← Green Industry Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:19]
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 Jamison.
- [01:56]
C
Welcome back to the Green Industry Podcast. I hope you you are doing well. Business is booming. Your neck of the woods, the old spring rush, the 12 hour work days, the trailers are loaded up the the mowers are humming and money is being made. Hopefully you're using jobber and get paid online. Right? But let me ask you a tough question. When the dust settles this season, how much of the cash are you actually going to keep? Meaning all this money you're making right now, how much of it is actually going to survive all the expenditures you're actually going to get to keep that money? That's we're going to talk about on today's program. I'm your host Paul. I'm down here in very sunny Florida and I'm absolutely loving life down here and today I want to talk about the bottom line. Now I'm in the gym this morning working out. I did back back exercise, a little bit of triceps and biceps and I just, I do, I do, like, I feel like I do my best thinking sometimes when I'm working out, I just listen to instrumental music sometimes no words. So I can, I'm not distracted by what somebody's saying. And I was just thinking, how can I make this my most profitable year yet? And these are the conversations I'm having. Know in my head this morning is just asking myself that when the dust settles and, and this season's over, this year's over, and I'm meeting with my financial advisors and we're, we're, we're analyzing the profit and loss statement, right? How can I ensure that this is my most profitable year yet? That the, the bottom line is as fat as it's ever been? So that's what we're gonna talk about on today's program. So if you're new to the lawn care business, I know a lot of us have been around a while and I appreciate that. A lot of folks that, that are daily listeners to my podcast are OGs, as we call them, call them, and you gotta be careful to get caught up into this hype on social media where guys are like, yeah, we did 750 last year. They're talking about $750,000. And, and you got. Guys are like, yeah, we did 2 million last year. Y8 million last year. Yeah, yada, yada, yada, yada. And their profit margin is next to nothing. So you go out there and you earn $750,000, which takes a lot of effort to earn that much money, but you spent almost $750,000, so that's exhausting. And the mature, profitable business owners, they are obsessed with being lean and mean. Even if, even if the company is doing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue or more, there's an understanding that more revenue does not mean more profit or more bottom line. So if you're very, very, very, very, very, very brand new to business, the top line is our revenue. So that's all the money we earn. So you go out and you, you mow a yard, they pay you. You put that into your business checking account, that's revenue. You go out and you do a mulch job for your customer, they pay you. That's top line revenue. You trim some bushes or pull, you know, haul out a tree that fell over in the yard, and you haul it off to the dump, and they pay you. That's revenue. So 100% of the money you earn, you should be having it deposited into a business checking account so you know your true top Line revenue. But then from there we have all these expenditures that are. Some of them, they just kind of sneak up on us. We have to pay all those expenditures. And then at the end of the day, a lot of times for some companies, there's nothing left over. And there's this crazy scary moment where you're like, I made so much money and I ain't got none. This ain't, this ain't working. So let's talk about the solution to this in general, the most. And I, I do some coaching for, for lawn care businesses, and I've, I owned a lawn care business for over a decade. All right? I, I know this stuff inside and out. One of the biggest profit destroyers is you're driving all across town. I talk about, I talk about this all the time, but I was just. It comes up so often that it's like, what are you doing, bro? There, there needs to be a cluster of your customers as, as in the tightest area as possible. Naylor was just on the program. We talked about route density again. And I shout out Chris Gentry all the time. He's got a plugin you can put in extension on your website thing that it can vet your customers if they're in your service area or not. It's literally called my service area. It's absolute genius. So check that out. My Service Area by Chris Gentry. But number one way to increase your bottom line is making sure that your route is as tight as possible. That's, that's actually going to, to, to move the needle. So don't be afraid to drop the clients that take you. You know, you're going 15 minutes out of your way to go over to Maria's house, replace those clients as fast as you can with people on the exact same street as your ideal customers. So I personally suggest picking a neighborhood and just dominating that neighborhood. Get as many yards in that neighborhood as you can. And I got pushback like, oh, you need to have diversity. What