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- [00:02]
A
Are you mowing lawns, running crews, and still wondering where all the money went? You're not alone. Naylor Taliaferro of LCR Media has been there. And that's exactly why he created Profit Accelerator Live. Join Naylor and expert speakers John Pajak and Eric Triplett for two powerful days of hands on workshops designed specifically for lawn care and landscaping business owners in Richmond, Virginia, June 26th and 27th. This isn't a conference where you'll sit in the back and take notes. You'll leave with an actual business plan in hand, knowing exactly what to charge, how to manage your time, and how to attract better customers. Tickets are just $299, but right now you can bring a partner or a fellow business owner free. With our two for one special. Tickets are just $299, but right now you can bring a partner or fellow business owner free. Free. With our 2 for 1 special, only 75 spots are available and they will fill up fast. Use the link in the show description or go to profitacceleratorlive.com to secure your spot today. Put more money in the bank and more time in your schedule with Profit Accelerator Live. Here we go.
- [01:37]
B
What's going on, you guys? Welcome back to another episode of the LCR Media podcast where we get to know the pros. I'm your host, LCR Nailer Taliaferro, and I wanted to share an episode from a recent live stream. Myself, Eric Triplet, the pond digger, John Pajak from the Prophets with Paycheck podcast, and even Cornell Mack with On the Attack with Mac podcast and Mac Landscaping all over social media. He also joined us as well and we had some great conversation about the topic. Was are you one mistake away from going out of business? And we all have different levels of experience, different types of businesses still overall in the landscaping industry, right? Eric Triplett, the pond digger, he has a multimillion dollar pond construction and maintenance business over in California, but he's still a landscape contractor, right? He's digging in the dirt, he's still planting plants. He just happens to also be designing and installing ponds, you know, aquascapes, water features, putting, you know, exotic fish in these ponds and so on, you know, and then myself, Cornell and John Pajak, you know, we have different versions, different variations, I mean, of lawn care services, whether it's fertilization, weed control, mowing, landscaping services, all the above. And like I said, different levels of experience, different areas of the country. So we all bring, we bring and brought our, our own perspectives on this topic. Which is, like I said, are you one mistake away from going out of business? Because I think all of us at every level of our business can be at that point, you know, just one, one misstep, one wrong move, one mistake. Something we took for granted or maybe a series of things got us to that point. Maybe we overlooked several things. Whatever it is, maybe our pricing wasn't right. There's just so many different, so many different scenarios there. So we spent almost an hour, you know, live stream, multiple social media platforms talking about this and I wanted to just share the audio of it on the podcast. So that's what this is. So buckle up. I hope you guys enjoy.
- [03:45]
C
Are you one mistake away from going out of business? That's what I wanted this topic for this, for this stream to be, for this live stream here. So for all of you that are jumping on or watching the replay, thank you all for being on here. The whole goal is to, while we're busy with the spring rush, to make sure you are staying focused on some of the necessary business principles and resources in your business so that you can stay on track and be as profitable as possible and have the best, you know, spring rush. Essentially, because I've said this a couple times, a spring rush can either make you or break you. So you want to make sure that you are focusing on whatever you can. Either you either you have to fix some things from last year or maybe you want to improve on some things to grow. But at the end of the day, that's why I want to keep making all this content whenever we can squeeze it in. We have some special guests on here on the stream, so we'll all be chiming in. Definitely put in the comments. Well, you can comment after the fact. Those of you watching the replay, those of you live, of course you can put in the comments here. What I wanted to start, one of the things I want to start by saying was revenue does not determine your business iq. So your revenue does not determine your business iq. What does that mean? It means that if you have a million dollars in revenue, it doesn't mean you know everything. It also means if you have less than a million, like 100,000 to 200,000 or whatever, doesn't mean you know nothing. So your revenue does not directly equal your business iq. Because I mean I for one, there's people in with million dollar revenue businesses in my inner circle coaching group and they learn just as much as the guys doing the startups doing 100 to 200,000 in revenue. So at the end of the day. That's why you don't know what you don't know, right? So we, we want to continue to grow in our mindset and our skill set so that we can learn what we need to learn. And at the end of the day, when we don't have. When we don't know what we don't know, and we're doing millions of dollars in revenue, potentially, or a million dollars in revenue, it could only take one mistake, right? One mistake to go out of business that you just didn't know. You grew too fast, maybe on a weak foundation, maybe you just didn't. You didn't strengthen your knowing, your numbers being profitable. Maybe you didn't have the right setup, you didn't have the right clients, you didn't have the right. The right service area. I mean, there's so many different variables there, and sometimes it seems overwhelming. And I think a lot of people just start their business and grow, grow, grow. They want to get as much cash flow, and I totally get all that. That makes. Makes total sense. Most of us, that's what we're trying to do is get our foot in the door. But as soon as you can, you need to start dialing a lot of these things in. So I'm going to share something that I believe will help everyone. One simple thing that may not be something that everyone is thinking about all the time or constantly thinking about, but it's. It's about sharing what could help. No matter what. Whoever. Whoever gets value from it. Gets value from it.
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B
So.
