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Welcome back to another Truck Talk episode on the LCR Media podcast. I'm your host, LCR Nail or Talia Farrow. And being the spring season, spring rush, technically, depending on when you're listening to this in real time or not in the spring, is typically a time where many of us make purchases. We invest. We invest in new equipment, maybe that new truck or a new trailer or additional truck or trailer mowers, other types of equipment, depending on what services we offer. Or buying, investing. I did distinguish buying versus investing as like investing is spending money on an asset, like investing in a vehicle, investing in a trailer, investing in a piece of equipment that could be sellable, essentially, so that we're on the same page for the most general basic terms. For this example, for this conversation, investing is spending money on an asset that you can resell if you needed to, to make make money. Maybe not the same money. It's most likely a depreciating asset, which means it's losing value day by day and the more you use it, but regardless, it's still sellable. So it's, it's not like disposable. So buying versus investing, like buying in for the sake of this conversation, means you are spending money on something that is disposable. Spending money on gas, right, for example. Right. Gas is disposable. It's consumable. You have to keep renewing it. You know, buying oil, mix and supplies, you know, blade mower blades, blades for your stick edgers, trimmer line for your string trimmers, like all that kind of stuff. I'm not going to go into all the details, but those are just examples of. Those are things that you need for your business. But they're not, you know, you can't re. They're consumable. You can't resell them even, even if you, I mean, maybe you could if you got them brand new. Like, hey, I got this brand new, you know, trimmer line, spool, you know, do you want to, you know, but do you want to buy it? But I mean, you're not going to buy that for very much, but anyway, or sell that for very much. But my point is that's more like buying stuff or even things that you don't even really need. You know, you're buying a. Buying uniform, shirts, right? Hoodies, polos, jackets, things of that nature, work gloves, that kind of stuff. It's. That's buying versus investing. That's. So anyway, hopefully you understand that without getting lost in my sauce here. But. So this is A time of year where you're doing all that though, you're buying and investing. So I just wanted to kind of define those two things. But, and that's, and that's typical because it's spring. You realize, you know, all of a sudden now you're busy. You go from it being the slowest time of the season, I think for everyone, whether you're doing snow or not, you're not doing landscaping and lawn care work. So it's a lot slower in the winter in that regard. And then you, a spring rush hits and it's like 0 to 60 in seconds, right? Or days or weeks or whatever. Like just out of. No, seemingly out of nowhere, the weather changes and you get super busy. You're getting all kinds of leads coming in from phone calls, emails, messages, all that. And then, you know, you're busy dealing with that influx of leads. And with that comes increased cash flow as well. So one, you have more cash flow, so you feel more comfortable making buying and investing decisions as well as you're now dusting off the cobweb, so to speak. If you haven't used certain things, you maybe winterize some of your equipment and now you're getting it all fired back up again. You realize things are broken or need to be replaced or you need something additional because of the incoming leads that you're getting. And you're like, man, we need more of this or more of that, another crew or whatever. So for all those reasons, that's why the spring, springtime spring rush is, is a common for many of us to buy and invest. Now technically, I submit to you that you should have done this in the fall slash winter, right? Because if you followed along any, any of my programs, anything that I've, you know, whether it's social media or attend any of my events or master classes on online or anything where I've talked about nature's framework, the four season success system. You know, one of the systems is the Time to go system. I'm sorry, yeah, that is one of them. But the money flow system where we're talking about how to spend your money, how to manage your money, essentially Time to Go is your time management system following nature's framework. And money flow system is your money management system following nature's framework. So as far as money management system, the money flow system, when you, every season you manage your money differently, following nature's framework. And in the fall is when you're harvesting, right, you're reaping what you sowed, like all of your profits throughout the year. And if you're following the whole system, you're really busy in the fall. You're usually busier in the fall than you are in the summer. And depending on what services you offer, what type of business you have, the fall rivals the spring with cash flow and revenue and how busy you are, because you're doing a lot more services in the fall than you are in the summer and the