Loading summary
Transcript32 lines
- [00:00]
A
12 years ago when I started my lawn care business, I had no idea what I was doing. But I quickly learned route efficiency with all of my mowing accounts along with the money management system so that I had money in all the accounts so I needed it to pay the bills and run my business as well as my personal life. But eventually over the years I learned time management system to help me not be working all day every day and build a business that serves me instead of me serving it and not taking all of my time away from me just to the business. Over the years I've been sharing all of this with my peers and some mentors as well as teaching my inner circle members this but this June 26th and 27th in Richmond, Virginia, I'm going to be teaching you as well as John Pajak from the Profits with Pajak podcast who's going to be breaking down all the numbers in your business, how to be more profitable, how to price properly. Air trip with the Pond Digger who is an expert at closing high ticket sales, attracting those premium customers and closing those sales for for those customers. The landscaping keeper and Joey Koberly from the Lawn Care Launch team will be joining us as well. And we're all dedicating those two days to teaching you how to increase the profits in your business fast. You leave with a plan in hand so that you finish the second half of the year stronger than you started and your spouse gets to come for free. When you get two tickets to buy one, get one. So come join us for the weekend in Richmond, Virginia. Network learn and take your business to the next level. Click the link and I'll see you there.
- [01:35]
B
Here we go.
- [01:52]
A
So if you are feeling like you don't have enough money, you're you're working all the time. Maybe you feel like you're selling too much of your time for a little bit of money. What I really want to focus on in this episode is how to break the broke mindset and what I'm what I mean by that is there are so many different business owners that I've talked to over the last decade that have been on social media and myself included, and even my special guest. We have achieved certain level or when we've achieved certain level of success, whatever that, whatever you want to find that as certain levels of our business and our life and we've looked back and realized, man, had we just made that small investment, we would have went a little bit faster, a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit faster. Or maybe if we made that bigger investment or that tough decision that we just kind of labored over too long. Right. And a lot of those decisions come from a broke mindset or a broken mindset. We have not as much self worth as we should have. We just don't feel like we maybe deserve to charge what we, what we should be charging to be as profitable. To Kevin's point, he's going to, we're going to talk about this in a little bit. You are giving yourself a low paying job and you're working more and more and more for the same smaller amount of money. Instead of building a business that's full of profit that you can retire from, sell all the above or just do whatever you want to do in the business and not worry about being the only provider of that business. And then you're essentially, like I've said many times, you become a slave to your business. So with that being said, Kevin, what do you have to say about that?
- [03:44]
B
Well, I think, I think you started off very well. People don't realize like when you buy an asset, everyone thinks of an asset. Let's say it's a truck. We buy a new truck for a business and that's an asset, which it is. It's a valuable piece that, let's say you needed money you could sell. Your business is an asset as well. And people don't understand that. So that hard work you're putting into it, you're putting into the value of your business. So we have to think quickly. We're not looking for just a job. We're building an asset that someday could be valuable to someone else. And we want to make sure we follow those steps so that it does be transferable to either maybe a family member or a son or daughter or someone that wants to buy it, maybe Naylor wants to move into another area and wants to buy that business. So we, we want to think of a business as an asset more so than a job. Anyone can have a job. And there's really, there's some criteria that we want to follow to ramp up to having a tangible asset, which is your business.
- [04:44]
A
Yeah. And let's. I recently heard you speaking about, you were on the Lawn Care launch podcast with Joey Koberly and you guys were having a great conversation. You kind of alluded a little bit about your own personal experience and how you've, and we've talked about this off air too, about how you've worked for different businesses. Like you haven't just been working for yourself where you are currently. You've worked for big businesses. And had a lot of experiences. And you are an owner operator, if you will, by design right now. And, and I remember you said something like you second guess yourself sometimes about that, or you question that. I think you said so. So let's, let's, let's dig into that. Why are you, why did you go back to owner operator or why'd you go to owner? I don't know if you started that way, but why'd you go to owner operator? And then why do you. What, what about that makes you, you know, question that decision?
