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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 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.
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Foreign. Welcome back to the episode of Truck Talk Tuesday on the LCR Media Podcast. I'm your host LCR Naylor Taliaferro and something that happened recently made me think about this topic and for one thing, those of you that have been listening and following along, you may have heard me talk about these things before, but if you heard it once, that's not enough. Once, twice, it's not enough. But also after 500 plus episodes, you know, not everyone that starts listening recently, you know that that they you don't go all the way back to hundreds of episodes necessarily in the past to to hear some stuff. So I was just having this conversation with Cornell Mack actually I believe last night from on the Attack with Mac podcast. Great podcast, check it out. Great guy, great content, YouTube, all that up there in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But we were just talking about how, you know, we've talked about it seems like we talk about the same stuff. Like I've already talked about this before, you know, but not everyone remembers or have even seen it even if they were following us at the time. But then especially all any anyone new, they they haven't seen it, heard it and they're not going to necessarily go back to find it or they just might not find it even if they go back. So anyway, this is probably something that I've talked about before, but it's it's always relevant, and even more so now than ever with raising inflation and all kinds of gas prices, all the different things going on that are really out of our individual control as far as, you know, we don't control the gas prices individually. Right. Like, things like that. But we can control other aspects of our business and put systems in place, and we can control how we respond to these uncontrollable circumstances and environmental restraints and so on. Just like, if we have a good, you know, we don't have any droughts and everything's growing good, or we do snow and we have a ton of snow and we had a great year, great bonus season. Like, we can't control that either, right. But we can definitely be prepared for it and have systems in place so we can capitalize from it or protect ourselves from it. Like when it's something bad that happens, like a drought or, you know, no. Nothing grows or no snow whatever. So. But just recently, personally, my wife and I were having a conversation and she. We. We picked our. We had brought our dog to the groomer and we had. She had picked our dog up and was telling me about, just. Just saying, somehow talking about they raised the price again or whatever. She. I forgot exactly how she said it, but she had just brought up that, yeah, they raised the price again, too. And she's like, I feel like every time I go, they raise the price. It's crazy. It's like, you know, it's every time. And they don't say anything either, because then I started asking her questions about it because I'm a business person, right? So I'm just thinking about it from a business perspective. And I'm like, do they even tell you ahead of time? I say, no, I just show up to pay. And they're like, all right, it's going to be this price. And she's like, oh, the price went. And my wife has to ask, oh, the price went up. And then the people are like, yeah, essentially, I think she said that they're just like, yeah, or yep, did. Or like, there's no explanation or anything. Just, you have. The price went up and you just have to deal with it. Which I. I don't necessarily agree 100% with that whole philosophy there, but the point is that they keep raising their price. And to my wife, we don't get our dog groomed. I don't remember how often we get our dog groomed, but it's not like we get our dog groomed weekly or even bi weekly. I think maybe it's once a month or something along those lines. But it's definitely not weekly or bi weekly like when we're mowing lawns for an example. So it's not like they're raising the prices weekly. Maybe they raise it monthly or maybe they raised it every month for a little while or every other month for a little while. So my wife just, it seemed like every time that she went, because we don't go that often, so I'm sure many much time has passed, but multiple times within a year they have raised the price and only by like $5 or so here and there. Like nothing too, nothing too crazy or huge, but enough for it to, for, for my wife to notice, you know, like, oh, what the heck happened there? And it just made me think like, why? Oh, oh. And then my wife was like, man, if you raised your prices as often as the groomer, we'd be rich. You know, she's like joking a little bit, but probably like every joke there's a little bit of truth there. So she's probably thinking, why don't you raise your prices every month or every other month? And while I could and we didn't, you know, she didn't ask me that, we didn't have that conversation, but she did make that comment when we just kind of like laughed, laughed it off. But it made me think, one, this is a good topic for a podcast. And two, just to kind of bring light, just to bring this to the forefront of your thinking. Not to make any long winded, drawn out conversation, but just to, just to kind of let you, just to bring it up, you know, like if it hasn't been on your mind