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C
So I'm definitely gonna do that. And I know Triplet, John Pajak and Eric Triplett are on here as well. Cornell Mack. We got some. Some epic guests, so they're gonna definitely share. Share some insights as well, because I've known some people that have gone out of business recently, unfortunately, and, you know, I don't know why I didn't dig into their businesses, but there's enough work out there and there's enough knowledge being shared for us to all win. So we shouldn't, we shouldn't really have those kind of issues if we, if we figure that out, like what these. Some of these mistakes are and how to avoid them. I mean, I know personally, I've made a lot of mistakes over the last 12 years, but I've prevented many more that I could have had by educating myself right through live streams, you know, podcasts, books, webinars, in person events. Like, I've done a lot of that over the last decade to really shorten that learning curve. And Minimize the mistakes. Because it's all great for us to be making mistakes while we learn and just trying to be that guy that or girl that is like, well, I figure it out on my own and that's great. But that's kind of a slower process, and there's a lot of people around you that could potentially suffer from that. And speaking of weak found, like, if you have build a weak foundation, you're growing. You know, these bigger companies, you don't know what, what. On the outside they look great, but on the inside, you don't know what's going on. They might have very low profit margins or no profit margins. They might be in debt, right? So I've talked about Spirit Airlines before. You know, they were over $8 billion in debt and they were losing billions of dollars a year, and they were hoping for some big mergers. The Last one for 500 million fell through because they were going to try and use that to buy more planes and make more money. And they, they were trying to outwork their problems, outwork their mistakes. But you can't outwork your mistakes. You have to fix your mistakes. If your ship is sinking, you can't just keep trying to bail water with buckets. That's a waste of time and resources. You need to patch the leak. You need to fix the leak first or that ship is going to sink, that boat is going to sink. And doing the bucket thing is also a slow process. So the water is going to fill up faster than you can get it out. If you don't fix the leak and it's going to, then it might break in half and sink even faster. So you got to solve those problems fast so that you can save the ship. And then, okay, we fixed a hole. Let's bail all this water out and let's see what we can do. What's up, Andy? And, and just try to stay focused on avoiding as many mistakes and fix as many stakes as soon as possible. So that's kind of ultimately the roundabout thing there that, that, that I was talking about here. So let's let me switch, switch to my board here, and I want to show you guys one mistake to focus on that will make you more profitable immediately. So let's switch here. All right, so if there's nothing else, if there's nothing else that you guys remember from this live stream, hopefully you at least remember this. So many of you may or may not have heard of per hour, man hour. Per man. Hour rate. So that is a very important but somewhat simple formula. You know, pay Jack can go deeper into this if he wants later on or a version of that. But, you know, I'm no profits with PayJack podcast by any means, but I definitely know some basic numbers in my business and I'm going to show you why. I'm going to break some things down. Very simple. To help you really put this into perspective. So. And if you know this already, just bear with me because maybe this will make you rethink something or just be a refresher. And if it's brand new, then great. This is why we're doing this. So ultimately, so imagine if you have, you have two team members, right? You have two team members and it takes them 30 minutes, right, for one lawn. That lawn is $50, we'll say, right? We're just throwing out some even numbers, right? Oh, two. Two team members times 30 minutes for lawn. That is one man hour, right? I think we're, I think we got that right. We're all on the same page. Can put in the comments, hopefully the guys will chime in. But. So two team members for 30 minutes, that's six, two times 30, that's 60 minutes, that's one hour. So it's one man hour. So that means your per man hour rate. Oh, here we go. Come on, Triplet inside joke. If you know, you know. But. So your per man hour is, is $50, right? That's, that's pretty, pretty straightforward. Now the other thing, if you're by
- [11:52]
B
yourself,
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C
it's just you, right? You just started out. Learn this from triplet. Let's go. You showed me how to use my own board by accident. So by yourself, if you're one team member, by yourself, same thing. But it's going to take you one hour, right? One hour for that same lawn, $50, right? It's looking like it's all the same here, right? So you've got one man hour, of course, right? We're still on the same page here. So again, that's the same thing. $50 per man hour. That, that's your rate. But here's the thing that not everyone. Here's the thing that not everyone understands potentially. Come on, we got this here. There we go. So here's the thing. You guys still see probably a little bit smaller, but really what is happening is so you're making $50 by yourself, you think that you are still going to make $50 with two team members when you hire somebody else. Or you could think that, but what you're not factoring in is that there's more costs, right? You've got payroll taxes. When you have employees, you've got workers comp, right? You've got payroll. So this is payroll tax. Then you actually have payroll, right? You got to pay the folks more than just yourself, right? Hopefully you're at least paying yourself in this scenario. But when you add in some basic things like workers comp, insurance, payroll tax, payroll, just to name a few, from that additional team member that is now being taken out of the $50. Now that, that is not like the biggest. The biggest.
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B
Aha.