- [05:36]
B
Great, great question. So where I came from. And I'll give the abridged version, the latest piece I was with was with a company called Russo Lana Landscape. We just had Mike Russo on the lawn care launch podcast. He ran that business for 37 years. We were a commercial maintenance business, roughly 80 to 90 guys during the summer, 300 in the winter. I became the general manager. So I got my college education of the green space that I started back when I was really 14 years old. The last 10 years was through Mike. I learned a ton from him. Very smart business guy. I had the stress of managing 90 people, 300 in the winter, all kinds of adverse situations that would come across me. And when I decided that I wanted to start my own, I did a side hustle because I knew the company was being sold. And even Mike didn't know what was going to be the outcome of that. He prepared his business to be sold and I learned a ton from him and the mentors that he brought in to prepare him for that. And when I went out, I wanted less stress. I wanted something that I could, what I thought would be smaller, easier to manage by myself. I succeeded with that too well. And I've created one heck of a job for myself instead of a business. But the intention I have of that is because of my age. I'm at the age to where 1. I was trying to reduce some stress and find more time for my wife. My wife and I have been married 33. We'll be 33. Or she'll correct me on this. Pardon me, may have to edit that. And dating before that. And it's, you know, we're later in our lives to where we want to spend more time together and not just be a slave to the business. So I contemplate back and forth, do I bring people in and help that or do I continue to build this piece that we have to a very profitable business which it is designed to sell one day. Would it be sold to one of our Kids, maybe. Would it be sold to someone in our family or someone in town that's looking to really learn and take them in as a journeyman and teach them business and then buy it out? Or it could be sold to a big company. I still teeter back and forth, Naylor. I really do. Do we take it to the next level and bring in a couple technicians and blow it up and go bigger? That carrot is always there for anyone that is an entrepreneur. You're always wanting to chase that next thing. When you get comfortable in the situation that you are, hey, I want to go bigger. I want to do this, I could do that. I'm still, I can't answer that if I want to do that. But where we are is my wife left her job and she is with me in the field. One of our sons, Kyle, helps out a little bit with his schedule and yeah, we're, we're loving it. We're building a phenomenal business that is not just about money and profits. We are a community based business to where we are recognizing our community. We done, we do a ton of charity within our areas. One of them is our sports fields. We want our kids to play on great turf sports. You know, the more sports they are, the better they're going to be. The better teamwork that's going to happen in their environment, which they may not have in their area. So we do a lot of sports field at very inexpensive pricing to make sure that they have good fields to play on. We also promote our clients. So our clients, we work on a referral basis. So if they give us a customer, Stacy writes a nice handwritten card, we give him a gift card to a local business and not a chain restaurant in our area. Coffee shop, local mom and pop restaurants where we have some amazing ones and they get sent out. So we're constantly working with our community itself, the businesses within it, the sports organizations, and we want to be known that they can call root development. Hey, we're a little shy on money and we need uniforms. Please call us that. Building that community is what's fun in having our business. And I did learn that from Mike. We did a lot of charity as well.
- [09:23]
A
Yeah, that's. I want you to, to focus on what about your business is different now than like your owner operator business that you're structured now than what you see. Typical owner operator businesses are like what, how. How do you structure it so that it can sort of serve you and not be a servant to it?
