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I'm Kiana and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted.
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Start your free trial@shopify.com.
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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.
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Welcome back to the Green Industry Podcast. I'm your host Paul Jamison and today we're going to continue the conversation about the solo operator slash one crew setup versus the multi crew larger operation, you know, million dollar plus business and the pros and cons with with each of those. Now on the previous episode my intention was to cover all of this, but as I got deep in the weeds of the pros and cons of the solo operator, I ran out of time. So I'm going to do today is a quick abbreviated recap of that and then we're going to get into the pros and the cons and there's a lot of cons of the multi crew operation. So if you missed the previous episode and you want the thorough explanation, you can listen to that one. But I'll give my best abbreviated overview here. If you just have yourself working in your business, whether you're spreading fertilizer or you're mowing grass, mo edge, trim, blow, the pro of that business model is your profit margins can be massively huge because you don't have to pay for a bunch of trucks, a bunch of mowers, huge payroll expense, et cetera, et cetera. And the pros of that is as long as you're take, you know, take passion in the excellence of your work, then the quality control is going to be good because you're the one doing the work. You don't have to worry about your worker cutting corners because you're the quality control. You're the one doing a good job. The other pro of the solo operator is you don't have any employee Headaches. I shared a funny story in the previous episode about an employee. Well, you can go back and listen to it because I've got time to tell the story today, but it's a funny one, but there's, there's employee headaches when you, when you have a bunch of people working for you. Also, the pro of being a solo operator is you really, you're the face of the business. So clients love knowing you're the one who's going to be on their property. You're the one that they get to deal with and it builds incredible loyalty and word, I mean the word of mouth referrals to their neighbors are just incredible as long as you're doing a good job. Now the cons of all of that, the solo operator, is you can only earn, you know, the amount of money. It's basically capped by the number of hours in a day that you can work and within that the amount of physical energy you have to do the work. Once you start getting tired or, or even worse, injured, then the work stops. And when the work stops, whether you're not feeling well, you're injured, or you want to go on a vacation, well, the money stops. It comes to a complete halt. You ain't doing, you ain't doing the mo, edge, trim, blow, they ain't paying you. The money stops coming into the business. So, and the other con is, I mean just, you have to wear every single hat in the business. You're the technician doing the work. You're the bookkeeper, accountant, invoicer, you know, getting, getting paid, shout outs to jobber. That makes it easy on you. But you still gotta implement, you know, these softwares and, and systems and technologies and, and, and be the one at the helm of all of that. And it's a lot of work. So you're the mechanic, you're the one fixing your mower, you're the bookkeeper, you're the, the marketer. You're obviously customer service every time the phone rings, yada, yada, yada, and that can be a lot. So there you go. That's the pros. That's the cons of the solo operator. I will say there are so many people who are, who are have this dialed in. Shout outs to my friend Tony Rudolph in Lake Oconee. One crew, really nice houses. Seems like he's got a very balanced life. Happy marriage, happy kids. Good guy, right? Jason Kroll. Kroll, Krill, Krill. Jason Krill in Alabama. He does a fertilizer and weed control business. It's Just him and his customers are dense in the area right around his house. And he's got a nice little shop in his backyard where he keeps, you know, stores all the fertilizer and all of his equipment and everything. Home base, if you will. He just goes out and sprays yard stress free, you know, comes home, goes his kids, you know, activities and a good family man, happily married, happy kids, happy life. So. And I could go on and on and on. So that solo operator setup, it works. There's people out there, Jason and Tony, just to name a few. They're making massive profit margins. They're doing quality work. They don't have to worry about their employee not showing up. They have deep relationships with many of their customers. Especially, you know, some of them have been with them for years. The only con is if, you know, if they want to go out on. Out of town on vacation, you gotta, you gotta really be kind of specific about planning all of that. And there's the biggest situation is if there's an injury, you know, then that's. That's challenging and you can come overcome that in some ways by getting insurance. There's insurance out there that if you get hurt, you, you and you're running your business, that the insurance will cover you. So if you are going to go the solo operator route, absolutely get that insurance in place. All right, quick break. When we come back, I am going to share the pros and, and the cons of the multi crew, but you know, building a larger business. What's the pros of that? What's the cons of that? We'll talk about it coming right up. 