← Green Industry Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Everyone deserves to be connected. T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Our networks are coming together bringing more T Mobile coverage all over the country. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com Switch and now T Mobile is available in a US cellular store near you Bigger network. The combination of T Mobile and US Cellular's network footprints will enhance the T Mobile network's coverage savings versus comparable Verizon plans plus the costs of options, benefits, plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third free line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required.
- [00:34]
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 bestselling 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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C
Welcome back to the Green Industry Podcast. I'm Paul Jameson down here in beautiful Florida where it's not sunny today. Broadcast is a sunshine state, but it's cloudy today. But nevertheless, I'm very passionate about the topic. We're going to talk today, talk today, talk about today because I know, I know, I know, I know there's so many of you that you're out mowing until dark. Every day you look at your bank account and you're wondering why aren't you making the money you deserve? If you're working your tail off but you still feel like you're just surviving basically instead of thriving, you are likely making one of or more of one or more one or more of the five profit killing mistakes we're going to uncover today. But don't worry because we aren't just going to point out the problems. I'm going to give you the exact solutions, including a massive opportunity to get in a room with us and build your ultimate business framework in person at Naylor's upcoming Profit Accelerator Live event in Richmond, Virginia. So grab your notepads, let's dive in. Mistake number one that's costing you profit is you're underpricing your services. This is something that every single one of us did early on, if we're honest. You bid low just to win the job. You know what I'm talking about. You're out there like, I really need this job. I really really, really need it. I probably should quote them a little higher, but I really, really need it. I'm just going to bid low. Get the work, sucker. You might, you might fill up your schedule fast that way, but you are basically, the way my mentor explained it to me, you're basically just paying your customers to cut their grass. Let me get a sip of the Starbucks. Six dollar coffee here, Mr. Producer, actually is like $6.32. I, I normally don't drink coffee like out at coffee shops and stuff, but I was in a situation this morning where I, I grabbed one and I went to check out and the lady's like, what do they call them? A barista? Barista. The girl's looking at me, she's like, it'll be $5.32. I was like, $5.32 for a cup of coffee? I didn't tell her this, but I'm thinking in my mind and then she's like, and it's going to ask you a question. I know what the question is. The question is how much I want to tip you. So I tipped her $1. So $6.32 for this cup of coffee. VT Venti Cafe Misto.
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It's pretty.
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C
It better be good. Perhaps like, oh, like a $1 sip right there, Mr. Producer. All right, so how do you, how do you fix that? You're bidding. Your price is too low. You gotta know your numbers, you gotta know your man hour rate. You gotta stop working for cheap. So my friend John Pajak, he helped me break down my numbers. Basically demystifies what the man hour rate is. And we did. I went through his budgets, breakevens and bottom lines workshop. It took hours of him finding out what I'm charging, what I am paying in overhead and expenditures, and after all of that said and done, actually understand what I need to be charging per hour to reach my financial goals. So he is going to be doing this workshop of helping us understand our numbers at Naylor's event coming up. It's called Profit Accelerator. Live in Richmond, Virginia. If you can get your butt in that room, it will change your life. Because it truly was a life changing moment when John told me, okay, you need to be charging this per man hour. And my heart sunk because I was not earning anywhere near where I needed to be earnings. But once he showed me my numbers, that mistake of me underpricing my services, it ended that day because I truly understood my man hour rate based on my real numbers. I started to become aware of my numbers. Knowing my numbers and when all of that happened internally, that's when I stopped working for cheap. And I honestly think that's one of the biggest issues of why guys are in survival mode and not thriving is because they underprice their services. My friend John Pajak can help you at profit accelerator Live. Learn how to get unstuck from that. All right, mistake number two. That is common. And I. I made mistake number one. I don't make it anymore. I made mistake number two. And I. I had a guy, a company come over today and. And hang some pictures for me. Let me get a sip of water. Now that I drink the coffee. I recently moved, and I have all kind of artwork, and I. I have three different vision boards that are massive, like cork boards that have all these pictures I printed out that are things I want to see happen in my life. And then I have a whiteboard that I write down all my goals on, and then I have just a bunch of art. And, like, I got all this stuff, okay, now I could hang it all up by myself, right? I actually have a laser. I'm like a nerd. Like, I got a laser to, like, make sure everything's level on the wall and every that. And I got levels, too. I like all that stuff. I'm kind of nerdy about it. Kind of, you know, I can do it. But anyway, I paid this company to come hang up everything, and it was. It was $218, and I'd have to, you know, I'd have to pick up one screw. But anyway, while the guy was out here, he's like, so what do you do? You know, what do you do for a living? And I was like, I help folks who own a landscaping business really grow their profits. Really, really have a profitable business. And he's like, oh, I used to have a landscaping business. I used to work for this real estate agent. We had