- [09:48]
B
Great question. And what I think happens a lot of Times. And I think we're all guilty. This in the beginning is we're chasing revenue, not profit. So we start. We feel as if we need to be turning money. And sometimes that turning money ends up being charity, that you're not even really sure you're giving someone a great deal. You're driving 10, 20, 30 miles, whatever it is, because you're trying to turn revenue. What I figured out from the get go was that I want to keep it small and focused. And when it builds and saturates, we take that concentric circle and we just move a little bit further and a little bit further. Now we have boundaries. We don't go past a certain area. And I can tell you I go 12 miles north and south and I go 10 miles east and west, and that is it. And we have just, just. We're servicing just south of 600 clients in that small area. So we put our truck in park more than we put in drive. I can fill my truck up every two weeks of 35 gallons. And that's all the fuel we use. I intentionally did that by our marketing in that area of yard signs, visible work, bringing garbage cans up, really letting people see what we were doing on the property other than just the service. It makes a big difference because people talk very, very quickly and it's spread it amazingly. So that's all we focus on. So a lot of times people are chasing that revenue and they're taking a call. And again, as an entrepreneur, you know, we're a seek, hunt, kill people. That's in our mentality. So we feel wanted when that phone call comes in, and we feel that we have to go and respond because someone wants our work. Little do we know that that 45 minutes away for an $85 mo is charity. So really, intentions is what we all should be doing. And sometimes you can actually make more money by not doing work compared to doing some work.
- [11:42]
A
You're speaking my language, Kevin. You're speaking my language. Good old route density.
- [11:46]
B
It's number one thing.
- [11:48]
A
Yeah, for sure. I don't think you were there for my talk at Jason Creel's event when I talked about route density. And I didn't even really focus on it at the LCR summit where you're at too. So you've kind of like missed my whole spiel about LC about route density. But I. I definitely have a few things to say about red throughout density, for sure. I mean, I, I kind of discovered that along the way for. And I. And I'm just going to take A minute to talk about this while, while, while people keep joining and see if anyone has any questions or anything that they want to pop in here. But I discovered route density personally by default because when I first started my business 12 years ago now, I was coming from retail management, corporate Americ. They didn't have much time, like much quality of life, no any type of control of my time. Like my time was being assigned all the time by default, not by my design. So I just, it was a mess and my life was, was falling apart honestly. So when I went to, when I started my lawn care business, I was like really focused on very specific things like not working on the weekends, like I used to do all the time and really just controlling my schedule as much as possible. Not working past 6 if I could help it. Like definitely not starting a job at 6. You know, like if, if we, if I start something and it goes a little bit past six, that's fine, you know, but not like work until dark every night, every day. You know, like I wanted to have boundaries. I set up boundaries without really realizing that's what I was doing. I was just very focused because I wanted to be home for dinner, I wanted to have weekends, right. I wanted to get my time back. I want to get my life back, repair my life. So by default, quickly, having just those few parameters. When I first started my first year of business, I realized I could only get so much done in the time allotted because I was dry. I was driving all over the place. I was driving all over Richmond. And if you go from one side to the other, Richmond, it's like a, could be a 45 minute drive at times, depending on how deep you go in some neighborhoods and communities. And I mean, I remember I had one yard that. Because you know, when you first start, or maybe you don't know, I'm sure you do, or can really can, can understand that when you first start out, you have all these people that want to help you, friends, neighbors, family. And they're recommending this person, that person, their friends and family and neighbors. And that's great. And you're all excited about it because you want to get work. But then you're driving all over the city, you know, and you're getting all different types of work, nice lawns, terrible, weedy lawns, you know, cheap people, premium people. It's just all a big mix and you're. But the biggest thing was I was driving all over the place, so I just didn't have the time to get as much work done as I wanted to and needed to, to, to get my income back to where I was at. Because when I left corporate America, I mean I, I, I had like nothing. I mean I had some vacation time and my wife had a full time job so we had that. But I was quickly trying to get myself back up to the, the earnings to at least supplement our income. So I'm like I, I need to be able, I need to tighten up this route. So before I even knew route density was a thing and a, just like I can't afford to be driving all over the place like that. The, the one person, one neighbor recommended, her daughter