is diversification, Paul? True, and it actually says that in the Bible. It says that to spread your investments seven or eight different ways. But that's very, very different than being route dense, because you want to be as dense as possible. And if you have integrity and you do good, you got nothing to hide. Like, you're. You. If you know you're reliable and dependable and you pick up 70 yards in the same neighborhood, you have nothing to worry about. If you're doing the right thing and you have team members that are doing the right thing, meaning you show up, you do the work with excellence and you just keep the customer happy, then it's a good thing that you're, you're showing up. So the, Anyway, I, I, I'm gonna leave that alone. I'm gonna leave that one alone. Let me, let me move on here. All right, so here's the, here's the reality check, all right? I was just a gas station yesterday. Crazy how much, gas prices are crazy how much it cost. We have day labors down here in Florida where you, you go and you can pick a guy up for a day and they're, you know, they're half drunk a lot of the times and they probably aren't going to show back up tomorrow. But if you need somebody in a pinch for a day, they're called day labors. I'm not sure if they have them in your neck of the wood, but we got them down here in Florida. All right. It's expensive. It's expensive for a half drunk guy to put in a little bit of effort for who knows how much effort you're going to get out of them. But that's expensive. Insurance is expensive. I was just telling Naylor on the previous podcast we just recorded that I have a friend who has a $200,000 insurance bill coming up in May. Crazy sauce Equipment's getting more expensive. And if you're still charging what you charged in 2023, 2024, 2025, you're still using those prices this year. You're absorbing that inflation and it's absolutely eating what you're taking home. So what you need to do, and I know very few people listening to me are actually going to do this, but if you're really serious about understanding your business, you need to know what your business's break even is meaning. Calculate your direct cost, what you're spending on your labors, what are you spending on your fuel, what are you spending on your software, right? If you're using jobber, you're using CallRail, you're using QuickBooks Online, add all of those up. I know it might be like, oh, it's only a couple hundred bucks. It all adds up. What are you paying in insurance? If you have a truck payment, what are you paying your truck payment? Actually know what all of those numbers are. And I like to, I like to do my break even on a monthly basis. So, so some, like my friend with the $200,000 insurance bill, he only has to pay that once a year, but that's still $200,000 crazy. He's, they're obviously multi million dollar business. But it's still crazy. So stop being the cheap guy. The cheapest guy. He might work hard, but he will go out of business the fastest. Because unless you know your break even, you're not going to have the courage, or at least I didn't have the courage to charge what I needed to charge until I truly, truly, truly in my soul, in the, in the depths of who I am, when I really understood my numbers and I'm like, man, I have to earn that much every month just to break even. Now we're not even talking getting into my bottom line profit. Now that's just break even, man. That's a lot. So then I start asking questions, well, what can I do to to lower that break even number? Is there anywhere I can be more leaner and meaner? And then the next question is how can I make more money? Because that's, that's an intimidating break even. So I'll share my solutions coming up after here. Quick word from today's show sponsors our friends over there. Jobber have you ever felt like you're drowning in scattered quotes, schedules and chasing payments that never come easy? I've been there with you. I used to be a truck 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. 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. 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 or again that's myservicearea.com Paul. Well, thanks again to our show sponsors. I highly recommend Jobber and my service area. We definitely appreciate them. Well, here's the deal. There's really only like 5, 6, 7, 8 main fundamentals to running a lawn care business. And if you master these and just get things on rinse and repeat, you're going to be extremely profitable. But very, very, very few companies master these. So I'm going to share with you the one that this is my personal playbook. So I shared with you that this morning I'm literally doing a back exercise machine where you grab the bar ahead above your head and you like pull it down, whatever that thing's called. I got guys that are all, all big and buff and work out all the time and all of that. And I. Anyway, I, yeah, they're counting. You know, those guys misappreciate. I'm counting my macros. I don't even know what a macro is. They said macaroni. I don't know. But anyway, I do go to the gym. I'm just not. And truth be told, women, there's these reports out there women don't even