guy. It was kind of cool, but somehow the guy knew, oh, you make content. Lawn care content, right? Yeah. You know? Yes, sir. Yes. I get discounted. Here, here's the, Here's a check. I brought the check. Oh, cool, cool. Hold on, let me go grab a couple things. And comes out with the keys and takes me to the truck. I get in, starts, it's immaculate. I'm talking immaculate. Outside's immaculate, inside's immaculate. And a few minutes later, I drove off with my brand. It wasn't brand new, but it was to Me, it was brand new, but it was immaculate condition. I literally paid for it in cash. And there was no. There was no games. They gave me the key. There was something about the title. I remember I was slightly uncomfortable, like, we're gonna mail you the title within a week or whatever. And they did it. It showed up a week later. This place had a phenomenal reputation in Gainesville, Georgia. I forget the name of it because I moved. There's a Toyota dealership in Gainesville, Georgia, and ironically, they had an F150. I was just scanning their website. Anyway, I bought that thing in cash, all right? And since then, every vehicle since then, I've paid for in cash. Well, not literal cash. I get a cashier's check, but I. I don't borrow money on vehicles. I. I buy them in cash. Well, anyway, I say all that to say, you probably use a truck payment, and I don't do that, but that's what you do with. So anyway, I'm saying all. All these silent killers of expenses of running a lawn care business. If you do have that silly payment, you got to pay that every month, all right? And some of you guys buy way too much truck. You don't need a new truck to run a landscape business. I was just. I was just helping a fella. Oh, man, I don't know how much help I gave him, but I was like, this guy, part of me wanted to help him. Part of me was like, I want him to learn his lesson. But the other part of me is like, well, I really don't want him learning a lesson the hard way. But I was like, this guy went out and bought a new truck. Gigantic car payments, new in business. And I was like, dude, there's no way you're gonna make it. Like, There's. You got 0.00001 chance of turning a profit. Like you. That. That v. That stupid truck payment you got every month. And then, you know, he's got a wife and kids and a house payment and all this stuff. I'm like, how are you gonna run a business? Well, anyway, it's not. It's. It's. It's unraveled so fast, and it's so heartbreaking for me to watch it happen because I was like, I knew one of the dominoes that started falling that was just heartbreaking was this fellow went out and bought a brand new truck. Absolutely unnecessary. You want a nice enough vehicle that the thing can get from point A to point B, but a cheap enough vehicle that you can make a profit we're in the business of making a profit, all right? So anyway, you got your, you got your truck. I'll leave that alone. Let's move on. You got your trailer, right? You got, you got your open trailer. You got your enclosed trailer. You got some kind of a trailer to haul around your lawnmower. You got your lawnmowers. You got your insurance. You need commercial auto insurance. If you have on the side of your truck, pookies lawn care. You need commercial auto insurance. You have a commercial vehicle. You need general liability insurance. You need workers compensation. You need to pay your employees, otherwise they ain't going to show up for work, right? So that cost, that's the biggest cost of pretty much any business is payroll. And then if you're doing things right, you got payroll taxes, hopefully. You have the landscaping bookkeeper, Megan and Joey Koberly. They're awesome. There's fees with them. And even though I'm friends with them, I pay them every month. They charge my card or they actually ach me every single month. And they have since 2020. So I promote them, but I pay them every single month. By the way, in case you're curious how all that works, um, they're friends of mine and I, they, they've taken good care of me over the years as a, you know, as a paying client, but I pay them every month, by the way, Software CRM that costs money. Jobber, my phone bill, all right, Every month I'm paying my Internet bill. Paying if you're using CallRail for marketing. Paying if you're using footbridge media for your website. Right? It's a very reasonable monthly price, but you gotta pay it. Keep the website going, right? If you're doing marketing of any sorts, door hangers, if you hopefully buy your team uniforms, like, you know, nice polyester, you know, spandex type shirts that are cool in the summer or whatever the material is. There's different kind of materials. But don't be buying your team cotton shirts for the middle of the summer, for crying out loud. But, you know, a nice cotton hoodie in the winter could be good for them. But anyway, that costs money. You want me to keep going, Mr. Producer? I can keep going because I was just in the tire shop yesterday. I got new, I didn't get a new tire. I, it was actually a super cool story. I, I, I had. I'm a nerd with my tire. So I've checked the psi. I was filling up my gas tank, and while I'm filling up my gas tank, I was like, you know, I'm, let me check my PSI and I got 30, you know, I'm checking the amounts of the PSI and one of them was 5 PSI under all the other tires. I was like, man, this thing's been leaking. And so I took it to a tire shop and dropped the vehicle off. And then they called me about three hours later like, hey, your, your vehicle's ready. So I come in thinking, you know what, they probably threw a new tire on there, whatever. And the guy handed me my keys and smiled. And he's like, you're all set. And I was like looking at him and he just smiled real big. He's like, you're all set. And I was like, all right, don't tell me twice. I just started walking out the door and cranked it up and they fixed my tire, which for free, which is super, super, super cool. So that was, that was really cool. But anyway, tires cost money. You got to repair those. I had a semi miracle yesterday, but still, eventually, tires need repaired, oil changes need done frequently. Pull cords. You ever broke a pull cord at the most unopportune time? That costs money. Unexpected breakdowns. I'm leaving out one important thing, Mr. Producer. Oh, yeah. Most people won't even guess what I left out because I mentioned fuel, I mentioned your consumables, I mentioned all the materials, mulch, pine shell, sod, fertilizer, delivery of all of that stuff. I mentioned your vehicles, way longer than I should have. Your trailer, your mower payments, your insurances, your, you know, paying your team, which is the most expensive thing. Your CRM shout outs to jobber shouts to your marketing call Rail Footbridge Media for your website. All the maintenance on your vehicles and mowers and all of that fun stuff. But I left one off the list. What is it? What is it? Your paycheck. You. If you aren't paying yourself a salary and putting aside profit, you don't own a business. You own a terrible low paying job. Let me say that again. The most important expense in your business is you. You're the owner. Are you paying you a fair market wage for all that work you're doing to run your business? Some of y' all are working in the field as a laborer, which is respectable. I mean, some people do it. Andy Mulder does it. And he's a multi, multi, multi millionaire dude. Crushing it. I think he's got a net worth over $5 million. And he's out there, dirt on his fingernails, running the machines, doing the deal as a laborer. Is he Paying himself appropriately. I would hope that he is, but most of y' all ain't. You're not paying yourself a fair market salary. You're just running your business willy nilly. And if something is left over, you might take it out every now and again. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. Very, very dangerous. Real quick, before we move on, if you're tired of buying equipment blind or running your crew the same way, hoping something changes, get yourself to Equip Exposition this October in Louisville. Test drive the best equipment from every major manufacturer in one place. Come see me at the morning show. Check out Equip's education sessions, built for guys actually running crews. Use my code, Paul, at registration to save 50% on your pass. The link is in today's show notes. If you want to earn more money in your business, it may be as simple as raising your prices. Braden, use our price increase letter. And what happened?