winter, obviously. And for me specifically, I do almost all of my services that I do in the spring in the fall. The only things that I don't do in the fall, I don't do mulch in the fall. I do mulch in the spring, but I also don't do leaf cleanups in the fall. I mean, in the spring, but I do that in the fall. So it's kind of like a trade off. I'm not saying dollar to dollar trade off, but it's service wise. They're both labor intensive, depending on the situation and time consuming as well. But you know, I'm aerating and seeding in the fall, so that's new that I'm not doing in the spring. I'm still treating yards like I do in the spring. I'm still mowing lawns like I do in the spring. I'm still trimming shrubs like I'm doing in the spring. So honestly, I'm really actually doing more. My revenue is actually slightly higher in the fall for me than in the spring because I'm adding on aeration and seeding and still doing leaf cleanups. So those two essentially are more than the mulch that I'm not doing that I do in the spring. So. So anyway, with that being said, it would be easy to think, wow, I've got this extra money in the fall. Let me spend it all right? Or let me invest it all. But what you should be doing is investing some of it, spending some of it, right? Of course you want to do stuff, you want to go out, you want to do some things, you want to reward yourself and your team and take care of your business. But you should be reserving some of your harvest, some of your profits for the winter, because you have more time over the winter to actually work on the maintenance of your equipment, restain those trailers, repaint, fix up equipment that's been kind of limping along for the last couple of months until you got through the finale. The finality of the season where you have some more time, and if you have a team and there's not as much billable work to do, but you still want them to stay active in the business. You don't want them to get stagnant, you know, taking time off or getting unemployment or whatever, for many reasons. You know, you want to keep them busy and, and, and also being able to pay them. So that's where they can be doing things around the shop, the office, whatever that looks like for you. So that's where you can now use those profits, the harvest that you collected and saved some back for this situation so that you can actually have the money for slower times to keep your employees paid and to invest in equipment upgrades or repairs or additional equipment purchases. Investments, really? Right. Like back to that original statement. So, I mean, because. Because that's what farmers do. Farmers follow nature's framework to the T. And, you know, when you think about a farmer, they harvest their crops in the fall and they keep some of it for the winter, right? They don't sell it all, and they don't use it all in the fall. They keep some of it back, a certain percentage of it. You know, they have to figure that out. That's where, knowing your numbers, you know, make sure you understand what all that is. Your. Your budgets break evens and bottom lines, like John Pak from the Profits of Paycheck podcast says all the time and has his own training programs around that. So if you have that dialed in, then, like the farmers do, then they know how much that they need to hold back, hold onto for the winter. Because in the winter, they're literally sharpening their ax. I know that's. That's been mentioned many times over the years in our industry. Sharpen your, your mental ax, your mental acuity. Like, different things like that. But, like, because farmers literally sharpen their axis and fix their equipment repair, replace all that with the, the extra time that they have when it's slower in the off season and the money that they've set aside, right? So had we been following that, we should have technically been investing and buying in the winter of all times, right? People freak out about that because you're like, oh, man, you know, cash flow is low. I don't want to spend anything. And I get that you definitely want to be strategic about it, but, you know, and if it's that worrisome, you can do it at the end of the fall when you still have a lot of cash flow coming in. But again, that's similar to the spring, because what happens is you're too busy and you end up making poor choices for your purchases and investments. And you're also kind of stuck at the mercy of what's available and the prices that are available. So when it's busy, it's supply and demand is everywhere in the world and in our life. And unfortunately we, a lot of times as landscapers, lawn care, business owners, we don't always follow that same principle when it comes to our own business. And supply and demand is a thing that we should also be applying. But so when you go to, in the busy season of the spring or the fall, when everyone needs their equipment to be fixed, needs to purchase something new, of course they're going to be jacking the prices up, right? Just like those of you that go to Louisville, Kentucky for a quip expo or if you've gone to any other event in your life for a concert or whatever during peak time, you go to a theme park or go to Disney World during peak time, they jack the prices up and the places are packed, right? The places are packed