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C
And the whole point of me showing you this. And again, Paycheck can, can chime in, in the comments and if I got lost in the sauce here, but the biggest thing that I want you guys to understand is when you figure this out, when you do this simple formula and see what your per hour, per man hour rate is, now you can look at all of your properties and you can compare. That's the sweet spot. That's the special sauce. Because when you have like for example, if you have a lawn that now does. It takes 40 takes 45 minutes now to do it. Lawn, you're still charging 50. Now your man hour rate is what, 45 minutes, right, times two people, that's 1.25. That's how you do the math on that. So when you divide that, when you divide 50 by 120 by an hour and 25 minutes, it's actually $40. I'm not going to write out all the math. I just know this. So that's actually $40. Now is your man hour rate, is that correct? PayJack, am I doing the math right now? You're actually only making $40 for that job, right? Because now it took you 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes for two guys, right? And now you went from 50 down to $40. So my point in that is, is what if these two lawns, what if these two lawns are the exact same lawn? Like, what if they're both about 10,000 square foot. Yards square foot. And you have no idea why one's taking you 30, one's taking you 45, you're losing money or you're making less on one than the other. So this is a quick, easy way. And most CRMs, the one I've been using for almost a decade, does this easily. Whether there's reports you pull up or you see it right on your dashboard, you can look and see exactly what your man hour rates are. And the whole point of this is to make this really simple and bring this full circle for all of you. Watching live. And in the future when you figure just, when you just figure out your man hour rate and you now you can look at all of your lawns and compare why are they taking you longer or why are they taking you longer than others and why are you making less? And now I can look at this and figure out, okay, what do I need to either I need to raise the price, I either need to raise the price on this lawn, right? I need to raise the price on this lawn to get back to $50 or $50 per man hour, or I need to find a way to get this shrunken down to 30 minutes. Is there some other way we can be more efficient? Like are we using push mowers on this yard? And that's in the back and it's a big backyard and that's why it's taken us 45 minutes of 30. Well, why didn't someone say that? Or maybe I need so many of these, I need to invest in a 36 inch walk behind or a 36 inch stand on mower so we can cut our time back down to 30 minutes. So this is where you start thinking bigger picture. So you can be more profitable with a very basic, you know, entry level formula that sometimes we forget about or didn't even know about in the first place, where you can really just look at your properties and look at where you fall with your time and the money so you can make adjustments accordingly. So when I talk about strategically raising your prices over all the time that I talked about this, this is actually what I'm talking about. Yes, you can blanketly do like a 5% increase or maybe 10% increase if you're that far off your pricing or whatever. But I'm more concerned with looking at my jobs and my man hour rate and trying to figure out what needs to be adjusted. You know, this yard needs to be adjusted one way or the other. We either need to be more efficient to reduce the time or we need to increase the price, right? And so that is where that where this formula will change the game in your business. Just that. So if you do nothing else in your business different, this alone will change your business. You will see everything more clearly. You understand how to be more efficient and you will. And also if you don't know how to do this, and if you're not good at doing this, you need to be better at tracking data. Whatever your CRM is, start job, end job, start job, stop job, whatever the terminology is, so that you know how long it takes you from the Time. You open the truck door to the time and step out to the time. You step in and close it, start, stop, boom. That's your time on that. That's your billable time right there. And when you start collecting that data and you look at it every day, now you dial in just this one simple formula. And now you can be more profitable by adjusting those levers. I either lower my time or raise my price. I mean, doing both would be great too, right? But at least trying to get that imbalance and figuring that out, that is the game changer right there. So hopefully that was helpful for somebody out there, and hopefully I was clear on that. You know, when you start throwing numbers out there, like I said, I'm no profits with paycheck, but I do like to throw some things out there. But I definitely do look at this all the time in my business. It's very easy for me to look at that and see exactly where I am with a, with a particular service or property. So with that being said, you guys have any, anybody want to chime in and add any, any other value on here? And I can check out everything else, see what's going on in the background.
- [19:30]
D
This is definitely a tip off to paycheck. Come on. Just like, it's like a tip off pass.
- [19:36]
C
Yeah, I, I laid it up for you.
- [19:38]
E
You're sorry I didn't get the microphone off here or turn the microphone back on. Yeah, I mean, obviously that, you know, one of the fundamental things about your business is you should have a man hour rate. And depending on, you know, what you're doing, it's not just a man hour rate for your entire business. To go a little one step deeper is how much do you charge per hour for each one of your services? You know, think of your business as like a, it is multiple divisions within it. So let's say mowing is one landscape installs the, you know, that could be a totally different number, fertilization, we control aerations, etc. Etc. You know, you have to find out what the total cost that you incur while you do these types of jobs. And of course, when you have materials and supplies and materials involved, that is a different number that we have to work on separately. And that's why I talk about divisions. But you know, for my business, which is a fertilization, weed control business, my man hour rate is going to look a lot different than Eric Triplets, who's the pond digger and designs and builds all these beautiful ponds for koi and for fish. Our setups are going to look much different. So when you're going into this, you have to be very specific about what your. Your rate's going to look like, too. Okay? Because we might all have the trucks and trailers, but the equipment that we use or the talent, the employees that we have, they might. These technicians might have special skill sets and puts them in a totally different bracket when it comes to pay. So besides knowing what your hourly rate is, to do something, make sure you're also being specialty. You know, looking at it as a specialty, like, for what I do versus what Eric does are completely different. And you need to price it. You need to know those hourly rates like the back of your hand.
- [21:43]
D
But, John, John, I can't. I just have to match my competitors down the street. Otherwise, I'm not going to get to work.
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F
Really?
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E
I don't know. I mean.
- [21:53]
D
I mean, the going. The going rate around here is. Is $50. So I can't, you know, so how can I. What. I have to do it for $50 no matter what?
- [22:05]
E
Well, then that's what you have to do. You know why? Because you have told yourself that. You have told yourself that you can't. You can't be different than your competitors. You're. You're telling yourself you're not allowing yourself to actually go out there and sell the value. It's not even about you. It's about your customers, what they want, what are the results that they want. That's. That's the whole thing we got to focus on. It's not about us and what we. How much we could do it for. You know, triplet knows this. He's just throwing some softballs at me right now.
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F
Well, I want to ask a question, so if you're new here. I'm Cornell.
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C
Mac.
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F
Mac. Landscaping and lawn care. I own a lawn care business in western Pennsylvania, Monroeville, about 20 minutes, I think, east of Pittsburgh. I've been doing this for 10 years, but Paycheck for the person that this is for, I feel like, is the person that is brand new in business. Maybe they're one to two years. We're talking about increasing the profit and knowing why you should charge $50 or $75 or whatever that rate is going to be starting as a minimum, especially if we're talking about lawn maintenance, which is what I primarily do when I. What are some of the things that people should be thinking about to establish what that man Ira is? Because whenever I quit my job, I thought, hey, I was getting paid 18 bucks an hour, 13 bucks an hour. If you've listened to on the Attack with Mac, my podcast, you know, that's what I was making. So I assume that when I got out into the field, if I charge. This was 10 years ago, mind you. All right. We Met Naylor mentioned $50. We were talking about $25 back then with me, because I just didn't know what I didn't know. So I thought If I charged $25 and it takes me an hour to do it, that's better than 18 or 13 at my respective job that I had when I got out there. That's what I was charging because I didn't understand all of the costs that went into me doing the job, even without an employee. So for the person that's brand new in business, they get in here, we're talking, I think, over their head right now. Like, they don't even. We've. We've went to a threshold of the person that knows they're three, four, five years in, and now they're starting to think about this. But we want someone to increase their profit this year right now. So what are some of the things that people need to be thinking about to establish what that cost is? Because it can't be $10 more than what you were getting paid as a W2 employee at some job. But they don't. We might not know the reason, and I know I didn't, and I'm learning it right now as we speak. Still 10 years in, these are the costs that are going in, but we want them to start off right now. So what are some of the. Just as an example to get someone started. Right.