really care about like your muscles being a ginormous. I was talking to, I was actually talking to a woman. I walked out of the gym, real pretty woman. She walked, she walking by me. She's like, how was your workout? And I was like, I was pretty good. Like, I was just, I was just, you know, anyway, I was like, do my muscles look any bigger? She, she started laughing and smiling and I was like, let me ask you a question. And she was, she was attractive woman. And I was like, do women actually care about how guys bigs muscle, how big guy's muscles are? And she's like, I don't, she's like, not really. I mean she's like, as long as you like, take care of yourself. But anyway, and then I got an elevator and she, she went to the Staircase and out. That was it. No. I don't know if I'll ever see her again. But I was just curious. I was like, okay, here's an attractive woman comment, be about being in the gym. And I was. I'm just gonna do. I'm gonna do a survey here. I'm gonna ask her, ask her if it. If it actually matters. But the reason I say all that is when I was in the gym working out, I was thinking about my business. And here's my playbook. Here's what I'm doing to make this the most profitable year possible, is I'm looking at every current customer I have, and the easiest way to increase my bottom line, and your bottom line probably is to sell more services to the customers who already trust you. See, I have customers who trust me that have been with me for a very long time, year after year after year. Now, it takes a while to build trust and credibility, and not just in business relationships, but in general in life. People, you know, it takes time to build trust. I can give example after example after example, but that's how we build trust, is doing the right thing over time. And then eventually people are like, okay, you're trustworthy, you're dependable. Now, you can ruin that trust in minutes or seconds, like in moments. So we always have to be on our guard to make sure we're continuously doing the right things. But with that being said, if I've built this wonderful relationship with a customer who trust me, it's now my responsibility, not theirs. My responsibility to really look at that customer and ask myself, is there any other possible way that I can serve them? Is there any thing that I can do? Now, I learned, or I was told this from a mentor of mine a long time ago. His name's Rich. If you're listening, Rich shout outs. I know he listens to the program. And he said, paul, every time you're at this fancy house, I want you looking around. You're mo. And I was literally mowing. I'm not on the mower anymore, but I was mowing. Then he's like, while you're mowing, look around. If you see a mulch bed that's a little bare, you know, offer to put fresh mulch. Hey, Ms. Smith, next Tuesday when we're back, I noticed your mulch beds are a little bare over here on the side of the yard. Can we lay fresh mulch next Tuesday or you're noticing? Man, every time it rains, that just washes dirt right down the side of the hill. Here hey, hey, Ms. Smith, I want you to. I want you to come here. You see all that mud that's just going down the side of your yard there? What if we put in a dry creek riverbed and fix the drainage solution there? And I could give example after example after example, but you got to put on. You got to put on those. Those strategic glasses of what can we upsell? Now, you don't use the word upsell in front of your customer. Hey, Mrs. Smith, I'd like to upsell you on a mulch job next Tuesday so we can earn more revenue in our business, so we can be more profitable. No, you don't use that language with the customer. You just say, hey, I noticed your mulch beds were a little bare. We'd be happy to lay some fresh mulch for you next week when we come and you. You. You acknowledge a problem, and then you offer the solution. Hey, I noticed last year you didn't. You never had any core aeration done. We offer this to our clients because think about it like the grass needs to breathe, needs some oxygen. So we just punch holes in the ground, and it gets, you know, airflow, airstream down into the roots, which makes it a lot stronger, which helps the grass fight off weeds better and look healthier and stronger. And. Anyway, would you like us to do that for you? We're actually booking out our calendar. We do all of that in, like, one week. So we can still squeeze you in if you'd like. You know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's so much powerful then. I mean, it's always good to add new customers. Don't get me wrong. I'm. I'm constantly trying to add new customers. For sure, we'll hold that off for another conversation, for another day. But my tip of today, my personal blueprint. This is me in the gym coming up with my game plan. Coming back. I got a yellow pad, right? You know, writing stuff down. Here's my goals. It's to. To take really close inventory at 100% of my current customers. And in some cases, you could actually go back to past customers. It just depends. I mean, like, I use jobber for my CRM, so I have all my work history, and it's like, oh, that customer actually passed away. So it's