because it's peak time and many people, much more people have time off or dedicating time to go to these events. So they know that and they jack the prices up. Supply and demand. So if you're waiting until spring or utilizing your fall increased cash flow to make these purchases and investments, you're going to be paying a lot more than in the winter when most other retailers and vendors and equipment dealers are slow as well, and they're looking for more work and they're trying to sell. They're not selling their equipment and their services as easily, so they're more likely to have discounts. Make a deal, have things on sale as well as servicing your equipment is going to be faster, right? I wait until the winter to get all my equipment serviced. I make sure I have money put aside for that throughout the year. So in the winter I drop all my stuff off. I don't wait until the spring when the cash flow starts coming in. And then everybody else is also trying do the same thing and get their stuff fixed, you know, that they either knew was broken or they just recently discovered it was broken or needs to be replaced. Now things aren't in stock to buy. You have to wait. Now you're, now you're affecting your, your services, the amount of work maybe that you can take on in the spring because you waited till the last minute because of your cash flow, because you didn't save and put money aside during the win so that you could do this during the winter when most people aren't doing it. So I get my equipment fixed or replaced over the winter, quick and easy Keeps my equipment dealer busy and getting some increased cash flow for them. I don't have to fight the traffic of everybody else doing the same thing. Homeowners and professional landscapers around here doing that. Like, no, just drop it off. They get it done in a week or so, depending on what the situation is, like, how much work is involved. And then I pick the stuff back up and I just rotate it out throughout the winter because can only drop off so much at one time and that's that. But I have the money set aside for that. And this way I'm not rushed in the spring when I have all this work to do. And now we need stuff to be fixed. And now we're playing this game logistically, a logistical nightmare of trying to jockey for position and figure out, okay, what equipment can we spare for a week or how long is it going to take? A month? Oh my gosh, you're backed up because everyone else doing the same thing. Oh no, what do I do? I need to get this work done, you know, and you're playing this game of now what are you going to rent some stuff. And now that they're all the rentals are packed and booked out because everyone else is doing that too and it just turns into a mess. So it's a lot better to be proactive than reactive. So in this situation, if you do that over the winter, because you saved money in the fall, throughout the year essentially, but it definitely in the fall, at the very least, you know, the increased profits that you have in the fall, you put some of that aside for the winter and now you can do these, you can get better pricing on equipment and get your equipment serviced faster over the winter and you're not fighting with anybody else or many people anyway, so that's that. But with all that being said, how I wanted to round this episode off is talking about debt. You know, not all debt is bad. Credit cards are bad, but loans for equipment is an investment, right? You take out a loan for another truck or a new truck to replace one you have, right? Or a new trailer or another trailer, new mowers or additional mowers, things of that nature that are going to be revenue producing assets, right? You cannot do the work without a vehicle to get you there, a trailer to haul your equipment and the equipment to do it right. And the people to do it as well. So you can't pay people with a credit card or loans, of course. But when it comes to equipment, whether you're doing it in the winter, the fall, or you're waiting till the spring, like many people do, you might throw it, you know, pull out a credit card in a pinch because you again, didn't put the money aside. So now you're putting stuff on a credit card. Interest rates are off the chain. It's just, you know, and whether it is or isn't, that's just a bad, that's bad debt. Credit cards are bad debt. Even if you're using your credit card for an asset, it's much better serving to find a low interest rate loan, which if, you know, you know, like Sheffield and some of these financing companies for equipment, they have really low interest rates because they're hoping that you won't keep up with your payments and they can start slamming you with all this high interest and you know, or you can't get it paid off in time. All the, all the, all those, both of those things and then they just start hitting you with, with payments. But if you make your, your payments every month, your minimum payments, and then sometimes if you even pay more, I mean, at one point I was paying more on some of the payments that I had over the last decade so I could pay my equipment off sooner. You can do that as well. And you're not fighting these high interest rates. A lot of times Sheffield has like zero interest, which is mind blowing to me. Like how they even