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D
That's a good piece.
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F
We ain't just putting £350 on the. On the bench press and saying, lift this right now with a whole bunch of things. Let's start them off with just the bar and give them three or four things that, you know, people should be looking at so that they can establish that cost.
- [25:10]
E
Yeah, that's a great, you know, that's great perspective because a lot of times we forget where we came from and where we're going. So here's the. Here's a huge mindset thing for you is not looking at where you're at right now. It's looking at where you want to be in the next step.
- [25:28]
B
The LCR Media podcast is brought to you by Toro, and they're proud to support the men and women who serve our communities every day with Toro's American Hero program. Military veterans, firefighters, EMTs and police officers can receive 18% off Toro Landscape Contractor and Specialty construction equipment. It's a program built to give back to the people who always show up. To learn more and see if you qualify, click the link in the episode description or visit your local Toro dealer. 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 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, 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 could potentially adopt into your own business, regardless of what size it is and how you feel about the future and technology and automations, 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 with Paycheck Podcast is going to be there. Air trip with the Pond Digger from the Deep End podcast is going to be there. You got Cornell Mack on the Attack with Mac podcast going to be there. And you have Mike and Larry with the Side Hots side Hustle Squad 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 Long 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. 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, the 24th. Check out the link in the episode description if you want to register. Hope to see you there.
- [28:38]
E
So let's just, let's just pretend we are like literally first step. We, you know, stopped our full time job. We're maybe we already, you know, we've been doing a side hustle for a little bit and we quit the side hustle and now the side hustle is our income. Okay, you might just be running around in a truck. Maybe you don't have a big piece of equipment, you don't have a big mower, let's just say mowing, okay? We're just going to stay in this realm right now. You got a trimmer, you got a blower, you got the very basics, okay? You're not going to want to charge what it costs you to produce work with that equipment. You want to think a couple steps ahead. You might not even think about it. You're like, well, I'm just going to work from my house, I'll work out of my garage and then I'll park my truck in my trailer there and then I'll load up every morning. You got to stop thinking like that. You know, these are like the first steps in order to get to the pricing that you actually need. Because what you're talking about is we're not just surviving. Oh, my last job paid me 18 bucks an hour. So if I charge, you know, 25, then that's more money than when I was making a, you know, an hour before. But again, we have a lot of costs that are involved. It is not the same as a W2. So, you know, you have to start thinking of like, okay, where do I store everything? Well, I store it in my garage. Okay, well that's fine, I get it. But let's just say you have to have a shop, you know, eventually one of your goals is to have a shop. What's that shop gonna end up costing me down the road? You know, even if you don't own it, what if you're just renting the space? I personally, I still use multiple storage units. You know, I rent those. I, I literally could go start A shop at this point with how many units I have, but I keep it because it's flexible, but not to get into the weeds about that. But you know, where are you going? Are you going to. Maybe right now you're in this like that really painful squeeze point where the equipment that you have really limits you. Like how Naylor was talking about before, you're doing the same size lawns, but instead of this one taking you 30 minutes, now it's taking you 45 because you're not properly equipped. Well, what's it going to cost you to be properly equipped and be very efficient? Okay, get rid of the belly mower, you know, the Craftsman belly mower, you know, the ones that, the lawn tractors that, you know, some people still use. Let's get into a high efficiency, you know, zero turn or a stand on machine. What is that going to look like? And that's going to be an additional cost. So the point, the picture I'm trying to paint here is how can instead of pricing where you're at right now, looking into the next step, the next, the near future here to be very efficient, to be very productive and essentially profitable. What does that look like and how much does that cost? Okay, so you're, you're basically, even if you're not there yet, you're going to start pricing out your, your work for the next step, the next chapter in your business. One way, a very easy way to do this is just take look at your trucks and be like, okay, we have, let's just say it's a half ton truck. Okay, we have a open trailer. It, the open trailer is equipped with the right equipment for our target market. You know, Cornell, I know you got tons of hills in your area. So it's not like you're going to be on these big sit down mowers and stuff all the time. You're probably going to go with something more nimble either like a stand on unit or maybe even walk behinds that are, you know, can take that type of terrain without causing injury or damage. But whatever those things look like, that's what you should be shooting for. And then you're, you're, you're putting all those costs together and then you start realizing that like, oh man, this is what it really is going to cost
- [32:34]
C
me
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E
to perform these services. And I can't be charging 25 bucks a lawn. I need to be, you know, let's just say the $50, like the $50 lawns, you know, that's what we need to be doing. And Some people, and here's another mindset thing, a lot of people feel guilty because they're like, well, I actually don't need that right now because I'm not in that position yet. It's not about. It's not about being greedy or anything like that. More than likely your competitors are probably underpriced because they're stuck. You know, I know so many companies that will sit there and run machines into the ground before they even think about buying a replacement. And when they do buy the replacement, they're financing it for another four or five years before they start thinking about the next piece of equipment they're buying. You know what I mean? It gets in this vicious cycle and they're always behind, they're always in debt, they're always just chasing the bottom of the barrel, in a sense. And you know, the way that I present things, and I know that this group of minds that are very like minded, we want you to prosper. We want you to have everything you need to make sure that your business is going to thrive. So basic things just wherever you're at, it doesn't matter if you're brand new or if you've been in business for, you know, decades. Take a look at where you're at right now. Look at your goals and see where you're at you want to go. Because when you start acting like where your end goal is, that you could achieve it much quicker. It's not going to take decades to do it. It's going to take a couple, maybe some people have done it in seasons, so I don't know if that answers your question, Mac, but I'm hoping that that helps fill the gap that a lot of people.