that lived 45 minutes away on the complete opposite side of town. Just to cut one little yard, that's like a 30 minute yard. You know, it takes me, took me 30 minutes by myself. I walked behind mower, just bang it out. Cute little yard. Couldn't get anybody else. Nicole de Sac had some flyers, people see me and wave and nothing. I couldn't, I couldn't grow over there. I mean I wasn't like a huge marketing genius at that point, not that I am now, but I mean I didn't really know anything then, but I was still just trying business cards, whatever. Nobody contact contacted me. I'm like this is such a waste of time. It's like an hour and a half round trip for a 30 minute yard. So I was paying them essentially, you know, to mow that lawn. It was terrible. So I learned quickly that, that that has to stop. Like I need to let, let these people go. I need to focus, find the right neighborhoods that are, that are the most profitable. Like they want the most services, they're willing to pay for it and, and there's room to grow, right? Like, like HOAS is, is my thing, homeowner associations around here, there's so many of them. It's a lot easier to get in one. Not, not easier. Once you get in one, it's easier to grow than like the rural areas that are all spread out and it's hard to really tighten up that route or even if you're in one area, you just saw a lot of drive time. So I was able to really refine all that. So that, that's where I discovered route density. And I think that's one of the biggest things to your point that. I'm glad you brought that up. I think that's one of the biggest things that, that people struggle with in their businesses is, is route density. They take on too much of the wrong work. It's either not Priced correctly, they're tire kicker slash PETA, pain in the butt customers. They're in the wrong area. They don't, they want random services that you don't even have any business providing. You know, you're buying all this equipment and supplies for stuff that you're only going to do here, there and everywhere, like, but you know, you really need to get your route together and organize, find out who you want to work for and with and just kind of market there and go from there. So that's a big one there. So I'm glad you brought that up.
- [16:54]
C
The Lawn and Landscape Technology Conference is going to be this July 22nd through the 24th in Scottsdale, Arizona. I for one have never been to Arizona at all and I've heard a lot about Scottsdale, Arizona specifically. So I'm really excited to go check out another part of the country. One of the reasons why I enjoy traveling for different industry and community events, whether they're ones that I host or trade shows that I'm a part of or speak at. Like, I was at Vegas recently for the Con Expo, had a great time networking there and checking out that show as well as that part of the country. You know, there's different parts of Vegas, you know, for better or for worse. And you know where, where Con Expo was, was, was a different perspective and it was, it was pretty nice. So I'm, I'm excited to check out Scottsdale, Arizona. Last year I was at the Lawn Landscape Conference, Technology conference, and it was amazing. It was, it was focused on the technology in your business. Of course there's the automations like robotic mowers and battery operated equipment, but they also have a lot of training as well to help you grow your business through those automations and technology. But also just being on the forefront of the ideas and the future of the industry. And what are some things that you can potentially adopt into your own business, regardless of what size it is and how you feel about the future and technology and automations and ultimately that's going to help you streamline your business and work less and make more. So I'm going to be there. John Pajak from the profits of Paycheck podcast is going to be there. Air trip with the pond digger from the deep end Podcast is going to be there. Yeah. Cornell Mack on the attack with Mac podcast going to be there. And then you have Mike and Larry with the side hots, side Hustle Squads, side Hustle Squad podcast. There you go. Also going to be there. And we're going to have A great time at Pod Row yet again at the Lawn Landscape Technology Conference. So if you're going to be there, definitely stop by, say say what's up? Get on a podcast, share your story or just meet up with whoever we have on podcast. We're going to be interviewing all kinds of leaders. Like last year we interviewed Mark Bradley from Element and leanscaper and so many other high level entrepreneurs and business owners that stop by Pod Row. So you could even just, you know, stop by and listen. Listen to their story first perspective and then shake their hand and talk to them after the fact as well as, you know, getting on a podcast and sharing your story. So a lot of bonuses, a lot of great things to come out to the Lawn Landscape Technology conference in Scottsdale, Arizona July 22nd to 24th. Check out the link in the episode description if you want to register. Hope to see you there. Ready for serious savings on pro grade durability. LCR Media podcast sponsor Toro has you covered. Upgrade your lineup with $750 off or special financing on a Z Master 4000 mower. The Z Master has insane power and the precision to tackle any job with ease all day, every day. Click the link in the episode description or get to your local Toro dealer before July 31st to save.
