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Have you noticed it yet? Customers who've been with you for years are suddenly canceling. New leads are hesitating, people saying let's wait or we're going to try it ourselves this year. Something feels a little off and you're thinking, is it my pricing or is it my service? Well, I want to tell you right now it might not be you at all.

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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 maximiz 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 Pajak, 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 Pak.

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Welcome to Profits with Paycheck, the podcast where we talk about business strategies and financial insights for the green industry. John I'm your host John Pajak and today we're going to be talking about something that a lot of you are experiencing right now, but maybe you haven't fully put it into words yet and customers are acting differently. This spring and today I want to talk, I want to break it down, some of the possible reasons of why now we can never know exactly. Things are going to change from person to person. But these are some things that I've observed personally and inside my lawn care business and as well as some experiences that my clients have shared with me. And I will tell you this, I don't want you to get upset, I don't want you to freak out. I've been in this industry for over 25 years now and this happens. It's part of the ebb and flow of business. But I just want to share some things with you that I've personally seen this year. And you know, just recently we had some clients canceling that normally wouldn't and I know that. So you have clients that log on and log off or that they're with you and then they're not with you and then they're with you. Yeah, that happens quite a bit. People pausing services. That's happened throughout the entire experience I've had in the lawn care industry. And I've even seen long term customers making decisions that just don't seem to line up with how they used to behave in the past. And at first glance, it's easy to take this personally. You start asking yourself, did I raise prices too much? Did I drop the ball somewhere? Is my quality of my service starting to slip? But before you start digging a little deeper, I want you to realize something very important. This isn't just happening to you, and this isn't happening because of you. What actually is going on is that there's bigger forces at play right now and they're showing up in your business whether you like it or not. So let's bring this down to real life, okay? In my area, I live in northwest Indiana and we've got a situation with the local oil refinery locking out employees and contractors. And there are families right now being told they might not be back to work until late summer or early fall. Now think about that. If you're a homeowner in this situation, what are you doing? You're tightening up. You're cutting anything that feels optional. And whether we like it or not, lawn care, fertilization, weed control, mosquito treatments, you know, getting that deck built or the patio put in, all of that, it's going to get categorized as optional. And zooming out, you know, you got to look at what's also happening nationally. Like I just explained something that impacts quite a few of our local residents, the local economy, that has a huge impact. And it also has a trickle down effect. Where? Well, because these people aren't working at the refinery, they're going to be cutting on services. The other services are going to start freaking out because they're losing some of their clientele just like us. But it starts to have a ripple effect throughout the entire community. When we look at what's happening nationally, you zoom out across the country and you see we've got rising fuel costs, there's global tensions, economic uncertainty, and the general feeling that things are getting more expensive again. And I'm not trying to. This is a nonpartisan thing. I don't care where you fall politically, okay? I only care about where your heart is. Your heart should be with Jesus. But what I'm saying is like your political beliefs, it doesn't matter anymore, okay? And that's not what I'm here to discuss. But I just don't want anybody thinking that I'm picking on them because they're on one side. You know, one wing of the bird is one wing of the same vulture. But you know, whether you're right or left, it doesn't really matter. We're all, we're all experiencing the same outcome. We're feeling it in our pocketbooks. And here's the thing. Like, you know, even if someone hasn't personally lost income, they're thinking differently, they're acting more cautious, they're protecting their. Their money, their cash, you know, and this is one of the real drivers behind that weird customer behavior that you might be experiencing. And, you know, when you start to look at what we're actually seeing, you know, when we got boots on the ground, we're, we're out in the trenches and we are seeing how clients are acting. You know, it's not. Again, it's not a personal thing. If you look at it, a lot of families are feeling financial pressure, even if it's, you know, uneven. You know, some are getting. Most of our clients probably are not in the. The worst. They're not feeling the price inflate of inflation as much as some of people that don't use our services. Okay, but some customers are directly impacted by it. You know, others are just nervous. You know, maybe they're okay, but they're just nervous. But both groups behave in a very similar manner. They start reviewing their expenses and, you know, if it's something above and beyond what it actually costs them to survive, your service gets put under the microscope. And when we look at the inflation sticker shock, even if inflation isn't making headlines like it used to, your customers are still feeling it. I know I'm feeling it. I got groceries cost more, Gas costs more. Gas keeps creeping up every day it seems. It's like it might only be a couple pennies, but by the end of the week, we're up by at least a quarter a gallon. Eating out cost more. Insurance is up, utilities are up. So when you present your pricing, it's not just your price. Your clients are looking at it. It's your price. On top of everything else, they're already paying. And we also have a lot of not distractions. But, you know, you look at. The DIY approach is more tempting than ever, especially when people are trying to pinch their pennies. And the thing is, when money feels tight, people start thinking, I'll just do it myself. You know, a lot of times it's actually not cheaper for them to do it themselves. They forget, oh, I could buy a commodity for X amount. But then they forget, oh, I