Why Saying "Yes" to the Wrong Client Costs You Thousands

Summary

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Green Industry Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Why Saying "Yes" to the Wrong Client Costs You Thousands

Host: Paul Jamison
Date: April 1, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Paul Jamison explores a crucial business strategy for lawn care and landscaping professionals: the importance of saying "no" to the wrong clients and jobs. Paul shares hard-earned wisdom about how chasing every potential client—especially those outside your ideal service area or request list—can drain your profits, your time, and your energy. He outlines a proven process for qualifying prospects, defining “bread and butter” services, and automating these filters to keep your business focused, efficient, and highly profitable.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Trap of Saying "Yes" to Everything (02:00–06:10)

• Starting out: Many new business owners are eager and say "yes" to every job, including vague or ill-fitting requests.
• Real-life example: Paul recalls being flat-footed when agreeing to a 100-yard mulch job that he wasn't equipped for:
  "Your boy has some decently sized arms and shoulders and with a helper to it, still ain't going to be doing 100 yards of mulch." (03:10)
• Warning: Taking any job that comes your way leads quickly to being overwhelmed and inefficient.

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2. Windshield Time Kills Profits (06:11–08:15)

• Route density: Accepting jobs outside your core area increases non-billable "windshield time."
• Profit principle: "You really only make money while them blades are turning right? Just driving somewhere is not good." (06:50)
• Solution: Use tools like "My Service Area" to filter new leads by geography automatically.

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3. Opportunity Cost and Qualifying Clients (08:16–10:30)

• Opportunity cost explained: Saying yes to low-paying or time-wasting jobs blocks better prospects.
• Profitability focus: Not all work equals profit. Work for the right clients and jobs.
• Key Quote:
  "Every time you say yes to a low paying job...you are basically simultaneously saying no to a highly profitable ideal client because your schedule is choked up." (09:15)

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4. The Geography Filter: Defining Your Service Area (10:31–14:00)

• How to set boundaries: Use maps or web tools to mark precisely which neighborhoods or areas you serve.
• Implementation Tips:
  • Mark service areas on a map (even physically, as Paul describes).
  • Make the boundary a hard "no," not a "maybe."
  • Automate filtering (e.g., web forms, service area tools).
• Quote:
  "Before the inquiry comes in...you already have a very clear boundary of what you say yes to and what you say no to." (11:40)

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5. Service Filter: What Work Will You Do? (14:01–25:30)

• Predetermined service checklists: List out "bread and butter" services before the season starts.
• Examples—Services to filter:
  • Weekly lawn mowing & turf maintenance
  • Edging, trimming, blowing
  • Fertilization and weed control (only if certified/licensed)
  • Pest & mosquito control (specialized knowledge/licensing needed)
  • Core aeration, overseeding
  • Mulch installs, shrub/hedge pruning
  • Gutter cleaning, snow/ice management (if in a northern zone)
  • Advanced: Sod, hardscaping, irrigation, lighting, drainage, tree work, water features
• Paul’s advice:
  "If you say yes to all these services, I'd say your business is not healthy... The ones who are the healthiest...have a few select...bread and butter [services]." (19:05)
• Red flag: Don’t offer services you’re not licensed or expert in.

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6. Red Flags and Pain-in-the-Rear-End (PITA) Clients (25:31–29:00)

• Red flags:
  • Price shoppers/discount seekers
  • Those who constantly complain about other companies
  • Clients who hover, micromanage, or fire multiple providers
• Reality:
  "And then you got to start wondering, was it the other company? Or maybe is this customer what they call a PITA—a pain in the rear end." (26:50)
• Solution: Withdraw politely, and don't be afraid to say no.

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7. Automation and Pre-Qualification (29:01–33:00)

• Automate filtering:
  • Use service area plugins, like "My Service Area."
  • Use phone AI (example: CallRail Voice Assist demo, 11:40–13:16).
  • Utilize CRM tools (like Jobber) to capture and qualify leads.
• Pre-qualification analogy:
  • Like real estate agents who only show million-dollar homes to qualified buyers, prioritize your time and only engage qualified leads.