- [20:00]
B
Well, you brought up a piece in there that I think is very important as well is is knowing your craft and honing in on it. So like you said, a lot of people will offer, you know, wallpaper removal, vinyl siding, cleaning, mowing lawns, new driveways and they're just, they're not specialized. So it sometimes takes a little bit longer to be specialized. But promote yourself as the professional in your industry that you're going to use. So example, what we did in the very beginning to set ourselves away from maybe the big box fertilization companies. I own a turf management company, what we call Turf Nutrition company so I've changed it from just fertilizing to turf nutrition. We specialize in soil health. That's a whole different market. And now when people come to us they know that we're going to be using the more healthier products. We are not organic whatsoever. We can call ourselves sustainable in a lot of the products we use. People get sick, so don't lawns. And we have to use medicines from time to time as well. But we focus on building the soil and healthy. So our whole mission in our area is turf nutrition compared to turf fertilization. When you're going to go out and service your customers and what you're going to do, specialize in something and let them know that really hone in it. And any of your social media marketing, YouTube that you do, don't show the fancy, cool fastest mower, show professional videos. That is solving problems for people. And that is going to bring you as a problem solver when you are in sales, which I've been in sales all my life, just like you. Whether or not you're selling to a client or you're managing people, you're selling to them and you're just a problem solver. That's all you're doing. And if you listen to your customers with the problems, they're giving you the answers. It's an open book test. Just listen to their problems and give them the solution to them. And sometimes that solution is not your company and your service. Maybe it's someone else. Don't say yes to everything 100%.
- [21:53]
A
And I alluded to this earlier, like in the beginning of this recording, talking about how we, we kind of undervalue ourselves and our business and you know, we don't therefore that affects how much we charge and what we tolerate, the type of customers that we attract and tolerate. So I wanted to go into something you had said on a previous episode, like I mentioned of the podcast with Joey, that you said a lot of people undervalue their business and end up working harder to get more of a smaller paycheck. So what, why don't you unpack that a little? What do you mean by that?
- [22:30]
B
So unfortunately, and, and you know, I've been in this 40 years and many people probably listening likewise, and you've been in it many years to understand and see we've had a fast transmission or transformation of what's happening. What I mean by that is back in the day, if you couldn't do anything, you either became a postman, you worked for the town, or a landscaper. That's like the fallback. If you couldn't do anything, you couldn't succeed anywhere. So we've watched that professionalism come. Are we at the level of H Vac plumbers and electricians? No. But if we continue to promote ourselves as such, as we're here as turf managers, we're working for the health of your turf. We're providing proper plant care and you promote that in your business. Now when you go and talk to someone, you're not just talking to them about the cheapest, fastest way to mow your lawn. I'm going to promote the healthiest way to save your lawn so that there's Less stress on it. And sometimes I may even skip a mow because I want to protect the health of your land. So I just want people to understand that you want to just portray value with everything you do. And we short side ourselves a lot of times, because everyone how it happens in the green space is Tommy gets laid off. Tommy has a mower in the shed. Tommy becomes a landscaper. Tommy can do it for $2 less than Kevin can always. It's 2, $3 cheaper. So now we're bringing those prices backwards. But the service quality has never been met. You know, I've never been able to get a ribeye at McDonald's. I can't. I've tried. They don't sell them to me. There's. So you can go to McDonald's and you know you're going to get that. But if they go to Naylor or Kevin, they know they're going to get service and they're going to pay a little bit more for it. Because I'm going to pay really good money for a steak because that's what I want. A lot of people want the service. And people will come to me, even to this day and say, well, I got this bid for this. I'm like, that sounds like you're getting a great deal. Are they going to offer the services that they do? Why don't you go and look at the. The information that we send out, our newsletter, our YouTube videos directly to our customers of what's going on. And let's see if we're going to compare apples to apples, because I'd be more than happy to recommend another company that's going to be middle of the road if you're not willing to want to invest in the service we provide. So I think a lot of people just immediately want to sell on price and not on value. And we undervalue ourselves in that business because we are chasing the price and the dollar instead of the service and the results.