make money from that. But they're making money from the equipment dealers and the manufacturers that are all a part of the deal to sell more products. And if offering financing is a way to sell more products so that people can afford it, because not everyone just has $10,000 or $20,000 just sitting around, just like buying a vehicle. Most people don't have 20 to 40 or 60,000 in some cases for depending on the type of truck you're getting. Just sitting around. Right. Saved up. So to sell more trucks, to sell more mowers and other equipment, skid steers, whatever you're going to, financing is going to be a way to help that, help that be more possible for, for more people. So they have their own backdoor deal. So I mean, I know Sheffield, you know, obviously is making money somehow some way. And like I said, they're also banking on you, on some people or all of you not making all the payments, then they slam you with interest and penalties and everything. And that's how all banks and financial institutions, loans, that's how they all make money. That's the whole point. In addition to the interest that they charge every month. So staying away from credit cards is Bad because of all the high interest and it's bad for your credit, like your credit history, your credit score. I mean, doesn't look great when you have credit cards. So it's better to have money put aside so you don't have to deal with that as well as investing with a low interest or no interest loan for vehicles and equipment when it's going to be cash producing and it makes sense and you have a plan to pay it off and you can make your monthly payments. You're not struggling, you have it all figured out or to the to as much as you can, knowing you can make those payments and your business can afford it. And again, this isn't like a know your numbers episode. So that's a whole another conversation for another day for someone like John Pak, who is a financial advisor, you know, financial expert in, in this conversation. So he can, he'd be the one to advise, advise anyone on that. And he talks about that in his podcast as well. But just in general, I'm just saying you need to understand those things. And if you have it all dialed in and it makes sense, then finance some stuff if you have to. Like I said, most people don't have 20, 20,000, 60,000 just sitting around in their bank account. And if you did, even if you did, it's sometimes smarter to have a low interest loan and let the bank pay for whatever it is so that you don't tie up all that cash or get rid of all that cash. You can still have some cash reserve in case of an emergency for things that would require a credit card. It's not a loan thing. Like say something happened in which, like during COVID you know, we had to get, we had to, there was a shortage in everything. So we had to order our pallets of fertilizer or our pallets of grass seed ahead of time. And those are bulk orders, thousands and thousands of dollars. Well, you're not going to get a loan for that. I mean, I guess you could, you could go to your bank and ask for a $5,000 loan, you know, and tell them what it's for, obviously, or whatever. And then you go ahead and you use that money. But most likely you're just putting it on a credit card because in a pinch, like, what are you going to do? You don't have $5,000 of cash free and available. So you're like, great, I got to put on a credit card. But if you were to have, you know, some, some low interest investment loans for some things that you need some equipment and you keep some cash flow freed up. Then in a situation like that where you need to buy something in bulk, you can just pull that cash right out of your account and just pay with your debit card or write a check and buy it so you don't have to put anything on credit cards. So again, this isn't supposed to be, wasn't really supposed to be a financial episode. I am definitely not a financial person or advisor. So consult with your accountant, CPA and financial experts, of course, definitely put that disclaimer out there. But I'm just trying to get you in the, in the, I'm trying to share my mindset and submitting to you a different way of thinking. Or maybe you, maybe you already think this way, but just kind of talking about another key element of the spring rush and how you can go into credit card debt real quick by not putting money aside, not having a plan for this. And every year you just kind of go through the same, the same routine of putting stuff on credit cards as things break down. You need to buy mulch, you need to buy fertilizer, whatever else you're doing, and you're just putting it all on credit cards and you're going to pay it off eventually. But eventually ends up being a lot more money because of all the interest that adds up, right? I mean, unless you're going to pay it off immediately. But if that's the case, then why didn't you just pay it right out? Right, right out, right. Anyway, right? Like the points aren't worth it. Like none of that stuff is worth the, the debt and the potential of interest and messing up your credit score and all that. You should just not even use the card if you have the money. So if you're using a card, most likely it means you don't have the money at the time. And that gets you in a sticky situation.