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Yesterday I sold my lawn care business and today I'm still trying to figure out if I feel relieved or if I just made the biggest mistake of my life.
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Today's episode is brought to you by Yardbook, the all in one CRM for your lawn care business. And as an exclusive partner of this podcast, you can get started today and begin simplifying your business and maximizing your profits. Sign up now@yardbook.com the link is in. The show notes. Time now for Profits with Paycheck, an essential podcast for you in the green industry who are looking to unlock the full potential of your business. Hosted by John Pajac, your certified financial coach, the show features in depth discussions with successful entrepreneurs, thought leaders and industry experts. Providing practical advice and proven strategies on financial planning, operations, marketing and sales. Profits with Paycheck has valuable insights and action steps that you can implement today for creating long term success. Now here's John Pajak.
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Welcome to Profits with Paycheck, the podcast where we talk about business strategies and financial insights for the green industry. I'm your host, John Pajak and today we're going to have a real conversation because something happened yesterday that made me stop and think about everything. So yesterday I sat down and I had a conversation with someone interested in buying my business. Now, this wasn't something that I was planning. It wasn't something I had been shopping around. But the opportunity came up and I said, you know, let's see what happens. And I'll be honest with you, I was. I was tired. I was tired of the constant moving parts, tired of trying to keep everything running smoothly, tired of dealing with customers that don't understand the value. I was also tired of juggling scheduling and production and callbacks, the weather, delays, like literally all of it. And on paper, everything looked fine. The revenue was there, the schedule was full, money was coming in. But something didn't feel right because I couldn't clearly tell you what I was actually making. I couldn't tell you with confidence what each application was truly producing. I couldn't tell you what my hourly rate was across every property. And that started to bother me. So this guy sits down across from me and he starts asking questions. You know, just simple questions. Nothing complicated or tricky, just direct. He says, what's your break even per service? I paused because I didn't have a clean answer. And then he asked, what does it cost you to acquire a new customer? Again, I was kind of quiet and paused. I'm like, well, it's kind of fumbling around. And then he Just proceeds to ask again. He goes, okay, well, which properties are your most profitable and which ones are dragging you down? And that one hit, because I knew. I mean, well, I had guesses, but I didn't have any. I didn't have any real certainty. I was just going off my gut. And in that moment, I realized something that I didn't want to admit. I didn't own a business. I owned a job with a logo. So, you know, we kept talking. He made me an offer. I chewed on it for a little bit, and I took it. And mainly it's because I was tired of guessing. I was tired of wondering if I was actually winning or just staying busy. And I thought maybe. Maybe walking away would be easier than fixing this. Back when I was getting my lawn care business off the ground, I was juggling routes, invoices, and custom customer notes with paper and prayers. It was chaos. Until I found Yardbook. Yardbook gave me the structure. It helped me track chemicals, route efficiently, invoice faster, and most importantly, it helped me grow a profitable business. If you're tired of duct taping your systems Together, go to yardbook.com and sign up for free. And if you're ready to go premium, use promo code paycheck to get your first 30 days on me. All right, real quick, before we go any further, if anything I just said is hitting a little too close to home, I want you to understand something. This is exactly why I build budgets, break evens, and bottom lines. Because in my world, budgets are not restrictions. They are permission. Okay? They give you the ability to spend confidently, to operate clean clearly, and to actually know if you're winning in business. The problem is, when most people hear budget, they immediately feel boxed in. But when you truly understand your numbers, it gives you freedom. Gives you freedom to price correctly, freedom to say no to bad work, and freedom to grow without guessing. So if you want to learn more, head over to johnpajak.com and check it out. Now, before you start texting me and calling me and DMing me and wondering what the heck is going on, I didn't actually sell the business. April fools. Hey, it's April 1, 2026. I hope this is enjoying. It's an enjoyable experience for you because I'm sure I confused a lot of you. Unless you're brand new here, you know that all the things I was just talking about are things that I explicitly warn you about. These are things I explicitly try to tell you. You need to understand these numbers. You need to understand where all of your the Money that you collect goes how much your customer acquisition costs are, how much it actually operates, costs to operate your business. So the thing is, how many of you listening right now, how many of you felt that