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. Have you ever felt like you're drowning in scattered quotes, scattered schedules, and chasing payments that never come easy? I've been there with you. I used to be a chuck in the truck, completely disorganized and constantly chasing payments. But then I started using jobber back in 2019 and it was a complete game changer for my business. Still using it today. I love it and recommend it to all my coaching clients. Now Jobber is an all in one Business app software where you can store customer information, send quotes and invoices, schedule your appointments and even collect payments. Best of all, you know I talk about this a lot on the podcast. You can save a credit card on file for automatic and hassle free payments. No more awkward follow ups or lost money. You ready to simplify your business operations? Check the link in the show notes and use my special jobber link and try it for free. You won't look back. Stop wasting time responding to website inquiries that are not in profitable service areas. Let my service area filter those inquiries for you. So you know every inquiry will be in one or more of your profitable areas. My service area is a secretary for your website that will only allow good leads and inquiries through your website. This means no more looking up addresses and responding to people that you cannot service. Using my service area will allow you to focus on certain areas which help build dense routes daily. Miles traveled matter more than ever today. So knowing your numbers and how far you can travel mean everything to your success. Start saving time and become more efficient today with my service area. You can learn more at my service area.com Paul again, that's my service area.com forward SL Paul. All right, let's talk about the pros and cons of the the million dollar plus multi crew operation. So many friends go this route and I see more of the cons than the pros. Cuz when we're having dinner or hanging out, you know, they don't tell me all the pros they usually are griping and complaining about, you know, finding and training and, and getting reliable labor. It's a never ending battle that is the biggest con. I, I guess I should start with the pros. So let me, let me start the pros because the, the cons on this one are, are, are a lot but the pros are obvious. It's the uncapped earning potential I mentioned on the previous episode. My friends got 11, 000 customers. He's been at this for over a decade and if he, whenever he decides to sell his business, he's going to get a very high multiple and sell it for an incredibly large amount of money. And each year in the meantime, in between time he's making a substantial amount of money and his business does way over $10 million a year in annual revenue and they're very profitable. So he's making a lot every year. And then when he does sell his business one day he's going to get a whole lot. So I will say that's the second pro That I can think of is when you have a larger business, when you go to sell it, you should get a much higher multiple. So if Tony Rudolph or Jason Creole go to sell their business one day and they're different businesses, Tony's in lawn mowing, Jason's in fert and squirt. Jason's business is obviously worth a lot more because the fertilizer and weed control is just an amazing business when you go to sell it, because it just is. But nevertheless, my point is when you're just solo like that and you just have, you know, a smaller amount of customers and you know, very, very minimal amount of equipment, somebody who's going to buy that business, you're going to get some money for it. Don't get me wrong, I mean Jason and Tony, if shout outs to Jim Parker, the business broker we've had on the program before, you know, if they have those conversations with them, I'm sure he can help them get something for it. But they ain't gonna get as much as my friend who has 11,000 customers with very tidy record keeping and softwares and technologies and systems in place and everything is so organized and well documented. Somebody can come in and say, yeah, we'll take those 11,000 reoccurring customers. Here's a gigantic enormous, you know, check. Or I'm sure they don't do checks, I'm sure they just probably wire it in. But if you build a big business and along the way you have all your customers and your CRM shout out to jobber and all of that is organized, you have your bookkeeping squeaky clean, all your business expenditures and income is organized and that's separate from your personal. And you should, you should obviously be doing all of that at the, at the smaller one person crew. It's a lot easier for that. But what I'm saying is when you're doing millions of dollars of revenue in a lawn