like I could, you know, and the spouse moved. And there's. There's situations where it's like the. The customer is no longer a customer, like, no matter what you try to do. But there could be situations where you have, you know, depending on Whatever CRM you're using. But in Jobber, it's pretty simple for me to do a little bit of research and be like, oh, man, I totally forgot. We, you know, we did that job for them back there. Let me. Let me reach back out. And so my. My tip to you is this. If you want to have your most profitable year, one of the things that you can do is earn more revenue from the customers that already trust you. And there's countless different ways to. To do that. It's just, you got to figure out what's the most. What's the most strategic way, because in all honesty, going out and getting a new customer, as much as that's good. And I'm, you know, I'm all about that. If you can just serve your current customers at a higher level by either raising their prices on their current services and in addition to that, offering them new services that you're not already doing for them, then that can really move the needle and bringing in more revenue, which will help bring in more profit. So that is my tip of the day. Obviously, there's a ton more things that we can do to manage our expenditures to get them lean and mean so that our profits are as fat as possible. But we'll. We'll hold that off for another day because I looked at the clock here, Mr. Producer, and I got to run. I got a hard stop, as that's. That's a phrase that we had in radio, like, but, hey, I have a hard stop. I gotta. I gotta. I gotta end the top of the hour here. And then. Anyway, I've been saying that. Now I hear other people say that. I was like, oh, cool. I mean, I. I'm not taking. I'm not saying I invented it. I just. I heard it when I worked in the radio station. But a hard stop means I gotta go. So I have more to share, but I don't have the time to share it. So hopefully you're subscribed if you like this podcast. I know most folks listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. They each have a respected place where you can subscribe and. And turn the downloads on. So when we have a fresh new episode, it will be available for you. But I'll share more of my honest playbooks of how I'm trying to have this as the most profitable year in my business journey. And, you know, hopefully today's tip of looking at our current customers and scratching our heads, putting on our thinking caps, diving deep into where we could actually serve them, and then just pitching it to them. And the worst they can say is, is no. Or they might say, oh yeah, that's a good idea. You know, let me talk to my husband. And now you've just like a farmer, you've planted a seed. Maybe it needs a little bit more water, maybe it needs a little more cultivating, a little bit more sunlight, a little bit more air and eventually that seed. And they're like, hey, hey, Paul, remember, remember how you were telling me my mulch beds are bare? You know, if my we just got a bonus at work, yada yada yada. You think you give me a quote again to, to refresh that and you're just, you're constantly planting seeds so you don't have to go for the home run. Hey, you know, let's do this job. Oh yeah, let's, let's sign up for you. It could just be a, you planted a whole bunch of seeds and some of them you get the fruit from next week, some of them next month, some of them next year. But you're constantly knocking on those doors with your current customers and maxing maximizing the amount of money you're earning for each customer. So I hope that helps. Thanks again to our show sponsor, Shout out to my friend Chris Gentry. Check out his my service area so that you are working in a route dense area and not wasting time with people who are reaching out to you from outside of your service area. And shout outs to Jobber. They are a CRM. I started using them and started 2019. They've been fantastic. I get my customers cards on file and Jobber is just phenomenal for, for basic administrative tasks, tasks running my business and all the organizational components and everything that will be in the show notes. If you want to use Jobber, click on the link in the show notes and they're offering a special deal to our listeners so you can take advantage of that. Well, thanks for listening. Hope to catch you on the next episode up. Peace.
- [26:07]
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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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D
What would you do if your online store converted 36% more shoppers? You could take 36% more vacation.
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C
Another pina colada.
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D
Yes, please open a new retail location with 36% more square feet.
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C
Fantastic.
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D
Hire 36% more help.
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C
You're hired and you're hired.
- [26:35]
D
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