- [34:26]
F
Yeah, I just see when people first start out, I just. Well, at least I won't. I never. When I first started out, I just didn't understand. So when you, when you really break everything down, it's like, all right, if I gotta pay, this is why you would charge $50 per or 65, like whatever your minimum is. A lot of times people don't understand why they should charge that. They just might hear me say, on anything that I do, my minimum is 65. And so they think, hey, I'm gonna go charge 65. But they live in a different area or whatever. But it's the cost that gives you the reason why you charge what you charge. And also the market. When I got into it, like I said, I just wanted to get more money than whatever I was getting from my job. But I didn't take into consideration that if you use gas for 300 bucks a month, that's $1200. I mean, 300 bucks a week, that's $1200 a month. Now you chop that down and divide it by however many properties you have for that particular week or that particular month and how long things takes you, that gives you maybe $2 in gas that you're going to use on this yard. And after you do all of that math, you got an employee, you got insurance, you got car payments, you got shop payments, you got blades and future things and all these things you want to buy in the future so you could do your job better. Right. So we could get from the, from the 45 down to the 30, like Naylor was saying, in the opposite direction. But then you got to know why you should charge that. And when you take all of that stuff that you got to pay for the entire month and drop it down to however many properties you're going to do in that month, it might be 500, it might be 35, depending on what, what stage of your business that you're in. But if you don't know what those costs are, then you're just charging something arbitrary and not knowing that. For me to legitimately do a yard that is, let's say thousand square foot, that's our minimum. Mine is gonna be $65. It cost me actually, and what I do, about $14 to actually cut the yard. You wouldn't know that if you didn't know that you gotta do all of that stuff. So that's all. I just kind of wanted to. You have the person that's watching, especially the brand new people to be thinking that. And it don't gotta be a whole, like a whole lot of arithmetic in this, but you gotta think of things in a bite sized way for someone that's brand new. I ain't Justin Moore, so I need to, I need to learn like the guy who didn't, you know.
- [37:00]
E
Yeah. I'll tell you what, here's the killer. This is a gold nugget for everybody right now. Everybody's feeling the, the fuel costs, you know, I know triplet. You're out in California. I'm probably, it's probably what, eight bucks a gallon or something for diesel? I don't even know. But most of the time we look at it and we say, hey, I spend $300 a week per truck on fuel or whatever it might be. Stop looking at it as a dollar amount. If you really want to track your data, yes, you Track the money, but track the gallons of fuel that you're using per, per vehicle and per setup. Let's just say I always say, hey, it's a loadout. You know, it starts appealing to the people that play like Call of Duty and everything. You know, your truck, your trailer, your. All of your equipment that's on there. Look at how much it either. Look at how much it takes to fill it up during the week. You know, how many gallons. That data doesn't generally change that much because week to week we'll be like, well, yeah, we, we use about, you know, per vehicle. We're using about 55 to 60 gallons per week. That will. With all the fluctuating fuel costs, you'll just know, like in your budget and everything, like, okay, I have to. For this setup to send it out for the week, it's going to cost X amount of, you know, 65 or, you know, 60 gallons per per week. So then it's like, well, if gas is, you know, five bucks a gallon, we know it's like, hey, that's going to be like 300 bucks. Just to top that off, if it jumps up to 10, we know it's like, wow, that's going to be like a $600 bill that we have to incur anyway. It's, it's little things like that that are, are really going to help you get your help you understand your costs. Ultimately, it's going to help you judge what your pricing should be.
- [38:51]
C
Hey, pay Jack. I wanted to chime in real quick. We had a question from Instagram, from the Beard Bros. Lawn. They asked what about sales tax on cuts and what percentage. This was a while ago, but I was waiting to ask.
- [39:04]
E
Yeah, when it comes to sales tax, that is based on your state whatever. If it's 50, you know, let's say you're charging $50, right? And it's a 10% sales tax. Well, then it's. That's not your money. You're. You're going to charge $55 because 10% of that 50 is five bucks. And then you have to pay that to your. The state, State of Indiana. You know, like, it's kind of funny, like this past year, fertilization, weed control services were always taxed, but now they're not taxed. But we have to pay taxes on our. We lost our tax exemption for our materials now. So immediately our sales tax was 7%. So now there was an immediate 7% increase for all of our products. So I don't know if that, if that answers your question or anything, but when it comes to sales tax, that's not your money. It's your obligation to do business in the state that you're located in. So some states don't have sales tax on certain services. Some of them do have sales tax on it. Whatever that rate is, that's what you're obligated to pay or you're not paying it, you're obligated to collect it from your client. And then that money is not part of your revenue. It's just something that you report. But then you basically say this goes to sales tax, so it's not necessarily part of your revenue. It's just kind of you're the pass through on it. You're collecting it on behalf of the state of wherever you live.
- [40:47]
C
Makes sense.
- [40:49]
B
Awesome.
- [40:50]
C
Tripley, you got something to to what say you about are you one mistake away from going out of business? I know you have a lot to say, don't you?