business, or even if you're just doing like you know, 800,000 or whatever, you still, in order to build a sellable asset, the more squeaky clean you can be with all of your record keeping and customer data of who they are and when you're doing a service for them, that should all be documented. And that's why using job refer CRM, using QuickBooks online for accounting, using a good accountant, all of that stuff is important. So when you do go to sell the business one day you'll get a good true market value again, you'll need a business broker and they can help you get the Best multiples and everything. But anyway, that's the, that's probably the biggest pro, the solo operator. You're kind of trading time for money and it's kind of can be stress free if you, you really got a good route and good customers and all of that. But you are not going to sell your business for as much as when you build it. A multiple crew operation that's very, very, very well organized. Another one of the pros, um, you can buy things in bulk and get way better prices. So if Tony goes to the store, I ain't picking. Tony listen to podcasts. I don't even know if he'll listen to this one. But if you are listening, Tony, I'm picking on you. I'm just using you as an example to compare someone who I personally know runs a very efficient, successful one crew business versus my friends who have these gigantic businesses. But my point is if Tony goes to the lawnmower shop and, and says, hey, I want to buy a lawnmower, he's going to have to pay, you know, the, the proper market rate for that mower more than likely. But if my friend who needs to go buy 20 lawnmowers, you know, he'll, he'll, he'll get, he'll wheel and deal and he'll get, he'll get a bulk discounted price on equipment. Jason, I know he does this with fertilizer. I ain't going to tell his secrets. You can, I ain't going to tell you what he does. But he gets, he gets right buys in bulk, gets way cheaper prices than the other guy who's just kind of buying it in the moment type deal. So the other thing is the marketing, my friend with 11,000 customers, he's in, he's in north of Dallas, Texas. You go there, you're going to see his wrap trucks everywhere. It just seems like they're everywhere. I mean you can't, you can't go, you know, go grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks and come back and not see his wrapped trucks on your way. Or if you go to wherever you go, right, golf course, hey, on your drive there back, you're going to see his wrapped truck. They're all over town. But when you're just one person, I recommend you have your vehicle wrapped or at least a magnet on it or some, something to let people know you're, you're, you're, you're doing it. But that's just one truck. And of course people are going to be seeing that one truck if it's got good advertising on it. But when you have this whole fleet of vehicles, the, the brand visibility and the marketing, it just becomes so much easier because then it's like, man, I see you guys all over the place the next pro and I got to go fast here. Oo, you can delegate. So my friend who runs the big business, right, he can go on vacation for weeks. Not just one week, weeks, because his awesome leadership team is running everything. So you can, whereas when you're solo, you have to really be, you can go on vacation. It's just, you have to really. It's way easier for Jason to go on vacation than Tony because Jason does fertilizer and weed control. So he'll, he'll do round one and then I'll have a couple weeks off so he can go on vacation in that couple week window. Then I'll do round two, then I'll have some time off. Round three, you know where he goes and sprays all his customers yards and then he's got a little break and around four. So anyway, he's got these little two week windows throughout the year where he can plan vacations. Whereas if you're solo and it's season, it's really hard to go on vacation. It's a lot easier just to do like weekend trips and stuff and then do your main vacationing in December, January, February, in the off season. So that's typically how guys do it that are legitimately running a profitable business that they can afford in February to go on a nice beach vacation or wherever you, wherever you like to go. Some of y' all don't like the beach, but to each his own, as they say, with that, I, I, I like the beach. You know what I mean? Other people are like, I don't anyway, we're getting sidetracked here. Talking about the beach, are you, do you like the beach or you don't like the beach? But I don't understand how you can't like the beach barefoot. Go walk in that sand, let the water splash up on your ankle. It's just, it's, it's therapeutic. But anyway, here's the cons, all right, of the big business. How are you doing on time, Mr. Producer? You feel in a part three, because I'm passionate about this little sippy, simple, some ice cold water and a hot day. All right? I'm, I'm a truth teller here, okay? The folks that run these big businesses, they kind of brag about how we did 6 million last year, we did 4 million last year, we did 10 billion last year. And they're all full of ego and everything. And, and not all of them, but they don't tell you the cons. Now I have