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8. Pricing as a Filter (33:01–34:50)

• "Price Out Method": For truly out-of-scope (but perhaps still tempting) jobs, you can quote a significantly higher price.
  • If the client accepts, the profit justifies the hassle.
  • Caveat: Use this sparingly—proactive “no” is better than extreme pricing.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On saying no:
  "Once you can identify a no client, that's going to get you a step closer to your ideal yes customer." (13:43)
• On qualifying clients:
  "You don't have to be a yes man. You don't have to say yes to every single thing." (27:15)
• On expertise:
  "If your answer is yes, then you need to be an expert... If you say yes to pest control, mosquito control, you better be licensed and know what you're doing." (35:10)
• On shrinking your service area:
  "My final word is just to encourage you to shrink your service area to the density that makes sense with your very strategic customers doing the strategic service." (36:15)

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Actionable Takeaways

1. Define Your Service Area

• Clearly mark where you work and stick to it.
• Automate initial lead qualification to filter out-of-area prospects.

2. Decide and Promote Your "Bread and Butter" Services

• Make a list of services you excel at and enjoy.
• Say no to distractions and jobs outside this list.

3. Be Vigilant for Red Flags

• Recognize warning signs in clients who are likely to be unprofitable or difficult.

4. Automate Lead Vetting

• Use website tools or AI phone systems to screen for geography and service fit upfront.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Say "No"

• Each "no" to the wrong job frees resources for your ideal, profitable clients.

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Recommended Tools Mentioned

• My Service Area (Chris Gentry): Website plugin to qualify leads by geography.
• CallRail Voice Assist: Phone AI that pre-qualifies and schedules leads.
• Jobber: CRM for automating client communication and scheduling.
• Footbridge Media: For customized, pre-qualifying website content.

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Useful Timestamps

• 02:00 – Episode opening & theme
• 03:10 – “100 yards mulch job” story (pitfalls of saying yes to all)
• 06:50 – "Windshield time" concept explained
• 11:40 – Defining and enforcing the "geography filter"
• 14:01 – Determining your "bread and butter" services
• 19:05 – Why doing fewer services yields more profit
• 25:31 – Recognizing and avoiding red-flag clients
• 29:01 – Automating qualification & AI phone system demo
• 33:01 – The "price out" method to filter unwanted jobs
• 36:15 – Final advice: Shrink your service area & clarify offers

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In the Host's Own Words

"You really only make money while them blades are turning, right? Just driving somewhere is not good." (06:50)

"Once you can identify a 'no' client, that's going to get you a step closer to your ideal yes customer." (13:43)

"If your answer is yes, then you need to be an expert… Don’t say yes to jobs you’re not equipped or licensed for." (35:10)

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Conclusion

Paul's message is clear: Proactively qualify your leads by area, by service, and by client type. Specialize, automate, and don’t be afraid to say “no”—it’s the single best way to maximize profits and minimize stress in your lawn and landscaping business.

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For more, check out the tools mentioned and consider leaving Paul a five-star review on Apple Podcasts!

Transcript

[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

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[Paul Jamison]