[Braden (Guest)]

Well, we've actually been in business for 32 years now. My dad started it, and then he handed the reins over to me. And in 32 years, he never increased the prices ever. And I knew that we had to make a change. So we actually got your price increase letter, increased the price by 20%, and we were doing around a million gross, up that to 1.2, and we had eight cancellations to the entire thing. So we raised our prices through that letter. About 200 grand.

[Paul Jamison Host]

Say that. Say that one more time.

[Braden (Guest)]

$200,000 that was sitting on the table that we weren't getting access to just through a letter. So it helped us out big time.

[Paul Jamison Host]

So do you think the price increase letter provided ROI for you?

[Braden (Guest)]

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, beyond is probably the best investment we've made in 32 years.

[Paul Jamison Host]

That is awesome. You can get the price increase letter at the Green Industry podcast dot com. It's a plug and play template. Just put in your information. Insert date here, insert name here, and in the most straightforward, concise way, it explains to your customer why you're raising their price. It made him 200 grand each year, and then you're going to raise the price again next year.

[Braden (Guest)]

Exactly.

[Paul Jamison Host]

That was all my intro. So my. My podcast notes I have scribbled down here on my trusty yellow pad is the top 10 reasons why you must raise your prices immediately. And I was planning on going through all 10 of these on today's show, and that was literally the intro. I just shared all of that as, like, a quick recap intro of things that have been on my heart lately to, like, get us up to speed just so we can Start the program for today. But I think what I'm gonna do because I. This is gonna take me a while to go through these 10 reasons why you must raise your prices. I think I'm gonna save that for the next episode. So in conclusion, to wrap things up for today, I really want you to really start paying attention to how much you're spending to run your business and calculate your target man hour. So you look at your gross revenue for a job, and you divide it by how much time it actually takes you to do a job. So most people are only yielding, like, $40 per man hour on a property. But when I talk to Joey Koberly, when I talk to other industry experts, they're saying, you, like, you have to make at least $75 per man per hour to have anything of profit. But most of them say that's like the bare minimum. You should be shooting for at least $85 per man hour. And so many companies, if they really, really ran the math, they're only making like, 40. And it's impossible to run a business earning just that little bit of money. So the solution is you have to raise your prices. But most guys are too nervous. Pull out your client list. Look at all your clients. Are any of them underpriced? If so, raise the prices immediately. If you have any new customers coming in, raise their prices on the new quote. And I would honestly give everyone a price, a professional price increase immediately. It's. It's. It's not that complicated. You are paying so much more for fuel. I don't know about your insurance, but mine, Mine went up. I don't know about your neck of the woods, but in Georgia, in Florida, our labor rates are going up, up, up, up, up, up. To have someone actually show up, that's. I mean, they might be drunk, but yeah, you're like, at least I'll show up, right? Some of y' all are laughing because you know what I'm talking about. I had a guy show up drunk as a skunk. Drunk as a skunk. But we got to get to work. Sober yourself up, buddy. We'll stop at quick trip, them breakfast tacos. We're at work. I gotta move on here. You gotta let your customers know you're raising your prices. So I have a price increase letter template for you. It's in the show notes. You send this. You email this letter out to the company and to the customers from your company, and it's going to explain everything about your fuel going up, your insurance going up, the cost of you Doing business going up. If you want to continue to provide excellent service and, and you're going to have the best employees, you got to pay them more. Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. We're raising our prices to this amount starting the first of next month. And I have a letter that explains all of that in the most professional, concise way you can email out to your customers today. Email them out. I. I've already wrote the letter for you. Like, literally, this is a letter that I used that made me so much money. It's made million. I mean, I, it would be. Why? I don't have that exact calculation because it's. I don't. People don't report back to me. But just one guy alone. Braden told me it made him 200,000 in one year because he raised his prices on his existing customers and made 200,000 off the same yards he did last year, did the same exact amount of work from the previous year and made 200,000 more. Actually, eight people canceled. So he made. Did less work, but the same jobs. If you wanted to raise the right prices, it would have been 200,000 left less revenue in his business that year. Countless