- [25:05]
A
I love that. Well said. So now, going into something else you guys were talking about, you talked about building something to fall back on. So how do you build something to fall back on something? Meaning your business? I was assuming that you're talking about.
- [25:21]
B
So we have to be intentional in what we're doing in our business. We talk about, you know, the shiny object syndrome, the hardscape projects. They're amazing. I have a couple friends in town that have phenomenal businesses. They're non. They're really non sellable businesses because they're always selling for tomorrow. They do not have recurring revenue because when Mrs. Rabinowitz patio was done, Mrs. Rabinowitz doesn't need another patio next year. So you have to go find Mrs. Jones and then Mrs. Jones's patio again. When they're hitting, they're awesome. And can that piece be part of your business? But believe it or not, Mike, at Russo Lawn and Landscape, we were just a simple lawn mowing business. He said we just cut grass. We did just south of $6 million recurring every single year in grass mulch. Anything that was around that project, did we do a project based work in it? Sure. That added to that dollar amount at the end of the year. But what we built was something that was sound and recurring. We could forecast, we could budget, we could plan on because we know that recurring revenue is coming in week after week or month after month. And here's the catcher year after year. So we want to make sure that we have that longevity in there. I have a clause right in mind that our customers auto renew every year. So what does that piece do? That piece automatically makes my company more valuable to someone looking at it. If I was to sell again out there in the air, I'm not selling. I'm not going anywhere. I'm here to service our lawns. My wife and I are having a blast doing it. But it's meant by design, tracking data, having customers all in a CRM system, something that holds them of value, email, address, all that crazy stuff. Now you're building an asset intentionally. That could be for many different reasons. It could just because you want to step away and you want to bring in a general manager and they can run the business without you and you buy more of your time act or maybe it's something that you want to sell an asset down the road.
- [27:20]
A
So we had someone chime in here in the comments. They said they're going to see us in a few weeks. So what that means is profit seller. Yeah, Profit Accelerator Live. You're going to be joining us there and, and sharing some of this knowledge that you've acquired over however many decades, right?
- [27:36]
B
Yes, sir. I look forward to it. And I look forward to the fellowship outside of the classroom stuff. That's where you know we can have some amazing conversations. Two sided conversations, which I'm excited for.
- [27:47]
A
Yeah, well, so it'll be interesting this time, right? Because the last time you were at one of my live events anyway, it was the LCR summit back in October, which is coming again in October. But we're. Right now we're talking about Profit Accelerator Live is Coming up in. But when you were at the LCR summit, you know, you were in the audience per se. Right. And now this time you're going to still be in the audience, I'm sure, but you know, you'll be, you know, providing value as well from the front of the room, not just, you know, in the room, in the back of the room and in between all the rooms. Right. So maybe there's some, were there some takeaways from that event that you can share that are for. For folks that are going to this event or thinking about going to a in person, live event.
- [28:29]
B
So the great thing about events that you put on, and I'll even say Jason Creel's and Paul's, is they're very intimate and it's very important because it's meant to be a learning piece and we all can drink from a fire hose, but we don't retain much. It's going to spill all over ourselves. And it's very, very important to be able to have someone at the front of the room be able to directly talk to someone in the back of the room and have a conversation with many faces in between that can add to it and take from it. So your event in Louisville was with that, it was very intimate. You were free to speak at any time. There was a lot of information brought from a lot of smart people in the room, not just the people up in front of the room. And that's what I look forward to the most, is I think the intimacy of learning is very important. And we've all been to classrooms where we're just drilled with information and it's just overload and we can't really take it all in. You slow it down to a pace, that one. The topics are something you want to learn, so the creativity is already turned on and then we have the time to digest it and to kick some holes in it and maybe come up with a better solution. No one is there to talk gospel by any means. We're all there to learn from each other. So that's the part of the events and what's going to happen. This is what the 26th, 27th in, in June is right around the corner, which is awesome. So if you haven't signed up for it, I highly recommend doing it because I've been to the events. They're very intimate and personal and very educational.