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. Welcome back to the Green Industry Podcast. I'm your host Paul Jameson. Down here in beautiful sunny Florida where I'm loving life and we are officially rolling into the springs. So the grass is waking up down here in Florida. Most people don't know this but Florida's not all the same. So like way down by Miami, it stays hot all year round and I honestly not too sure how the turf works down there, but up towards like Orlando and Tampa and more like central Florida. The grass still goes dormant in the winter, and especially the golf course. I play at the fairways in the rough. It goes dormant there for a few weeks when it's kind of cold in January, February. But it has woken up now and the mowers are spinning on the golf course in the neighborhoods all over town. And if you've done your marketing right in your lawn care business, your phone should be ringing off the hook right now. So the problem is that when you're just starting out in this business, you're hungry and you only say yes to everything. Can you do a one time cleanup that's 25 minutes away? You're like, yes, of course. Yes, yes, yes. Maybe someone needs a massive mulch job that you, you might not have the crew for. I remember my first 100 yard mulch job. You heard that right? 100 yards. Customer's like, hey, can you, you do mulch? And I'm like, yes. And I'm calculating it's gonna be like a hundred yards. Okay, when can you do it? Well, your boy has some decently sized arms and shoulders and with a helper to it, still ain't going to be doing 100 yards of mulch. Right? So my point is, you can bite off more than you can chew really quickly if you're not careful. So today we're going to talk about wine. Today we're going to talk about why saying yes or yeah, some of you all say proper thing is say yes. But some of y' all say yes to the wrong jobs and it will actually bankrupt your time, your business, and affect your relationship. So today I'm going to teach you exactly how to start saying no so that you can build a highly profitable, tight route, the right customers, and have time for your family, your wife, your kids, your, your, your hobbies. So let's talk about it. Windshield time is destroying profits. So if you take a job that's just five miles outside of your core service area, you're going to destroy your route density quickly. And you're not making money while you're driving your Chevy or your Ford, whatever you're driving. You really only make money while them blades are turning right? Why, why your mowers going, why the bushes are being trimmed, why the mulch is being spread like that's. You got to be doing the work to be making the money. Just driving somewhere is not good. I want to shout out my friend Chris Gentry. He is in Charleston, South Carolina. He created something called My service Area. We've had them on the podcast multiple times. But Chris created this thing called My service area that connects really simply to your website so that it can track when somebody types in their address if it's in your service area or not. So you can quickly. What's that word? Mr. Producer drew a blank. If you know if someone's in your service range or not. Ideal. Qualify. Yeah, that, that will work. Qualify will work. There's another fancy word for it, but basically determine is this a good fit or not? You, you, you qualify or vet the customer ahead of time. So in business school, they, they teach you something called opportunity cost. So essentially every time you say yes to a low paying job or to an absolute headache of a job, you are basically simultaneously saying no to a highly profitable ideal client because your schedule is choked up with this low paying client or this client who's just a pain in the rear end or they're out of your service area. So while you're taking care of that bad client, you're basically saying no to the highly profitable ideal client that you could be serving right now if you learn to say no to these customers that aren't who we're looking for. So I wrote a new book called level up your money. It's basically how build true financial success. And in the book I talk about how important it is to be profitable. Just because we're out working doesn't guarantee we're profitable. If you're working for the wrong customer, meaning they're not fun to work for, or they're not the right service, or they're not the right price, even though you're working, your work isn't as profitable as it should be. So how do you identify what work is profitable and, and what work is a distraction, if you will. So as I mentioned, the first filter is what I call the geography filter. So this is simple. What is your route density look like? And I learned this right out of the gate. I started, if you're a new listener, I started my first lawn business all the way back in 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia area, Lawrenceville, Georgia, Duluth, Georgia. And one of my friends had a business as well. And in their office they actually printed out, it was a map of Gwinnett county, which is the county that we lived in. And I don't even know how they got this map honestly, because I tried like finding one one day and I, I couldn't. But I mean I could find like a map of Georgia or like a map of, of whatever. He, he had a actual map of the county, like, all blown up and large, and it's hanging on the wall or sticks, you know, taped to the wall. And then in, like, a permanent marker, they literally had the service area drone or drew with a big marker around it. And so when somebody called. And this is a long time ago, this is way before my service area. Right. But when somebody would call, his staff would know. Okay, I'm sorry, Sweet Sue. You're actually just outside our service area, and we can't, you know, we can't service you. So you need to know your geography filter. What? And it could be broken down by neighborhoods. Like, we work in that neighborhood, that neighborhood, that neighborhood, and that neighborhood, and anything in between those neighborhoods. Like, if there's a little. Little side country road in between those neighborhoods. But anything outside of that is a hard no. But most people don't. Don't have an automatic hard no because everything's mushy and gushy. And then you get a call and they say, hey, I was wondering if you can come, you know, give us a quote. Where do you live? Oh, we live out. Out yonder. And like. Oh, okay. Yes, That's. That's. That's the rookie move, the pro move is before the inquiry comes in, whether it's on your website or it's a phone call, you already have a very clear boundary of what you say yes to and what you say no to. Geographically. Does this make no sense, Mr. Producer? Crystal clear. Good. So if you don't already have your geographic filter set up, set it up today, figure it out today. Here's the exact areas we serve. Anything outside of that is a hard no, because once you can identify a no client, that's going to get you a step closer to your ideal yes customer. Now, the next filter is this one. This one's the most important one. So we're going to do is we're going to hear a quick word from today's show sponsor. And coming up, I'm going to talk about the service filter and how to identify the ideal client, buy the service they want. I'm gonna explain more. Coming right up. 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 gonna show you how it works. I'm gonna call a pest control company that uses voice assist. Take a listen. Hi.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

Thanks for calling the pest patrol. I'm Betty, a virtual assistant. What's Bugging you.