friends that run these gigantic businesses that are true, like transparent, authentic people. And they tell me these cons all the time. Paul, I don't know how to. It's just so hard to find reliable labors. It's a never ending battle. Because when you have 11,000 customers, even if you just have a thousand customers, right, that's a lot of work that needs to be done and you need people to do the work. And that's the bottleneck of running a large landscaping, lawn care, fertilizer business is finding training, retaining reliable labor. Because when it's 92 degrees out there and you're sweating and whether you're spraying fertilizer, you're pushing a mower, that's not the most enjoyable job. So in the back of their mind they're thinking, hm, you know, I'm mowing this mower, there's a snake that just slithered across me, you know, across the mower, and I'm sweating and I'm hungry and I'm tired. You know, my buddy just got a job at Costco in the air conditioning. They're actually paying him more. I mean, you. So, so you, you. It makes sense, right? We, we. We. It makes sense. It's hard to find people to want to go out and mow grass or spread fertilizer or fling mulch. You fill in the blank. It's, it's labor and it's a never ending battle to find people to do this. The other thing is, when you grow your business, the, the profit margins, it's so hard to be profitable because you have this high number of revenue that these big shots brag about at these events, that it's just humorous to me because they don't tell you, well, yeah, we made 6 million last year, Paul. I'm so great. I made $6 million last year. Six million. Six million. I ain't picking on Heywood specific, but these guys are out there, okay? And then in the back of my mind, and I don't have the audacity to say this to big buff guy who thinks he's all that in a bag of chips. Well, hey, what was your payroll last year? Ah, you seem like a really legitimate guy. I'm sure you got workers comp, right? How much was all that? Because I, I know that's pretty expensive these days and I know you're legitimate, so you got commercial Insurance. How much is all of that? And that's a lot of mowers you got out there, big boy. I'm sure you got a lot of maintenance on all of that, right? Even if it's not like fixing broken stuff, just, you know, changing out the. The. The fuel filters, the air filters, the spark plugs, the. If you're going the route of Crest commercial, you know, buying new batteries, yada, yada, yada, and I could go down this list all day long, and a lot of these guys might make 6 million and spend 6 million. They don't tell you that. So the profit margin. Tony Rudolph and Jason Krill are making way more profit margin from a percentage perspective than the guys that are doing millions of revenue because there's just so many more expenditures. The other thing that's. I gotta. I gotta go here. So we'll probably do a part three. But the other thing that's hard to control is you don't have that quality control, right? You got a whole bunch of customers. It's not as easy to take. You know, it's not as easy to make sure everyone's, you know, the quality is as perfect as it should be. I mean, it can be done, but it's. It's a lot easier when you're the one doing the work. And then lastly, the more trucks on the road, the more guys you have using equipment, it's just a lot higher risk of accidents, property damage, daily fires. You're putting out, right? Oh, this, this truck over here got a flat tire. Oh, this guy put a rock through the window. This guy quit this morning. Oh, this guy quit mid. Mid property and put on a scene in front of the customer. And, you know, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. So Tony Rudolph, Jason Creole, they don't have this stress. They leave their peaceful home in the morning. Tony goes and mows, Jason goes and sprays and praise. And they get their work done. Their customers are happy. They come home, they get a shower, they eat dinner, and they spend quality time with their family. And a lot of these big. I call them big boys. I'm not picking on all you. I'm just picking on. Some of these guys are so arrogant. Drives me crazy that brag about how. How great they are. They have all this stress, they have all this liability. So I'm not saying don't go that route because you can go that route and you can build a really big business. And if you're really organized and. And everything's dialed in and locked in and your prices is right. Then you can sell that puppy for a gigantic amount of money one day. But just know all those cons are along the way. I gotta run here. I'm up against a very hard stopping big big meeting here in two two minutes for your boy. So I gotta, I gotta. Anyway, I gotta use the restroom and get on a Google Meet call here in about 90 seconds so I gotta run. I hope this has been helpful. I'm telling you all the truth. The pros and the cons to the solo operator route versus the big million dollar plus route. So I hope this has helped you. Consider as you're building your business, which path is best for you. Peace.
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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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