all kind of work. And I was thinking, oh, buddy, that is terrible route entity. But I'm not going to say here, you know, the guy's about to hang up my pictures on the wall. So I didn't want to. I didn't want to make him feel bad because he was bragging about how good his landscaping business was. I was like, bro, you have terrible route density. Because I made the same mistake. I used to have a real estate agent in Atlanta that would give me all these jobs. And here I am thinking I'm all that in a bag of chips. Because she was a number two real estate agent in Atlanta. Like, she was like, you know, she was Reputable and everything. But problem was I was driving all over Atlanta to get to the next property and windshield time is basically unbelievable. It's just eating your fuel, right? Putting wear and tear on your tires, on your transmission, on your truck. You're wasting daylight. So the fix is to hyper focus your marketing and your scheduling to tighten up your route. Shout outs to Chris Gentry. My service area. It's a plugin you can put onto your website. Then when people go to your website, it will quickly identify if they are inside your service range and if so, let's go, let's sign them up. Or if they're outside, it won't, it'll let them know so you don't have to waste your time because they're out of your route. They're, they're outside of your route area. It's called my service area. Check them out, get them plugged into your website. That's a game changer right there. So the absolute master of route density is Naylor Tally Farrow. I've been to his neighborhoods that he works in Richmond, Virginia, in the 95 degree Richmond August summers, and I saw it firsthand. I, I just hung out with Naylor's team for the day and watched them do this yard and then the neighbor's yard and then the other neighbor's yard and go over to the cul de sac and do four in the cul de sac. And just the man. Naylor has optimized his schedule. There in Midlothian, Virginia is actually where the neighborhood was that, that he was showing off. Well, anyway, he's going to be hosting his event back in, in Richmond, Virginia called Profit Accelerator Live. He's going to be teaching how to have great route density at the event. So that is mistake number two is terrible route density. The way to fix the route density is know the neighborhood you want to conquer, the streets you want to conquer and market on those specific streets. Schedule your route that's very, very tight and say no to all the outside distractions. If you, I don't call, you know, a human being distraction, but like if the customer is not in your service area and you're wasting your time following up with them, all of that could be avoided by simply having my service area plugged into your website. So check out my service area. Mistake number three. Huge mistake. I made this mistake too. So full disclosure, I made mistake number one. I used to underprice my services and I would like to think that I don't underprice my services anymore because I have a Lot of customers tell me your prices are really high, Paul. Well, they are. So do you want to pay me or not? If not, you know, let's, you know, have a good day. I, my, my fee is my fee because I know my numbers. I'm not working for cheap anymore. Again, I know my numbers. I know my man outreach. I know I have so much expenditures, I have, I have so much overhead, I have to pay all that stuff. And mistake number three is not paying yourself a paycheck. That's partially why my prices are so high now, because I used to make the mistake of running the business and somehow clearing everything. I was able to pay everybody everything. Everything's paid. But not Paul. See, you can generate multiple six figures in revenue, but you are living in a scarcity mindset because all the money gets swallowed up by the business. I meet guys at Equip Expo. Oh, yeah, we did 250 last year. I'm like, 250,000? Yeah, yeah, 250. How much did you pay yourself? Oh, you know, we, we, we reinvest. That's what we're re reinvesting back in the business. The money came in and the money went out and you never paid yourself. So you aren't actually making that money. So you have to structure the fix to paying yourself is to basically guarantee owners pay. I am going to pay myself as the owner this amount and then getting in the habit of doing it one month, then doing it the next month, and then doing it the next month and then doing it next month. And when I started doing this, Joey Kober, my bookkeeper, was to 2020. He's like, we got to start paying yourself. So I started paying myself a set amount. I think we started at 4,000 back in the day. And I was like, oh man, this is uncomfortable because how's my business? How am I going to have enough money to pay me 4,000 and then pay all the other expenditures in the business and, and stay afloat? And the reality was it wasn't going to work out mathematically. The money wasn't there. It really wasn't. So the only way I was going to be able to pay myself $4,000 a month and pay for all my expenditures and still turn a profit in the business was I had to raise my prices, I had to get more customers at higher prices. And that's what I did. I went out in my density area, real dense area, got new customers. So this is a gigantic mistake that a lot of folks are making. We're gonna hear a quick word from today's show sponsors. And coming up, I want to share two more mistakes that you're probably making. I actually know you're probably making one of these mistakes like almost can guarantee it. And I'm going to share with you how to fix it. Coming right up. Crest Commercial is the only solution for commercial landscapers to convert to electric with the power of gas, no downtime. With their 8 minute charging system and industry disrupting warranties that offer 6 years or 3000 full life cycles on the Cyberpack best batteries, there is no reason to not make the switch. To find out more about the free demos and how you can start saving up to $2,000 per year per crew, visit crest.com today to find your local dealer. Most jobs go to the first contractor that picks up the phone. But you can't answer the phone when you're on a lawnmower. So here's a solution. It's called Voice Assist by CallRail. I'm going to show you how it works. I'm going to call a pest control company that uses Voice assist to take a listen.