[Paul Jamison]

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 where they come quarterly, basically throughout the year.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

Sure, I can help with that. Do you have any questions about our services before we get started collecting some details?

[Paul Jamison]

Yeah. What ballpark would it cost to come once a quarter for pest control? Just preventative.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

We offer a quarterly service plan with four treatments per year. The cost typically ranges from $350 to $480 annually, depending on the size of your home. Keep in mind, final pricing depends on an in person evaluation. Is there anything else you'd like to know?

[Paul Jamison]

Yeah, let's get one scheduled.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

All right, let's get that set up. Can I have your first and last name please?

[Paul Jamison]

Paul Jamison.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

Thanks. What's the best email address for you?

[Paul Jamison]

Lawnboy32mail.com thank you.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

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?

[Paul Jamison]

Yeah, 10am works.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

Your appointment is confirmed for Thursday, March 19th at 10am and a confirmation email has been sent to lawnboy32mail.com next. Could you share the address of the location where you'd like the service?

[Paul Jamison]

Sure. It's 1234 Main Street, Atlanta, GA 30305.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

Thanks. How long have you been dealing with this issue and how severe is the infestation?

[Paul Jamison]

Not severe. Just moved into a new place and just one preventative pest control.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

[Paul Jamison]

Oh, that's it. Thank you so much Betty.

[Betty (Virtual Assistant)]

Thank you for your call.

[Paul Jamison]