- [41:00]
D
I do. Because, you know, I guess it depends on the audience we're speaking to because we're talking to contractors who are just getting started, but we're also talking to contractors have been doing it for a while. And the topic is, you're one step away from losing everything. Okay? And so, you know, these are. This is like all tactical things. Like, we got to do this, we got to do that. You know, okay, I got to change my numbers, I got to raise my prices, I got to do whatever. But, like, I want to do a wake up call to everyone, okay? If you're grinding by yourself, you're one step away from losing everything in your business. If you're a grinding ass solo entrepreneur that kicks ass and you're the baddest dude in town, if you don't have an apprentice that's helping you that can support you if something should happen to you, if you got sick, if you took an injury, if, God forbid, one of your loved ones was, you know, there was a fatality in the family and you had to, like, like, mourn. Someone's law, bro. If, like, you like the guys that are solo entrepreneurs, if you don't have this figured out to where you can step away, you might, might have plenty of money in the bank. But if you don't have a way to support your customers, then they're gonna choose someone else. It's gonna be like, I'm really sorry, Naylor, that your whole family died in a car accident, but it's been a month since you've done my lawn and it's getting long I'm gonna have to hire someone else. Oh, you know, the weeds are coming up through the lawn and the bugs are coming. I had to hire this other company. You know what I mean? Like, if you're not building your business that's bulletproof, to be able to have money set aside to pay your taxes, you know, talk to paycheck, he'll help you do it. If you don't have the different, if you're not. If you're not doing profit first mentality in your business and setting aside money, like, dude, you're in business, hopefully you got this figured out. But the, the thing is, like, if you're not building your business to where it's bulletproof, where your business can sustain something, something traumatic in your life, whether it's someone that you love or someone in yourself, then you could potentially lose all your customers, okay? Especially for all you solo grinders out there that no one can do it as good as me. I'm making money, okay? So, dude, I, I know guys and I'm not going to be long winded here, but I know contractors in the pond industry that were amazing pond builders. They're be beautiful artists. If you saw their work, you would think they're the baddest guys around, okay? And then they would talk about all the money that they're making in all this. Like, I sold this pond for 100 grand. They must be rich. They have so much money that's in. It's stuffed under their bed. They don't even buy new beds. They just put more money under there to make it soft. They have so much money. Well, I know someone who died early 60s, okay? That's one step away from losing it. All right? He died. That's one way, right? Here's the problem. He left his family destitute. No money. They had to. They had to do a. They had to raise money to bury this poor bastard you got. When you die, it's going to cost 15 grand to put you in the ground, to rent a tractor, put you in a wooden box, throw you in the ground and cover you up. It's going to cost you 10 or 15 grand. Who's going to pay for that? Okay? This man in his 60s that you guys would think he was brilliant and rich, left his family destitute, had to do a freaking, you know, some kind of gofundme to pay for his funeral and didn't set enough money aside. And then he was renting a house. You think he was living on some lavish place, right? But he, he was renting a fucking house. His wife had to move because she couldn't afford the bills anymore. And, and this guy had to call like all of his pond builder peers came to help finish the last couple of contracts just so he could be whole and his wife had enough money to move into her fucking mom's house at 60 years old. Okay, if you're not getting these numbers correct, if you're not looking to someone like paycheck, or if you're not looking for someone for skill set like Naylor, if you're not surrounding yourself with people like Cornell Mac that not only are thinking about, you know, branding and me 2.0 and becoming better versions of ourselves, but protecting our asset. Your business is your asset. If you're not protecting it, then, you know, I don't even. You, you, you got nothing. It's already go so dark. But that's what I'm. That's.
- [45:26]
C
No, I think that's real. And you know, David, you know Mallard, in the comments there, he said, dang et, you're talking to me, bro. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of people out there that will hear this message and they will understand, you know, that they might think that there are living that they are somewhere that they actually are not. You know, again, are, are you one mistake away? Are you one misstep away? Like, how close are you to going at a business? Do you actually even really have a business?
- [45:55]
D
Okay, I want to talk about one more thing before get out my soapbox. If you're in like, I know, I know, I know the audience, bro. I know there's 17 year old kids right now watching this and getting jacked, right? And I'm going to build all this stuff. Like you could be in your early 20s and you're one step away from losing it all. So what? You're 20, bro. You could, you could file bankruptcy and you could start over tomorrow. And that's one, that's one metric, that's one way of like potentially losing it, learning and having another rebound. But as soon as you get into your 30s and your 40s and you have mortgage payments and kids and you have schooling and you have all these obligations, like you're a different animal than you are when you're 60 and like, hey, if I'm one step away from losing it, does my family, you know, have to raise money to bury me? Or am I leaving them in a beautiful spot where they can mourn me and not have to work and still be cared for, not have to Sell the family property. Like this is different than 30s and 30s, is different than 50s and 50s, different than 60s. Like you know, you're going to have to pivot along the way. Mallard's going to be different than someone like Travis. Right. They're different animals. But that's all we all need to protect our business, protect our asset, build a company, build a brand that's going to last and be able to support itself and bury your ass when you die.
- [47:21]
C
And that's good stuff. Triplet. Hey, we're gonna. But before we go to another quick question, we have the beard bro. Has a follow up question here, but I want to let you guys know, put this link up here. I don't know if you know, Profit Accelerator Live is a two day event that all of us that you see here, including Cornell, Mack and, and some other folks that are going to be there. It's going to be this June 26th and 27th right here in Richmond, Virginia. So it's a Friday and Saturday and we're going to be talking about all of this, everything that you hear, all this and more. I mean imagine this is like we're cramming this into an hour and some change and a live stream in between everybody doing stuff and spring rush. So I mean the end of June you're going to have more time, you're going to than before. You hopefully get burned out from the summer heat. Right. And just the season taking over, you can kind of reflect like and, and reset like where am I right now in my business? Like, man, I really need to talk to Triplet. I really need to talk to Paycheck or I really want to meet Cornell and, and see how like I'm right there, you know, like I just started my business. I can totally relate to what he's saying and what, you know, whatever your story is, you know that that is something that we, that, that going to an in person event, especially for two days and then there's all the breaks and everything in between and the meals at night and all that. Like you're going to be able to actually learn some things that are going to help you take action and maybe break some false beliefs that you've had all this time, you know, that, that, that you maybe have been holding on to and it's been holding you back. So anyway, we're, I don't know if anyone on the live stream or watch replay. No, we have Profit Accelerator live coming up June 26, 27th. And by the way, if you bring a spouse so you Buy one, get one free. So you get two tickets for the price of one if you bring your spouse or business partner. So right now, for limited time. So go ahead and, and check that out one more time. Here's the link here. You could check that out if you haven't already. I know some folks have already signed up that have jumped on here off and on, but I wanted to go back to the comments here. Put this one up here for paycheck. Again, I copied and pasted this, but it's from the. The Beard Bros. Lawn on Instagram. How do you battle other companies? Not. You got it right. You see that?