- [30:00]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's Profit Accelerator Live. I just put the link up here. Profit acceleratorlive.com for those of you listening and watching. The link is in the Episode description on both video and audio. But Kevin, why don't you give us a preview of what some of the things that you're going to be talking about. So you're excited?
- [30:18]
B
Yeah, no, I just. It could change, but Joey is going to have the floor first and I'm going to follow up on him and he's going to, you know, he's really good at the financial part of it and the analysis and the breakdown and statistics. He loves and geeks out on that. He's basically going to come down to profit and I'm going to take profit and I'm going to digest that into three main areas of how you can find profit within your company or what you should be doing to make a profitable company to either improve your business the way it is right now and also to get it set up for a larger asset down the road. Meaning your company is going to be worth more because of these simple things we can do. And they're just going to be broken down into three different buckets with some subtitles in between that we're going to talk about. And it's going to be a lot of question and answer into the audience of back and forth, which is very good. And within those questions and answers, I think we can have even more topics that pop up in between. But it's. I'm going to bring the piece of how do I take my company to the next level so it is worth something in the future. Or maybe it is right now. I just need to make a few tweaks within it.
- [31:24]
A
Yeah. And one of the, one of the benefits of having Joey with the landscape from the landscaping bookkeeper and lawn care launch is you guys really focus a lot on. Like you said, Joey's really good with the number aspect because, you know, he's from the landscaping bookkeeper. So that is another aspect of being profitable. Right. Like, just what to your point, maybe you are making, you know, good money, but maybe you don't even know or you don't know what to do with that money. That's something else you guys talked about on a previous episode of. On that same episode of yours where, like, I think it was that episode where some guys have extra money and they don't know what to do with it, you know, and it's like, wow, you know, I don't know what to do with it. It's like, well, do I invest it? Do I, you know, just spend it? Do I save it? What do I do? And there's a variety of answers for different folks but definitely having a handle on your bookkeeping and helping you manage and you know, direct where your money goes is definitely going to help you be more profitable, help you manage your expenses and budget. That which, you know, John Pajak's great at that. So he's going to be there as well. There's going to be a lot of other great, great presenters there, leaders in their, in their space. So it's definitely going to be a fun time as it always is. Like you said, just, just networking and learning in a more intimate atmosphere, but also really just focus. The LCR Summit's kind of like all the main components of your business and profit accelerator is like, let's just really hone in the money part because if you get that right, then so many other things can just be be built off of that. Right. And there's so many things around that like if you don't have route density, you can't be very profitable. Right. So there, there's a lot of different components that kind of complement, you know, profitability, even, even, even all like marketing and customer service, all that. But we are really going to be focusing on very key specific business to be more profitable, not just like how to price correctly. Of course, that's what everybody wants to know and of course we're going to help you with that because if you don't do, can't do that either, then you're, how can you be profitable if you're not pricing properly? Like that's like 101 right there. Like what's a man hour? You know, what's a per man hour rate? I never heard of that before. I don't know. Well that's step one, you know, like don't just throw numbers at the wall. Don't just ask what Joe and Johnny are, are charging, you know, or, or go look it up online and see what the going rate is like. No, you got to find out what your man hour rate is, you know, and so we're going to definitely dive into that as well at that event because it's a lot easier than we can talk about hypotheticals here or give you like the formula. But there, like you said, we can really talk and, and help each other and kick some holes and things and workshop ideas and actually help you come up with your own specific man out rate so that you actually know how much you need to charge and then it's game over after that. Once you at least have that, like I feel like that's correct, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin. Like if you think there's anything even more important than this. But I feel like if you just get your man hour rate set and you know how to, you know, like the two levers, I either need to go faster or I need to raise my price to keep that man hour rate. I mean that's like, that's 101 right there. Like if you get that down pat, you're gonna make some money.