or you're struggling with this. But it made me think. Well, I mean, I don't really know for sure if this is the case because I've never raised my prices every month or every week or anything crazy like that. I've definitely raised my price within the season price or prices on certain services within the season or at least with like new customers coming on. Like, my schedule's getting full, I'm in high demand, I only have so much time and bandwidth. But what am I gonna do? But I don't wanna say no to work. Well, now's the time to keep raising my prices and just get more and more profitable work so that the people that say, yes, it's more profitable and that becomes like the new price precedent for everyone new. And then, you know, you just go through that and that's the quickest, easiest way to raise your prices. And without going into all the details or having a whole pricing lesson like John Pajak from profits with PayJack podcast would do much more artic than me. And we've kind of taught this on some webinars recently. And like I said, John Pajak talks about it a lot on his podcast. But we are actually going to be breaking all of this down. How to price correctly, how to be more profitable in your business on so many different levels, including with scheduling jobs and scheduling your time properly so that you have more time in your life. All of those things that contribute to profits in your life. We're going to be going through all that at the Profit Accelerator Live event which is coming up soon in Richmond, Virginia here, where I'm currently living, I would say where I'm from, but I'm actually from the state of New York, but I've been living in Virginia for almost two decades now. So we're going to have it here. It's a great location. The Omni Richmond Hotel. Omni Hotel in Richmond, Downtown Richmond. Beautiful time of year. It's not too hot and after the spring rush is over and before the summer gets real hot and crazy and maybe have some vacations planned in July and August. So this is going to be the end of this month if you're listening to this in real time. So June 26th and 27th, if you're still listening to this before that, definitely check it out, see if there's any tickets left. Profitacceleratorlive.com or click the link in the episode description for more information. We'll be going through what I'm essentially the topic that I brought up here on this episode and so much more to really dial this in. So to save time and it's kind of hard to listen to all this stuff versus seeing it in action and workshopping it together in a smaller group, which is the objective of my in person educational events like the LCR Summit every year in October in Louisville, Kentucky, which is also coming up. And then now the Profit Accelerator Live. The goal is to have a small enough room that we can all engage and ask questions and kind of workshop things together versus just kind of sitting in the back of the room and trying to listen and take notes as much as possible and not really be able to have much follow ups unless you catch people in between breaks and things of that nature and then try to implement whatever you can. This, this is like, you know, these events are, are smaller by design, which is challenging on many on, on other, many levels. But it's just kind of another perspective in addition to the other great events that are bigger and have more people and more speakers and more opportunities, more networking for sure when you go to bigger events. So I mean I've learned so much just from the attendees at events than I have from, I've learned as much, I mean as the speakers and presenters. Right. So sometimes you get that one conversation with another business owner in the audience or on break or somewhere, however you met each other, that could have given you that aha moment that, that big change that you needed in your business or improvement that you need in your business. So that's, that's why the bigger events are really helpful for, from a networking perspective. You know, educational education is education. Right. Like you're still getting the great information from the, from the folks. But you know, I wanted to make them a little bit smaller, more of a workshop environment where you, we put in, we have time so that you know, over two days and it's two days instead of like you know, one day. Usually a lot of the bigger events, this is two. So we can really have a step by step plan over the course of two days to really help you get to a better place that you want in your business. Or maybe if you're, if you want to start something new or apply something new in your business that maybe you're struggling with or a new idea, we can help you finish creating that idea and scheduling that idea, planning that idea out or help you create the idea in the first place and go from there. So that's my whole theme of the events that I do is to make it more of a workshop, two day hands on environment so you can really just kind of focus on some key thing, key challenges in your businesses so that you keep problems in your business so you can get solutions and execute, you know, those, those solutions immediately in your business. So anyway, anyway, like, well, with all that being said, like back to what I was saying before with the pricing, like, you know, I, I was just saying that I have, I, I have raised my prices definitely throughout the season for different services for different reasons and different pricing