- [49:29]
E
Yeah, I see it. It's. You know, that's a great question because it's not as easy. You know, it's like, well, you just. You outperform them sometimes. It really is that, you know, you're going. You have to find what we call like your, your client avatar. Okay. So we're going to go a little. This is a little bit deeper. This isn't for the newbies, per se. Okay. If you, if you're new, you should do this right away. Okay. It's going to change your whole life. It's going to change your business, but you have to determine where you work. It. Okay. You don't have to live where you work. Okay. One of the big things that I've. So I've said over the years is you want to find the demographic that's going to support your business or that your business will just fall into there. There's neighborhoods around by me that I. We used to service like seven towns when I first started, but I realized that they were. And don't take this the wrong way, but they were kind of like losers. They were not loser people, but they were just not equipped for the type of service that we provided. You know, they were literally. So what you can do is you can look for the. The little pockets of good neighborhoods and what I mean by that, a good neighborhood. And I'm sorry for being gruff about this, but sometimes that's what you got to do is you got to look for the fancy cars, you got to look for the fancy homes, you got to look for the areas. You know, there's always Data USA Doc IO is a little website that you could use. You could put in a zip code and find out what the median household income is, the median household, the cost of the home. Okay. And some of these things, you know, you could actually do and do the research and find them, but I bet you I know you can Drive around your town or the service area that you have and you find the little areas where people are driving nicer cars, they have nicer homes, you notice that the neighborhood looks a lot better and those might be your, your avatar. And the thing is those people, they're not quite as price sensitive as, you know, let's just say more middle class homes where, you know, if the like right now we've got a strike going on at one of the refineries. My clients that work there can't work. So I've had most of the cancellations that we've had in our business right now are because people are out of work and they don't know when they're going back. Right. I totally understand that. I don't blame them. We offer a luxury service. They shouldn't decide whether their lawn looks good or if they're going to put food on the table for the night. Okay. But to get to the point, you know, if you're battling over a fifty dollar lawn and your competitors are constantly trying to undercut you, let them have it. I don't care. You know, the thing that I noticed with us, with my company personally is we have great communication with our clients. We, it's not that we go above and beyond, but we make sure that anything that we promise them, we accomplish. If we give them a time frame, we do it within that time frame. You know, it's, we do a great job. And I know there's other companies that do a good job, but they might do it for less, you know, so if you're, you know, a perfect example of this. I gave a lot of my high end clients, mowing clients. When I decided to, to shut my mowing division down, I gave it to a new up and coming guy who I thought, you know what, I'm gonna give this to him. He, this is way out of his price range. But he, he'll start to learn and pick up. He still treated Those really like $80 a week clients that he was charging, he would have charged $40 for. He treated them like a $40 client. He just got in, did the work as fast as he possibly could. Put little, the noogie marks in the lawn, you know, where you do the twist instead of doing the, the Y point or you know, the three point turn with the mower, you know, you know what happens when you take a zero turn. You spin it real quick, you get the little turf noogie and you know, only edge it every other week. He would trim it only when it started Getting kind of rough looking. And this is completely different than what my clients were used to. There was a reason they paid a premium price for their mowing. Everything was edged every week, everything was trimmed perfectly every week. We took our time because we were charging more money for it. We could take our time to mow the lawn properly and we change up the direction every week. I mean, it was just like, even the execution on that, you know, we would make sure our blades were shaped, sharpened. It's like they were still my clients. But it drove me nuts because I'd stopped by and people are like, hey, the lawn doesn't look so good. What's going on? And I'm like, he's cutting it too short. He's not using sharp blades. He's going through this too fast. You know, the thing is you, you can't just base it off a price alone. You have to base it off the, the product, the end product that you're going to deliver for your customer. And the hardest part in our industry is just sharing that vision with people and letting them know that their lawn is going to look the best. When you do it. When you and your crew go out there and you, you, you do this every week, or you know, in my case, we do it like once every 30 days or whatever. The time lapses, they're going to get the lawn they want. And that's basically the best way I could describe. How do you compete with somebody that's driving the price down in your company? You have to provide the value and it goes above and beyond just what you do on their job. I find that having very good communication with our clients really puts us a step above and we build those relationships and they fall in love with us and they don't want to leave us. So I hope that answers your question. Man, there's a whole, it's a very deep hole that we could go down into. But I just want to be, you know, conscious of everybody's time.