story was real? You know, because for a lot of business owners, it is real. And I'm not trying to convey that I have a perfect business. You know, it's actually a really good business. It still has its challenges. But, you know, most of those basic things that I talked about, they're not on my radar of being worried about, because I know all the numbers in my business. I understand if I want to turn on the marketing machine, how much it actually costs to get one client. You know, with the methods that I'm currently using, I'm always trying to find different ways to change that. So maybe we could get a. You know, our customer acquisition cost drops down. But, you know, there are too many guys that are in this industry right now, and I should say hardworking women, too. They're running hard, you're working long days, you're bringing in revenue, but they still don't have any idea if they're actually profitable. They don't know their true costs. They don't know their breakevens. They don't know their numbers at a level that gives them control. And instead of fixing that, they look for new software, new equipment, more customers, more volume, hoping that something will magically make it better. But it doesn't. Because if you don't understand your numbers, growth just magnifies that problem. That's why we track everything. We clock in and out of every property. We use the job profitability reports inside Yardbook. A lot of the reports that are in Yardbook, we use those to see exactly which jobs are hitting our target hourly rate and which ones are failing. And when something isn't performing, we fix it. You know, sometimes, you know, sometimes it requires us to raise the price. Other times it's just adjusting the process and we change equipment. You know, if we need something that's more efficient, we will. We'll transform over to that. Or sometimes we just let it go, you know, because the thing is clarity. It gives you control. And when you have control over something, it removes stress. You know, here's a perfect example. Like, I took my daughter on a day trip. We went and got a piece of equipment. We had to travel to go get it. And there was times when I really didn't feel like I was in control. And it really wasn't because of my driving ability. It was. We had a lot of potholes and things on the road, things would kind of pop up at us. And then there's a lot of drivers that were, you know, flying by us or, you know, driving, you know, other people. That's all I got to say, right? You know, they're driving carelessly, they're drifting into our lane. We're driving a truck and a trailer with a piece of equipment on the back. I, There was times when I felt like I wasn't in control. And what I, all I did just to get that little bit of control back, I laid off the gas, I let off the accelerator a little bit, I drifted back. Okay. I was able to see further ahead. You know how it goes when you say you're behind a couple of semi trucks, right, and you can't see around them, you don't know what's actually happening in front of them. You start to lose clarity. You start to see, your vision starts to narrow. And when you don't, when you can't see everything, you start to lose control. And when you could you lose that control, it increases your stress levels. It increases, you know, you're, you're starting to panic and you're more likely to crash at that point. So all I did was take my foot off the gas a little bit, gave myself some distance from the cars in front of me, and I was able to be less stressed and I took more control over the situation. So besides my anecdotal story, I don't know what you want to call it, but here, you know me, I'm going to give, I want to try to give you some things that you could do right now to help with the situation. So here's what I'd like you to do. Number one, I want you to really go through and understand what your break even point is for each service. And I'm not talking about your overall business, I'm just saying each service that you provide, I want you to treat it like a division. So if, whether that's mowing, landscaping, hardscaping, fertilization, weed control, aeration, snow plowing, I don't, you know, the list can go on and on forever. Okay, I want you to understand, I want you to know what that break even number is for that particular service. Because each of your services needs to stand on its own. I don't want you making a bunch of money in one service and then the other one, you're always losing money. But because you're looking at as an entirety for your whole business, that, that, that service that's losing just kind of gets glazed over. You know, it's like, well, that's not being productive, that's not being profitable. You know, it might be time to let go of that service or make huge changes within it. So anyway, know your break even price per service. The second thing, I want you to track your actual time on properties. There's not really a book out there that is universally accepted for production times. You may have, you know, the same equipment. You know, there's one book in particular I've. It's kind of old now, but there was one that was around and it was kind of like the estimators go to handbook. And I started to realize myself that no matter what we could have the identical equipment that that book listed. The big thing was it was like the labor, they might not be as skilled or they may not work as fast or many other variables come into play. This is why you need to understand what your profitability