- [34:28]
B
So, so people don't think about it. But just that one piece now or like you said, if you get your man hour rate, that will automatically bring you into the client that you can serve. So if you're too cheap, you're going to be serving cheap people if you bring your man hour rate where you need to be. Why do we need to be? Well, we have expenses, we have overhead, we need profit. Profit is pre workout to move your business forward. So we need profit. It's not a bad word. Everyone talks about it in the news as profit. Oh my gosh, these companies are making profit. We have to make profit or we're not going to be here tomorrow to do it. So when you figure all that out and you realize that man, I was charging $65aman hour, but I really need to be 95, that's going to put you in a different market and that market is going to pay well for your service because they, they respect service based businesses. So just that piece, I think you nailed it perfectly. Is one of the most important things you can do in starting a business to know what your value is. It's automatically going to start steering you into the vision and client that you need to be.
- [35:28]
A
So come to Profit Accelerator live guys. Go to profit acceleratorlive.com. i'll put it in the, in the chat again. It's also in the episode description whether you're listening or watching. And before we, before we sign off, Kevin, where can listeners find out more about you and what you're working on?
- [35:47]
B
So I'm kind of all over the place. We have our own business, so Root Development, we have a YouTube channel, the Root Development all across all socials. So that's the turf nutrition company that my wife Stacy and I run. I'm also involved with Megan, Joey and Stephanie in the lawn care launch which is basically we do business management for the green space. So we do the financial piece of it. So we do the bookkeeping. Joey and Megan do an amazing analysis of your business. We get to review that. Stephanie is our marketing guru. So she does website development, SEO, all newsletters, all that great stuff. We have a design library where we have all pieces, yard signs, all that stuff pre made that we can just change logos and colors to match you. I am the coach, motivator and, and really mentor being in it 42 years. I get to do all the personal coaching. I get to talk to people within our ecosystem via text message. We have, I have a calendar, we go in and do our 30 minute strategy sessions and then we do our CEO product which is CEO after hours, where we do a quick fast track on a Sunday through Thursday of taking the younger business people and just showing them the really the piece that they need to be tracking to show that they are a profitable business. So between those two different businesses, I'm quite busy. And then now we're going to Richmond which will hopefully bring bring even more relationships because I talk to people from Hawaii to Connecticut to Florida to Texas, all over and it's amazing. It's really cool.
- [37:11]
A
Thanks. Well, I look forward to seeing you June 26th and 27th in Richmond, Virginia for profit accelerator Live. And I put the links in the episode descriptions, the video and the audio for your social media. It's probably the best, you know, Instagram and they can check out all the stuff there and as well as the websites that you referenced and so they can keep up with and see what, what you got going on and hopefully they'll have some questions for you in at the end of the month.
- [37:38]
B
Perfect. All right, I appreciate you having me.
- [37:41]
A
Yeah. Thank you for being on and offering this tremendous amount of value for everyone whether they do attend Profit Accelerator Live or not. When they watch this video or listen to this episode, hopefully they will have learned a thing or two to really help, you know, push, push them forward in their business or maybe get out of a funk that maybe they're starting to get because I mean we're coming off the spring rush. So it can either make you or break you. So hopefully this is gonna give you a little boost if you need one or continue boosting you forward. Like hopefully you have momentum or this is gonna help you overcome inertia so that you can build momentum. So. So that's another story for another day. We'll talk about that later.
- [38:18]
B
It's an amazing industry that you have. I have, we've watched Transform and I really, and I say this honestly, we're really on the verge of blowing up this industry and you can be part of something pretty amazing that could build generational wealth for you and your family.
- [38:34]
A
Well said. We'll wrap it up with that. Thanks guys for watching and listening and we will catch you on the next episode and video. This has been an lcr media and Mr. Producer production.