- [55:47]
C
Yeah, no, that's, that's good stuff. Pay Jack and I, I love it. And again, that's why, that's why we do these in person events so that you, we have more time. You know, think about if you learned anything in the hour or so that we've been doing this or, you know, you watch this later. Just imagine having 16 hours of time available of like in the room time. Then you have all the in between time, right? So just imagine all the rabbit holes, you know, that paycheck can go through and all the whiteboarding and all the breaking down your numbers and all that. So, I mean, he loves it more than I do and I get pretty excited about it, so. But yeah. So anyway, so back, let's. Let's wrap things up here. I'm going to put the, again, the link up here for profit accelerator. Live if you want to. If those of you that popping in late here, you can click on that and check that out and get your tickets, buy one, get one free right now. So if your spouse or your business partner wants to come along, it's June 26th and 27th. Come spend the weekend with us. Beautiful weather here in Richmond. Got water everywhere, rivers, lakes. A lot of good stuff. It's going to be at the Omni Hotel, downtown Richmond. Very historical good stuff. Of course, there's going to be, you know, all the value. You're going to learn a thing or two about a thing or two. But do you guys have anything that you want to. Cornell, you have anything or triplet? Any final words where we close this, close this out for everyone so they can get back to what they got
- [57:07]
F
to do, make that money and change your family's life, man. That's what this is all about. You didn't start a business to just get out here and make five to seven dollars more than you were getting paid at your W2 job. You started a business so that you could go out here and win in life. So go make money. Charge high prices. Charge, keep charging higher prices until you get told no, and then you'll know where you're supposed to stop. But if you're getting told yes a whole bunch, you're actually delaying your wins in life. You can get there a lot faster if you charge high and get told no. All right? So go out there and create the life that you want, because God created you to do that. So.
- [57:47]
D
Amen.
- [57:49]
C
Right.
- [57:50]
D
Last thing for me is, you know, I was baiting paycheck a little bit because just remember, 96% of all businesses are done in 10 years. They're gone. And. And a lot of the people that make it just are living a brutal life because they're trying to match the competitor. Like, what's the going rate? But if the going rate is going out of business, why would you try and fight for that money? Fight to fight for your brand, your betterment, your who you are, how you deliver product. Like, fight for that side. Don't fight for the jobs that you know are going to put you out of business. That's the one step away from going under. So start thinking about your brand and about how you deliver product, how you deliver your services, and elevate and come and see us in Richmond. I can't wait.
- [58:34]
F
No doubt. Because if you want to be inspired, motivated and educated, that's where you need to be at the Profit Accelerator Live. Right? And if you want some more inspiration after this, can join me at on the attack with Mac, 9pm Eastern on YouTube every week on Monday and Wednesday.
- [58:50]
D
One quick thing. I'm only doing a couple speaking engagements this year. I like, pulled the reins in. I have some other things that I'm going to be pushing on and I needed more time to grow, to elevate my business through this next break point. And so I've reduced my speaking engagements this year and I will be speaking at Profit Accelerator Live and at LCR Summit and maybe one other place. And that's it for the year. I'm done.
- [59:17]
E
I'm just gonna jump in. You gotta, you. You have got to come see triplets, everything. He is fantastic. He, he's, he's the guy. Like, I'm the numbers guy and I'm the one that could help guide you through the numbers. But triplets got the, the sales, the like. Oh, the mindset, the, the psychology that goes behind all the things that I talk about. And it's like a super advancement. I don't know how to explain it, but it's like the things that he talks about, we mesh so well and then it's like it takes those numbers that we figure out and then he puts on his stuff and it's the mindset changes and everything. You got to come and see triplet. I mean, it's just. Thank you. It's worth. I mean, I'm telling you, you know, everybody that's going to be there is worth the price of admission alone. But to see us all in one spot and to share the mindset, the numbers, the sales, the marketing, the just. It's going to make your head explode. So you, we have to make sure when you come, you take advantage of that. 2. For one thing, that's amazing. Bring your spouse, get them on board with everything. But the thing is, make sure you take notes. I know there's going to be replays and stuff available too, but there's going to be so many things that you're going to be burning up paper so quick. This, this event alone could probably give you years worth of. Of things to do because you're not going to be able to do them all in one shot. So that's my come to Come to Profit Accelerator Live. Meet us in Richmond. Triplets going to blow your mind. It's going to be a great event.
- [60:52]
C
Well, thank you guys. And like, I was going to, I was going to push you guys to go check out Cornell's live as well, starting at 9:00', clock, right, Eastern time. So less than an hour.
- [61:04]
F
Yeah. We're gonna be going over the lawn care business and the mission to help people win in life, how you can create your own life. I'm gonna just share the 10, I got 10 questions that I'm gonna answer, you know, telling people how I got started and what the mission's all about. Because I realized, Naylor, if people don't know why they're listening and what's the point? You gotta tell them why they're listening to the podcast and what the mission is.
- [61:25]
B
So, yeah, for sure, for sure.
- [61:28]
C
Well, thank you. Thank you, Cornell. And you're always full of those gems. And so can. Let's continue. You guys can continue the conversation over there with Cornell and the rest of us. We're on this stream anyway. We're gonna shut this down. Thank you all for being on and hopefully you got some value and hopefully we will see you in June. Don't, don't delay, don't hesitate, because it's gonna be here before you know it and then it might be too late. So we'll see you there. You guys have a good rest of your night. And if we don't see you, have a great season.
- [62:00]
B
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. That was a in depth, comprehensive episode where all four of us essentially, and you know, we were responding to comments that were coming up as well, which always brings more value than just us talking about our experience and perspective. It's also answering questions from everyone else that's, that's in the mix. So. So hopefully that was valuable. Like I said to you. I also talked about Profit Accelerator Live. So we're all going to be there again. We're all going to be together again here in Richmond, Virginia, at the end of June, June 26th, 27th, like I said. So come check us out. You're not going to want to miss it. Trust me, it's going to be a game changer for your business and your life. So check out the link in the episode description. Profitacceleratorlive.com before the tickets sell out, prices go up and you still can get. Your spouse can come for free or business partner. So essentially buy one, get, get one free. So you can get two tickets for the price of one right now. So go ahead and click that link and see if it still works and get your tickets while they're while they're still available and hope to see you there. If not, hope you have a great summer either way and we will see you hopefully at Equip if that's the case. So. But thank you all for listening. Thank you to T company for sponsoring the LCR Media podcast. Until next episode, this is Naylor Tyler Farrow signing off.
- [63:22]
A
This has been an lcr media and Mr. Producer production.