strategies. Right. I don't just generically just oh, I think I'll just raise my price to this. Like no, like I figure out why and I need to. And what I need to raise my prices to based on man hour rates and my expenses and my profit margin that I want and so on and so forth. So. But again, like I said, we'll go, we go into all that in more detail at Profit Accelerator live coming up, June 26th and 27th here in Richmond, Virginia. But I definitely don't raise my prices every month or every other week or anything like that. I don't know if anyone else does in the industry. I've never stumbled upon anyone that does or has admitted that they do. So that is a little bit of a stretch, I think. So, you know, we kind of laughed that off, and my wife was like, man, if you raised your prices as much as the groomer, we'd be rich. Because. Because I probably would be if. As long as I kept my customer. I mean, not that I don't even know define rich, right? But again, she just. We would have more money, essentially, is what she meant. Right? And that's true, of course. You keep raising your price, you're gonna have more money with doing less work. You do the same amount of work and you raise the prices, and now you have more money, right? As long as you still have the work, you could get to the point where you're raising the prices too frequently or too high or both, and you start losing customers and you can't get new ones because your prices are too high. You know, you price yourself out of the market, right? So you always have to be strategic about it. Like, you can say what you want about, oh, I don't. I don't drop my tailgate for less than 65 bucks. You know, like, that's all fine and dandy if you're getting that right, but that there might be a point in your current market where unfortunately, everyone, like, the highest price that anyone's charging for the average lawn that you're quoting, you know, is like $50. That's. That's a huge jump. 50 to 65 people. Most people, unless you have a great reputation and you find some really high value appreciating people, right? People that appreciate high value and you have reputation and they know you do a fantastic job, it's going to be harder to find enough people to pay you $65 just to drop down your tailgate, you. And to be able to financially. To be financially successful and profitable in your business. Like, have enough of those people saying yes to 65 bucks. If they're saying, if the highest going rate is 50 is my point, that's a huge jump. So, of course, you know, you have to be smart about it, right? You can't. And if you. And if you need to be charging 65 bucks based on all your numbers that you figure it out at the Profit accelerator, live to be as profitable as you want to be and no one charges anywhere close to that. That. Well, then that's another conversation, right? Like there's things that maybe, maybe your expenses are too high or maybe you need to gradually work your way up to that profit margin, you know, while you build up your reputation, while you get some of those customers under your belt at that price point and you over deliver and give them amazing levels of service. You get reviews from them, you incentivize them to spread word of mouth, you know, to their friends and family and neighbors to get more people that want to pay for that value and high level of service. But that would be a little more of a gradual transitions that you. And a strategic approach that you would have to do in that case, if you're so that you. So that you don't price yourself out of the market, right? Like if you really need to make that money, that, that high amount of money, then that's a whole nother strategic conversation, essentially a more detailed version of what just said of a combination of some things. Reducing expenses if possible, having phases of gradually growing your profit margin, gradually raising your prices, really marketing heavily, focusing on the high level of service and value you provide to the right customers that are more likely to pay that price and build on that, but not expect that to happen overnight and not expect you to just have a whole schedule full of $65 or more lawns because that's what you want to make or need to make. Like. So there's a couple different conversations there that we can have and will have. At Profit Accelerator Live, I found a piece of equipment that can do it all. The Grandstand Multiforce is a true jack
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of all trades brought to you by
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LCR Media podcast sponsor Toro. Right now you can add the Grandstand Multiforce to your fleet and save $1,000 on your purchase or take advantage of special financing. Click the link in the episode description or visit your local Toro dealer for details. Don't wait. This deal ends July 31st.
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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, 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 with Paycheck podcast is going to be there. Air trip with the Pond Digger from the Deep End podcast is going to be there. If you got Cornell Mac on the attack with Mac podcast going to be there.
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And then you have Mike and Larry
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with the Side Hots, side Hustle Squads,
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side Hustle Squad podcast, there you go.