Well, did you hear that? That's CallRail's 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 for free@voice assist.com again that's voice assist.com 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 and industry disrupting warranties that offer 6 years or 3000 full life cycles on the Cyberpack 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. By the shout outs to my friend Tony Rudolph. He sent me a text and he he said great episode. He's talking about the one about credit cards on file. He said, I have 100 of my customers credit cards on file, even the grandfather ones in emoji, thumbs up emoji, smiley face. It has changed my life. So good to good to get feedback. And I agree with Tony that getting our customers cards on file is life changing because then we're, we can get paid when we do the work as agreed upon with with each customer and it's an absolute game changer. So that was fun to hear. And if you guys want to give feedback to the program, a big way you can help us out is by leaving a five star rating and review. I appreciate Tony texting me, but I ain't do nothing on Apple podcasts. Drop a drop a five star rating review on Apple Podcast and share whatever helpful insight you have discovered from the program or how it's helped you grow your business. We would appreciate those five star rating and reviews on the Apple podcast. All right, this is super important. So we've talked about how to identify a no client. And there's the geography filter where you basically draw a line in the sand or on a map of where your target, where your target area is for your customers. And then if somebody says yes, pardon me, if someone's address is inside your service area, then you can take them to the next progression. Is their service in your service filter. And if their geographical address is outside of your service area, it's a hard no, it said no. Hey, I'm so sorry, but that's out of our service area. You know, in a polite way say have a nice day. Now, the service filter, this is where you need to essentially and I'll give you the checklist that I have personally, and this has been accumulated over, you know, 15, 16 years in the industry. But here's the checklist of services and then you got to go through and you have to predetermine before the season starts. Or if you don't already have this filter selected, then choose today what services you offer and which ones you don't. That way when somebody asks you for your service, you won't waste your time or their time because first you'll ask their address so you'll know if they're in your area or not. And then secondly, you'll even see if that's a service, that's your bread and butter and that's what you do. So weekly lawn mowing and turf maintenance, that's a popular service. So you have to, you have to figure out, is this something we're going to do or not there's people who do do it, and they do it well. And then there's people like my friend Jason Creel. He don't even mow anymore. He mows his own yard, but he doesn't mow for hire. He doesn't mow for customers. Mitchell Gordy, N.C. he used to mow for hire. Then he stopped and he only focuses on like landscaping jobs now. So you have to, you have to ask yourself, do you do weekly mowing and turf maintenance? Yes or no? Then if it's a yes, make that very, very, very clear on your website. And then if a customer calls and they said, hey, we'd like weekly mowing. Well, if their address is in your service area and you offer that service, well, now you're a step closer to your ideal customer. Next one up would be basically edging. So I would highly recommend including with your, with your mowing edging, where you edge along the driveway, the sidewalk, the garden beds. Those are called soft edges, where you take your weed, weed eater and kind of flip it over and you, you create a nice crisp edge along the garden bed. The next big question you're going to be asked is fertilization, weed control. Hey, can you get that weeds out of the yard? Well, if you're not pesticide license under your belt and you don't know what you're doing, you're going to want to say no. You can absolutely bankrupt your time and money and business if you say yes to fertilization and weed control and you don't know what you're doing. I've burnt customers yards before. Not the entire yard, but areas of the yard, right? It's 90 degrees and they got dove weed out there and they say, hey, Paul, can you get rid of that weed? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. And I spray something. The next thing you know, next time I come back, that whole area is just toast. And now I got to resot it on my dime, right? So fertilization programs, weed programs. Not, not that, that don't sound right. That don't sound right at all, does it, Mr. Producer? Fer and squirt. We'll just say fert and squirt programs there. There you go. Tell me about the weed program, Paul. What are you looking for there? All right, now let's, let's move on. Pest control and the pest and mosquito control. Okay. Lots of people are going to ask about this. Well, I don't have a clue how to get a mosquito out of your backyard, so that's a hard no. Do you do mosquito control? I do not. Nope, I don't. There's actually companies out there, that's all they focus on is pest control and mosquito control. So in that case, if somebody calls and that's all you do is pest and mosquito control and somebody wants mowing, then you got it. Then you got to tell the person who wants mowing no, or vice versa. If you focus on weekly mowing, mo edge, trim, blow, and you don't know a lick about how to get rid of the mosquito in the backyard and they ask about pest and mosquito control, you tell them no. Is this making sense, Mr. Producer? I just think it's too mushy gushy. I'll do a coaching call with someone and we'll go through this checklist and everything's mushy gushy. Do you guys do pest and mosquito control? Well, I mean, yeah, we can if it's a yes or no. All these questions are yes or no. And there needs to be a rhyme or reason why it's a yes or no. I'm going to have to go quickly here through the rest of the list core aerations. We talk about this all the time. You should be offering this service, in my opinion. But that's, that's, that's a seasonal, you know, once a year service that you want to know, are you offering this or not? Are you upselling this to your customer? Overseeding, right? Mulch embedding and edging the bed when you do the mulch. Install shrub and hedge pruning, gutter cleaning, snow and ice management for you northern boys and girls, right? You need to know before the season starts, is this something you offer or not? And if you say yes to all these services I'm mentioning, I would say that your business is not. The people that I know behind the scenes in this industry, like I know their numbers and I know, you know to some extent I know their businesses. The ones who are the healthiest, like making the most money is they have a few select their filter for services. They have a few selected. That is what I call bread and butter. This is. A baseball player would call this the wheelhouse, right? The pitcher throws a ball right where you like to hit it, right? In golf, you kind of have your favorite shot, like your favorite yardage, right? You're a certain yardage. You're like, oh, I got, this is a good, if I hit this good right here, right? 