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Hi, thanks for calling the pest patrol. I'm Betty, a virtual assistant. What's bugging you?
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Hey Betty, I wanted to see if you could schedule somebody to come out, take a look at my property and give me a quote for pest control. I was looking for yearly service.
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Sure, I can help with that. Do you have any questions about our services before we get started? Collecting some details.
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C
What would it cost to come once a quarter?
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We offer a quarterly service plan with four treatments per year. The cost typically ranges from $350 to $480 annually. Keep in mind final pricing depends on an in person evaluation.
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Yeah, let's get one scheduled.
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Can I have your first and last name please?
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Paul Jamison.
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I've got several openings. For example, on Thursday, March 19th we have 10:00am 10:30am 11:00am and more throughout the afternoon. Would any of those work for you?
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Yeah, 10am Works.
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Your appointment is confirmed for Thursday, March 19th at 10am and a confirmation email has been sent. Could the address of the location where you'd like to service?
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Sure. It's 1234 Main Street.
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Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
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Oh, that's it. Thank you so much, Betty.
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Thank you for your call.
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C
Well, did you hear that? That's callrails Voice assist. It's so good, it speaks for itself. You can qualify more leads, book more jobs and stop losing opportunities to businesses down the street. Try it for free @voice assist.com. again, that's voice assist.com. 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 session built for guys actually running crews. Use my code Paul registration to save 50% on your pass. The link is in today's show notes. All right. Another mistake that's eating into your profits is hanging on to pain in the butt customers. We call them PETA, which stands for pain in the A and A represents another word that can be nicknamed for your rear end. Now, we keep this show family friendly. And I actually have a lot of parents that say, hey, Paul, we listen to you. Like the kids are in the backseat and chick fil a and we're listening to Paul Jameson. And I was like, your little four year olds listen to me talk about route density and raising your prices. Oh, yeah, we love it. My kids love listening to you. I was like, all right. So anyway, I always make sure we are family friendly, like above and beyond family friendly, because it is honoring that. Little children are listening to me right now. Thank you for listening. I hope you're enjoying them Chick fil a waffle fries. They're nice and hot. You got some. What do you use it, Polynesian or that honey mustard to dip it in. But let's. Let's talk about these pain in the rear end customers. We have all had them. As I'm talking about them, there's probably one that's coming to your attention right now. You're thinking about them. They complain about everything. That's a pain in the rear end customer. If they pay late, that is absolutely a pain in the rear end customer. And my measurement of a pain in the rear end customer is somebody who drains my energy. If I see their text come through or their phone call and I. My energy level goes down, I've acknowledged that's a pain in the rear end. If you wake up in the morning, good lord. And you're thinking about this person, this customer, that the siren should be going off. The siren should be going off. This is a PETA customer. When I wake up in the morning, I want to think about God and thank him that I have breath in my lungs that my eyes can see. I might know I might need to go into the bathroom with a, you know, warm washcloth and wash my face and clean myself Up. But I'm full of thankfulness in the morning. I want to be thanking the Lord for everything I could possibly think of. And if my thoughts first thing in the morning is I'm thinking about a customer, that's draining my energy, forget about it. See you later. See you later. They're gone. Adios. That's Spanish word for goodbye. Adios. Ciao. Adios. Bye. See ya. We don't have time for it. Fire the headaches. Hanging on to your bad customers prevents you from having your schedule opened up to take on high, profitable, low stress clients. I'm gonna say that again. Some of you don't have this vocabulary in your brain cells. Highly profitable, low stress clients. Let's say it together. Highly profitable, low stress clients. That's my, that's my ideal customer. Who's your ideal customer, Paul? Somebody who I serve at the highest level. So they're obviously happy. So my customer's happy. And I'm happy because they're not giving me any stress. Their need has been, you know, satisfied or beyond, you know, they're happy. And it's profitable to me because I know my numbers and I'm charging a profitable price. So that's what I want, a customer who's happy that I'm profitable serving them. And there's low stress, there's, there's, there's very low stress with the customer. That's the name of the game. All right, mistake number five. I gotta be careful how I say this, but it needs to be said. There's a lot of people who are stuck in this cycle of doing the same thing every year with no exit strategy. What I'm