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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 Law and Landscape Technology conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, July 22nd to 24th.
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Check out the link in the episode
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description if you want to register. Hope to see you there.
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In all of my experience and knowledge and I don't know everything by any means, but I know a few things about a few things and I know for me, if I were to raise my price every week or every month or something like that I think I would eventually lose some customers and it'd be hard to get new ones. You definitely have to be strategic about it. So there's that. But the ultimate point to this conversation was the fact that I don't think we raise our prices enough. Maybe not me. I raise my prices at least once a year, if not sometimes in the middle of the year. And like I said, the easiest way is when you get new quotes to just keep raising your price and different services so you can keep that profitability going up. And it's a way to test the market as well. If you get to a price point for a particular service and you quote it and you get zero yeses, like no one says yes, then maybe you are. Maybe you did overprice and you need to figure that out. You need to back it up a little bit or figure out your expenses and how you can maybe move some things around so that you don't have to charge as much so that you can actually get some quotes approved. Because then, you know, you're not going to be able to stay in business that way either. And you can. So there's one extreme or the other. There's that, like, oh, I don't drop my tailgate for less than 65 bucks. And I don't this and that, like, this is what I charge. Take it or leave it. There's that mentality, which is great. I think a lot of us have to have some version of that. But if you're too extreme with that, then you might go out of business because you don't get any business. But for a larger majority of people, the other extreme is you're afraid to raise your prices at all or you raise them by a little bit. And it's, it just put it all in perspective when our groomer, of all things, you know, they raise their prices constantly, according to my wife. So it's like, and I know that's the case with many other businesses too. Like every business raises their prices strategically. Maybe not, you know, every after every visit, like the groomer, but definitely strategically, whatever that looks like. And it's, you know, I know some of it's based on inflation and so many other increased expenses that happen. So that's, that's, that's, that's something that, that we should keep in mind as well. Like if, if everybody else is doing that, so many other companies are doing that just like so many other businesses and companies have credit cards on file or have that option at least, you know, and, and we're we're over here. So many guys and girls are out there in this industry that are so scared or reluctant to do any of those things. Put a credit card on file or charge higher prices, raise your prices. And I get it, because you're afraid you're going to lose customers. But we are our own. We, our, we are our own. There we go. Tongue twister there. Worst enemy in a lot of cases for our own business. We psych ourselves out of more than we psych ourselves into. You know, we psych ourselves into this business somehow or another. And then we end up working a whole lot, charging for a whole little. Right. And making a whole little because we don't charge enough. A lot of it could be our, our self worth. You know, we, we came from a tough spot in our life and then we got into landscaping because we were in a tough spot. Either we lost our job or we couldn't find about both. Whatever. Tough times in our life that emotionally and psychologically impact how we talk to our customers with a lack of confidence and how we charge for our services with a lack of confidence. So if we could just work on that, that would help us feel more confident talking to customers. And because it's kind of like how like people say a dog smells fear, whatever it is, something along those lines, like don't show fear because a dog, you know, smells, can, can sense it. Sense it. I don't know, maybe they can smell it, but you know, they, they can sense fear. So you have to not act fearful. It's, it's the same kind of thing with like high end customers, premium customers, people that want to take advantage of you. If you show up with confidence, you have that psychological and emotional confidence. You have confident posture, you're standing up straight and you just look and feel confident and you just kind of give off that energy, then it's a lot easier for you to not be taken advantage of once by the tire kickers, the low ballers, the manipulators, which you probably don't want those customers anyway. But you don't know what you don't know until you know, you're like, oh man, I don't want anything to do with this person. But at least if you start off with confidence like that and you talk to them in a confident way and they can kind of sense that, and they might not even be that cheap person trying to make a deal and haggle you in prices or they'll be, they'll do it less or they might realize