100 yards, I like a hundred yard wedge shot. That's, that's, that's my bread and butter, baby. You give Me, a hundred yard wedge shot. I'm gonna try to throw a dart, right? The companies that I know are crushing it. They have their services filtered out and then they say yes to those and they say no to everything else. Let's really quickly go through some of the big item. Ticket one, Sod installs, landscape design and plan installs, hardscaping. That's your patios, walkways, fire pits, retaining walls, irrigation and fixing the sprinkler heads and all that. Outdoor lighting, drainage solutions, tree work and then water features. So that was a list of whatever 15 or 20 that just came to the top of my mind that people are going to ask you about. So you need to know ahead of time your geo, you know, geography, that's such a tough word. Your. Your. My service area, we'll just call that. There you go. Chris Gentry. My service area. Right, you know, your service area. And then if a customer is outside of your service area, they're no client. Then you have a filter for your services. And if the customer want something that. That's not a service, that's your bread and butter. You gotta say no, no. And then there's so, so are we clear on that? You want to have your geographical area set and then you want to have your services set. So anything outside of those filters, you say no. And then the third one is the red flag client. You need to get sharper at recognizing these earlier. So this is the customer or person, maybe they're not a customer yet, but they're asking you for a discount, a good deal. And you go out to give them a quote and they're, they're just complaining about how well we had this other company come out and they, we had to fire them because they did this, that and the other. And last year we had, we had Anthony and he, I, he. We. And all of a sudden they start talking about how they fired the other company and then the other company before that. And you got to start wondering, was it the other company? Or maybe is this customer what they call a PETA? A pain in the rear end. Right. And I don't know if you've ever had one of these, but you'll be working and they're like looking out the window, right? And then you, and then you look at the window and then real quick, like the blind shutter, you know, like the little window thing like starts moving and they like, they move their head like, like, like you didn't. They thought that they could hide from you, but you saw them looking at you, right? They're Just hovering over your crew. You don't want red, those are red flag clients, right? Those are PETA's, PETA, PITA, PETA, PETA. That was our code. Watch out for so and so there. PETA pain in the rear end. So in basically summary here, stop wasting time on the phone with people who are outside of your service area, who are out of your league when it comes to services. For example, if you're a mowing company and you don't touch mosquitoes and they're asking you for mosquito control, don't be getting on Google. How do I get rid of mosquitoes in the back? Just say no. Just say no. You don't have to be a yes man. You don't have to say yes to every single thing. Identify your service area, identify your services and then have a backbone and say no to things that are outside of that. I would also recommend automating the filter. I want to give a shout out to Chris Gentry and my service area. Get that thing synced up to your website so that it will automatically do it for you. If you're using CallRail for your marketing you can set that up to literally answer the phone for you with an AI voice assist and you can program the AI voice assist what your services are and what your service area is. It's very simple to set up. And then they'll answer the phone for you and vet the customer so that if the customer leaves their information it's clear that, that the customer is in your service area. And once your services so you're only getting inquiries from warm leads or really that'd be a hot lead but you know what I'm saying, it's not, you're not wasting your time with a voicemail of hey this is Bubba out here, you know, I got to get these mosquitoes out of my backyard and can you come give me a quote? And he lives all the way out in the country but if you're using fill, you know, automations from my service area on your website with your phone system, if you're using CallRail you can set all this stuff up to where it's very, it's going to vet them for you. Jobber is another, you know, another one that you can, you can automate so much with Jobber so that you're just serving the right customers in the, in the real estate world, right they call this a pre qualification. If you go out, Mr. Producer to get a new house and, and right there's an 18 million dollar house here in Florida. I was it came on the market. 18 million now. All right, all right, well listen, the real estate agent, if you, if you, if you call this person and you say, hey, I saw the address over here, I'm thinking about getting it. Well, they're going to size you up, right? The real estate agent doesn't want to. They're not going to waste their day showing you this crazy house when you're broke, busted and disgusted. They're going to, they're going to see if you're pre qualified to afford an 18 million dollar house right before they go and they, you know, they give you a tour. That's an extreme example, but it shows you people at that, that level of, of success in their career, they pre qualify. They're not going to waste their time with the tire kicker of somebody who just wants a free tour of this crazy home and you can't afford to buy it yet. We do that with our lawn business, with our landscaping business, with our hardscaping business where we have people that aren't the ideal fit, right? They're not the ideal customer. And because