talking about is you're basically building just a job instead of a sellable asset. When it comes to a lawn care business, whether you're lawn mowing or you're doing fertilizer and weed control, you want to build it in a way that one day you can sell the business and that's going to create true wealth. It's going to pay you a lot of money, a lot of multiples. So Kevin Salters, he has been on the program many of times, but he has been a part of company lawn care companies being sold. He is very familiar with that process. And him and Joey Koberly, they're going to actually be joining Naylor's event profit accelerator live in Richmond, Virginia to give you the exact blueprint on how to build a business that's actually sellable one day. They have their patented eight step process for building a sellable business. So the Fix to you just having a job and not a sellable asset is to actually build a business and that operates with systems that's attractive to these companies that are buying lawn businesses. They can look at your business and be like, oh wow, you use a CRM and you have all your customers history for all these years. Oh wow. You have all your customers with, you know, written agreements. Oh wow. You have all your customers cards on file and you charge them every week or once a month or whatever. Like you have all this stuff in place. Kevin and Joey, Joey Cobra Lee, my bookkeeper and Kevin Salter is my friend. They have an eight step process for building a sellable business. They're going to be teaching that at Profit Accelerator Live. So long story short, my friends, get your rear end, your, your, your, your, your, your A, your big A to Virginia, Richmond, Virginia to Profit Accelerator Live. There are very limited spots available. Nayla rented a room at the Omni Hotel and is fixed seating, strictly limited seating. So this isn't one of the, you know, massive conferences where you can just sit in the back and take notes a little bit and nothing changes. No, this is a hands on workshop with Eric Triplett, the pond digger who's going to help us understand sales. John Pajak, who's going to help us understand our man hour rate. Naylor Talifera, who's going to help us understand so much of the business including route density. Joey Koberly, Kevin Salters. This is a workshop where they're going to know your name, your business, your specific roadblocks and really help you unlock to the next level. This isn't just come consume a little bit of information and no, this is going to be, you're going to leave Richmond with a tangible business plan in your hand with the help of Naylor, Tally Ferro, John Paj, Kevin Salters, Joey Koberly, Eric Triplett. This is going to be awesome. So if you haven't secured your spot yet for this event, I will put the link in today's show notes and let it ask how you heard about the event. Let Naylor know. Let me click on the button here. I just seeing, seeing John Paj's headshot. Naylor. There it is. Nice little, nice little website are you click on get tickets and it says promo code. Enter promo code. Type in my name Paul. That's gonna get you the lowest price. The longer you wait, the higher the price is. But type in promo code Paul. And that's gonna help reduce the price there. So Profit Accelerator Live, Richmond, Virginia. I hope that you can make it. And again, as we talked about on today's program, don't underprice your services. Know your man hour rate. Know your numbers. Don't be the cheap guy. Raise your prices. Number two, don't be driving all over town. Get your tight route. Use my service area connected to your website to really identify your route. Draw the map of where you actually serve and then stick to that plan. Number three, pay yourself. Once you get in the rhythm of paying yourself, it's gonna probably expose how poorly run your business is and that's gonna probably light a fire under your big A, your rear, right? Some kids gonna be like, dad, what's, what's a big A Big apple? Should he eat fruits and vegetables? All right, but you must pay yourself. But in order to do that, your business has to have enough money to do that. So you're probably gonna have to raise your prices. It always seems to go back to raising your prices, right? Mistake number four is hanging on to those, those bad customers. Fire them. Get rid of the headaches. I'll say it again, Fire the headaches. Fire the headaches. Fire the headaches. Hanging on the bad customers prevents you from having your schedule open to serve the right customer. The ones I like, the highly profitable, low stress customers. And then last but not least, make sure you're, you're building a business that's sellable one day, a sellable asset. So I hope that this has helped you again. In the show notes will be the link for profit accelerator live in Richmond, Virginia. Good question, Mr. Producer. The dates are June 26th. It's going to start sharp at 9am in the morning on June 26th and then it's a two day event. June 27th as well. It's nine to five each day. Richmond, Virginia. June 26th through 27th year 2026. Hope you can join us. See ya.
- [27:24]
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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.
- [27:35]
A
Everyone deserves to be connected. T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Our networks are coming together bringing more T Mobile coverage, coverage all over the country. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20 versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T mobile is available in a US cellular store near you. Bigger network. The combination of T Mobiles and US Cellular's network footprints will enhance the T mobile network's coverage savings versus comparable Verizon plans, plus the costs of options, benefits, plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third free line free via monthly bill credits. Credit Stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required.