you're not the right fit for them. They were hoping for, you know, Johnny on the spot to show up and give them some quick flash price that's super cheap and then haggle them down even cheaper and just get that service done and move on to the next sucker later down the road. But if you show up confident, then you're not that guy. You're not Joe Schmo from Kokomo. So having that is definitely having the confidence and everything is going to help as well. But then also just having the knowledge and having the systems and the knowledge of how to price correctly and knowing your self worth and you combine all that together, you feel confident, you act confident, you have knowledge, which also gives you more confidence on how to price correctly, then you're going to make more money. The ultimate point of this story, this episode, I'm going to wrap that up here, is that we don't charge enough. Gosh, the groomers are raising their prices constantly. Why aren't we? Again, I don't mean constantly like that, every month or every other week or something, but we should be doing it at least once a year. How many of you listening to this have never raised your price since you've been in business? Maybe you've only been in business two or three years and you haven't raised your price yet. That's still not acceptable. I'm telling you right now, at the bare minimum, you need to raise your price every year, especially for new people. I do raise my prices frequently throughout the year for new customers. I don't go ahead and raise my current customers prices frequently throughout the year, but I do it once a year at a minimum. But throughout the year I'm constantly evaluating my pricing, like, wow, these services are more expensive, they're not as profitable as they once were, or what I thought they would be. Let me adjust the price. You should always be doing that throughout the year, at least every quarter, every three months, four quarters in a year, at least every quarter. Just be double checking your numbers. What is that? What do you double check? What does that mean? Come to profit Accelerator live. It's the easiest way to break it down for you and show you and help you figure that out. But you need to be evaluating this stuff and it's not that difficult, especially when you learn how to do it. Everything's difficult until you learn how to do it right. If you learn how to ride a bike, it's easy now, but it was difficult in the beginning. You fell down and hurt yourself a lot potentially. Until you figure it out. Maybe you had someone Helping you. Maybe you didn't. Either way, you didn't just pick it up immediately. I mean, maybe some people out there did. Got on a bike and just bang, you were out. You just had great balance right out the gate. But most people, you know, it takes you a couple wobbles, a couple close calls, or a couple actual falls for you to really get it figured out. And then it's not hard anymore. Now you're riding with no hands, you're doing all. Everything is gradual, right? First you're riding, then you're riding with no hands, then you're steering with no hands, then you're pedaling with no hands, right? And steering, pedaling while steering with no hands. And it's like, wow, what in the world? Like, I couldn't barely even. It seemed impossible to ride a bike and now look at all the things I'm doing. So then you got all these X Game people doing flips and jumps and all kinds of stuff on bikes. Like there's levels to everything, right? So everything seems hard until you learn how to do it. So when we talk about numbers, don't just glaze, don't glaze over like, oh yeah, I'm good. Like, if you want to make more money and be more profitable and not work your whole life away like a slave to your business and enjoy your life, then figure out, learn the basics of what you need to learn about, what numbers you need to learn about, and put some systems in place so that you can confidently charge the right prices, adjust accordingly throughout the year and be as profitable as possible. So anyway, coming to Profit Accelerator Live, I didn't realize it was going to be a big promo episode for that, but it just makes sense because it's so hard for me to explain this in more detail without you guys kind of checking out on me. So hopefully this episode was helpful. Hopefully I'll see you at Profit Accelerator Live. Again, the link is in the episode description. Tickets are buy one, get one free right now. So if you get two tickets. So like if you bring your spouse or your business partner or crew leader, someone that is important to you, that you think will value this experience and this knowledge, or you just want to spend time with them on this two, three day trip, I mean it's a two day event, but three days, if you include the travel there and back, you know, two half days, so three days total, then you can bring them for free. Essentially you get two tickets for the price of one, buy one, get one.
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So go ahead and check that out
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and I hope to see you guys there because it's going to be a game changer. Thanks for listening, and thank you to Toro Company for sponsoring the LCR Media podcast. And until next episode, this is Nail Artaghero signing off.
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This has been an lcr media and Mr. Producer production.