we're afraid and we don't have the, the backbone to say no, the courage to say no, we're, we're wasting time. So if somebody says, hey, can you do our yard? And you know, Bubba's way out of your service area, you could just say, hey, Bubba, thank you so much for reaching out. Unfortunately, you know, you're, you're, you're out of our service area. I'd recommend, you know, maybe try and you know, if you have a friend who does that area, you could recommend your friend. You don't, you don't even have to do that. Now here's, here's another popular method. If you don't want to just do the polite. We, we don't offer that service or you're out of that area. You're out of our service area. There's the jack up the price method. So if it's a job that you think would be a massive headache, but you're like, you know what I'm going to do here? Maybe they're in the neighborhood you're already working in, but they, they, they just need a whole bunch of mulch or whatever it is. This is a big, big job. What you could do is you could just give them an astronomical price so that if they do say yes, you're going to make so much money on the job that you're going to be able to endure the headache. And that's, that's a rare Occasions. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't suggest that, but it is something that I have friends that, you know the, the old price out method. I'm just going to, I'll give you a quote or Bubba, it's going to be so extremely high. And then in the rare case they say yes, you're like, okay, well all right. So that's again, I'm not saying do that. I would say don't do that in most cases. But if Bubba's like, hey, I, you know, I really want you to do our, do my yard. Well, listen Bubba, you're out of our service area and our price is going to be so much higher. You, you, you should shop around and see if you can find someone locally there who does, does your street because we're going to have to just charge you so much more because we have to drive out there and yada yada yada. And then he'll probably like, all right, well just nevermind, have a nice day. Or if he insist, then you just jack up the price to where it is profitable. But anyway, that those are, those are rare exceptions. So I hope that that helps. So in summary, I hope I've encouraged you to consider shrinking your service area to what makes sense and to really specialize in your bread and butter services. And if you don't know what your bread and butter services are, really put on your thinking cap and think through everything I mentioned earlier from do you do mowing and edging or not? Do you do fertilization and weed control programs or not? Do you do pest control and mosquito control? Because you will be asked or not. And if your answer is yes, then you need to be an expert on how to mow with the sharp mower blades and how to edge along the garden beds and how to how to be the best at mowing, edging, trimming and blowing in the neighborhood. If you say yes, the fertilization and weed control, you need to have all the proper pesticide licensing and knowledge and understand different types of turf and weeds and what chemicals treat those inside and out. If you say yes to pest control, mosquito control, you better be license and you better know what you're doing. If you say yes to core aerations and overseedings and things of that nature, you need to know what you're doing. You need to be careful that you don't hit the sprinkler head with the core aerator. If you say yes to shrub and hedge trimming and pruning, you need to know the names of bushes, shrubs Hedges in the proper way to prune them and the proper time to prune them. You need to know if you're going to do gutter cleaning, that you have proper insurance if, if Mickey falls off the roof. Like, you need to have all this stuff prepared and in advance. Are you doing snow and ice management? It's crazy how many people in the transitional zones, they waste money on snow and ice management, on all this equipment and they barely make any revenue from it. So you got to have a plan. Are you doing that or not? And make sure. That's a whole nother world I'm not going to get into right now, but I can go down the list, right. If you're going to do sod installs, you need to know what you're doing, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. So anyway, I'll, I'll leave that alone. My, my final word is just to encourage you to shrink your service area to the density that makes sense. With your very strategic customers doing the strategic service. So if you want to stop quoting bad leads, start automating your schedule. Check out my service area for plugging into your website. Check out Footbridge Media for website. They'll put all of these words on your website. That's hopefully going to scare off the wrong customers and vet who the correct customers are. Check out CallRail. They got the voice assist where you can literally program it. It's so simple. You program it, who your company is and then you pick which kind of AI voice you want and then they'll answer the phones for you and it sounds so realistic, it's crazy. And that's going to vet customers for you. So anyway, I hope that this helps and if you have any questions, we will, we'll be doing many follow ups to this because I really feel like the, when it comes to picking your services, it's just, there's too much mumbo jumbo out there. We really need to get clarity on your game plan, your blueprint for your businesses of, pardon me, your business within your business, what services you're going to say yes to this year and what services you're going to say no to this year. And I think the more distinct and clear you can get on that, the more headaches you're going to avoid because you're going to be able to say no to the wrong customers. Going back to the opportunity cost, you want to free up your schedule so that you can say yes to those dream customers that are in your area that do your bread and butter. Want your bread and butter services and then it's on you to make sure you're pricing them a nice high profitable price. So I hope this has helped. Again. As I mentioned earlier, if you're blessed by my podcast, a big way you can say thank you is leaving a five star rating and review on Apple and Spotify or wherever you listen. That goes a long way and helps us out. So we appreciate those five star ratings and reviews. All right. I appreciate you listening. Hope to catch you on the next one. 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. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail]

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