rates. Of course, yes, there's industry benchmarks, but whatever. I want you to figure out what your production rates are. You know, not what you think it takes, but what it actually takes. And this is very simple. You could just clock in and out of each job that you do. Whether you're using Yardbook, which, you know, if you're using the Yardbook app, it allows your technicians to clock in and out. And it's pretty seamless. As a matter of fact, there's a new version of their app that has geofencing and it's actually going to make things a lot easier once it finally gets released because it has, you know, it uses GPS location to tell the system, yes, we're working here. And then once you get in the truck and you pull away, it'll like log out and, you know, clock out for you. So there shouldn't be any, you know, that'll help relieve the issue of, you know, remembering to clock in and out. But you know, again, that goes back to training. But anyway, before I go down that rabbit hole, just clock in and out of your job. Figure out what it actually takes to do it. Okay, number three, I want you to ask yourself this. If you had to sell your business tomorrow, could you confidently explain your numbers or would you be guessing? I know that might not be on anybody's radar, but the thing is, think of it in that term because now, you know, and I'm not trying to make fun of or looking down on smaller businesses, I mean that you could make a wonderful living for yourself just as a solo operator or a small outfit, but just, you know, a Lot of us that are in that position, we're not going to think about, well, I'm going to sell my business. Right. Most of us won't do that. But if you put yourself in that mindset of if I were to sell my business or if I was, you know, if I was confronted with an offer, can I explain it in a way that people would say, yes, I will buy your business? Okay, don't, don't leave it to chance. Don't leave it to guessing. Once you have that conversation with yourself, it's going to be really eye opening. So, you know, at the end of the day, I know this episode might have started as a joke and it might have been a dry joke. I, you know, it's not Weird Al Yankovic or, you know, some of the things I've done for April, Wolfman Jack in the past. I can't do that too much because I'll blow my voice out. But the reality behind this, behind this episode is it's not a joke. It's not a joke at all. Because there's too many times where I have that exact same conversation with people that are interested in working with me. And I'm asking them some simple questions. They don't have any idea about anything I'm talking about. And I wanted to talk to you. I'm sure you're out there right now, and you may be feeling stuck, you may be feeling overwhelmed. You're probably out there, you're probably working harder than ever, and you're still not getting ahead. And I'm going to tell you the answer is not just getting more work. I mean, sometimes there is. Sometimes it's a matter of volume. But I mean, if you're fundamentally, you built a foundation on sand, it's not going to, it's not, you know, more work's not going to help you. It's actually going to bring you down. But the answer here is clarity. So here's what I would like for you to do. I want you to pretend that you're selling your business tomorrow, sit down, write out your numbers, your real numbers. And if you can't do it confidently, that's where you need to start. So I want to thank you for listening to profits with Paycheck today. And remember, you don't have a business problem, but you, more than likely, you got a numbers problem. Now, I just want you to go ahead and take care of that. You could always reach out to me@johnpajak.com profits with paycheckmail.com is a way to ask some questions. So maybe we could help you out on the show. But if you are interested in understanding your numbers, there's budgets, breakevens and bottom lines@johnpajak.com there's also a small group that we have and it's about accountability and knowing your numbers and marketing things that you really need for your business. So if, if you go to johnpajak.com and you see that there's an application open for Genesis Group, go ahead and click on that. If not, we'll get you on the the wait list. So the next time some spots open, we'll reach out to you and let you know. So anyway, I hope you had a great April Fools. I know this wasn't the schlapper that you're used to around April 1st of every year, but that's okay. I just, I thought I'd be a little bit more serious today. Anyway, God bless. Keep pushing through and we'll catch you on the next one. Thank you once again for listening. If you've enjoyed the show, please leave a review and share it with fellow business owners. Your support means the world to me and helps keep the show going strong. I want to give a special shout out to our friends at Yardbook. Their continued support has been instrumental in bringing this podcast to you week after week. If you haven't checked them out yet, visit yardbook.com and see how they can give you the tools to streamline and manage your lawn care business. Also, don't forget to explore the resources and upcoming events that I've collected just for you in the show Notes. These are curated to help you stay ahead in your business with the latest tips, tools and networking opportunities. Whether it's a new tool, an insightful article, or an event you don't want to miss, I've got you covered. Until next time, keep pushing through and God bless. Sam.