success stories with this price increase letter template. You email it out to your customers. Many of you already have it. Email it out to them again, raise your prices. This is absolutely crazy. How many companies are not making $85 per man hour. And, and it's because. It could be many reasons, but one of the reasons is your prices are too low. Get some courage and raise your prices. Don't be a scaredy cat. Oh, well, I've been taking care of Mrs. Wilson for so many years, and she might, she might, she might, she might cancel me. And then, and then the, the guy shows up to clean her furniture. I was, the other day, I was like, well, one time, one time I was. This guy came in the backyard and I was like, hey, what? You know, I've never seen him before. I was, you know, can I help you? Like, I didn't know if the guy was there to rob the place or what he's doing. He's like, oh, I'm just here to clean the grill. What do you mean, clean the grill? They hired me to come clean the grill, and I was a little skeptical. And then he got out all his cleaning supplies, and he's sitting there taking the great things out of the grill and getting scrubbing deep in there. And he grill was spotless. I was like, my customer seems so cheap. And he's got someone out there cleaning his grill. And just last week, I was out there and someone was cleaning the furniture, the patio furniture. What are you doing? Oh, they. They hired me to clean the furniture. The outdoor patio furniture, the all weather furniture. Right. I thought, yeah, that stuff don't need clean. Whether he's out there scrubbing away and cleaning it up. Just like new people spend money. All right. It ain't. Don't be. I'm gonna do a whole nother show on this. I gotta go. All right. I'm so fired up. I literally, my friend, I literally have top 10 reasons why you must raise your prices immediately. And I didn't get to one of them because my intro. You got me all fired up about the true cost of business. But my. My takeaway is raise your prices. That's. That's the takeaway. That's the takeaway. Raise your prices and make more money. So what we're going to do on the next episode is I will go ahead and go through these top 10 reasons why you must raise your prices immediately, and we'll break those down on the next show. So thanks for bearing with me today. I am sorry I got off script. I got fired up. Hopefully found some value in my passion for these topics because I used to run my business sun up the sundown, look at my bank account and get stressed out. How is the war? How in the world can I work this much and be this broke? And it's because there's hidden expenditures. They're. They're silent. You just have your insurance payment come out. You know, you got to pay it, but you don't really think about it, and it just kind of drains the money. And then you go buy little things. Right? Little. Little string trimmer here. Now we need some new blades for our edger. Oh, we need. Well, let's pick up some new mower blades while we're at it. That thing we need. We need some more batteries for our equipment. And then you go to buy mulch, and you're like, dang, mulch. Price went up. All pine straw went up. Oh, man, SARS is getting expensive. Oh, fertilizer. Don't even get started on that. And all this stuff adds up. And all this stuff adds up. And most people don't even pay themselves a paycheck. Most businesses are on life support. You don't see it because you get on Instagram and you see Pookie's new truck, and you don't understand all this expenses that takes to run a business. And when I had my aha moment multiple times of realizing how much it truly cost to run a business, I only had one solution. If I'm going to stay in business, I had to raise my prices. And I did. And I do. And I'm unashamed about it. And I get a lot of no's. I get a lot of. I get a lot of no's. You're too expensive, Paul. You're too much. I didn't know it was going to be that high. And it's like music to my ears because it's selling me. Okay, maybe that person thinks I'm too expensive, but someone else is going to happily pay me and I'm going to serve them at the highest level. It's going to be a win win. There's a market out there that will pay us. We need to understand our numbers, what it truly costs to run their business, understand our worth. Like what we're bringing to the Bringing to the marketplace are you can you show up on time? Mow someone's grass with sharp mower blades, make it look good? Edge along the driveway, edge along the sidewalk, edge along the street, Blow everything up some nice finishing touch. Blowing Trim the bushes real nice. Make everything look nice, crispy, pristine, world class. And you do that with honesty. You show up on when you say you're gonna show up and you do a really, really, really good job. Most customers will pay you more than you think they will. Raise your prices. Check today's show notes for my price increase letter templates, a plug and play that you can email out to your customers and let me know about your success story of raising your customers prices.

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[Paul Jamison Intro/Outro]

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.

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