don't have the equipment to do it properly. I don't have the expertise to Know how to. When to do it right, how. How much I should be putting down. You know, the list goes on. The actual amount of time it takes them to do it. You know, they're not thinking of all those things, but anyway, you know, they just think I'm going to do it myself. They go to, like, a big box store or, you know, the friendly neighborhood, you know, hardware store and pick up some stuff. They go watch YouTube University, right? They. They talk to their neighbor, they listen to him because his lawn looks decent, you know, and they convince themselves it's pretty easy. But now we know it's not going to be the same result. But in their mind, they're not comparing results, they're comparing monthly expenses. And is there anything wrong with somebody doing diy? No, but I just want you to know that this is an underlying, you know, competitor that really doesn't have anything to do with us. It's just they want to still have all the things they have now, but they start panicking and trying to figure out ways to do it for what they consider less money. And our loyalty is being tested. And this one kind of stings a little. You might have customers that you've taken care of for years, and suddenly they cancel. No warning, no conversation. And you're left thinking, what happened? Well, that's happened to me. We have to expect a certain amount of attrition, a certain amount of people that are just going to cancel or move or, you know, pass away. We have to always account for that in our numbers every year. You know, I had a client that's been with me since 2016, just didn't even call, just texted. And every single time I try to call them back because they said, call me back, I'm like, I've been calling them for a week. You know, every couple days, I pick up the phone, dial the number, and they won't respond. But, you know, they've been with us for 10 years or, well, nine, because 20, 26 season, they're. They're saying, hey, we need to cancel. And, you know, again, you know, it's got me thinking, like, oh, you know, what happened? No explanation. Okay. Well, honestly, when you look at it, you know, they're probably making a decision based on their current situation and not your history together. You know, that doesn't mean you did anything wrong. It just means one thing. Could just be that the. The customer life time has run its course and they're just done. You know, another thing, it's like they're not thinking about you at all. They're thinking about themselves. And if you're like, well, that's so cruel, how can think about it, okay? I mean, I care about people quite a bit, but at the same time, you know, my trash pickup. I used to know my trash guy, right? His name was Kyle, who worked for, well, I won't say the company, but, you know, he was a great garbage guy. It got to the point where a couple years ago, they. The company themselves raised our rate to over $400 every quarter. That was $1,600 a year just to have our trash taken away. And I didn't want to see Kyle go. I really liked Kyle. I talked to him as much as I could. You know, if I missed day, you know, I'd be out of town and I'd miss garbage day or something. He'd walk up to where our trash cans were, drag them out, get them dumped, put them back. Hey, that's awesome. You know, I really love that. I appreciated that. That was like this guy, you know, every Christmas, every holiday, you know, I'd make sure he would get a little extra something. But in the long run, you know, when I saw them raise the rate again to where it was like $400 for us to have one garbage can, and it would translate into $1,600 a year. And they had previously jumped from, you know, 300 to 350. And then there was going to be, you know, it was ridiculous. We found another company that our neighbor was using, and they literally gave us two cans to two big rolling trash cans, and we were only paying $400 for the whole year. If we would have had one single can, it would have been. It would have been less, but, like, that. That huge difference. I mean, it's like. And I'm not saying, like, you reduce your prices so everybody stays with you, but, you know, I wasn't thinking about Kyle. I'm like, well, Kyle's got a big route, and he'll be fine. The big company is going to be fine. I was like, I need to save some money here. Because it just seemed ridiculous to me to pay $1,600 a year for one can to take my trash away, you know? And again, these decisions were not based on the history of me and Kyle having a relationship. And, you know, I thought he was a cool dude, and he did. He went above and beyond. It was more like, man, I just can't swing this anymore, bud. So he didn't do anything wrong. As a matter of fact, I would love to still be with that Trash company. It's just, you know, prices got too crazy. And honestly, nowadays, I mean, our current trash guy does not. If I miss, well, then we. We. We miss. And because we have two. Two cans now, I could afford to miss one week and still have enough space for the next trash day. And things aren't piling up on us. I'm gonna do a quick break real quick. I want to talk. I really want to just talk about what you actually need to do about this, because this is not a time to panic, okay? This is not about doom and gloom. This is a time to get a bit sharper. Back when I was getting my lawn care business off the ground, I was juggling routes, invoices, and 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, so now that we understand what's going on and we get ourselves in the right mindset with, you know, why our potential clients, our existing clients might be acting a little weird this year, what do we actually do about it? Well, the first thing we need to do is we gotta stop taking it personally. Okay? Trust me, there's still some times I think I'm over it, where I think I am cool, I'm professional. It's just business. But, you know, there's still some times when I feel it, and I'm like, man, this is a little hard, you know, but you gotta remove emotion from this. You know, if the refinery shuts down, if a customer loses their income, if they're scared about the future, that has nothing to do with the quality of your work. So don't internalize external problems. You got to really double down on value communication. You know, if your customer doesn't clearly understand what they're getting, you become easy to cut. You know, you need to really reinforce, like, what your service does, why it matters, what happens when they stop, you know, and not in a pushy way, but in a clear, confident way. If they say, hey, you know what? Can we reduce the amount of. You know, for me, people ask me all the time, can we reduce the amount of applications? And I tell them, I said, yes, you can. I just want you to understand that, you know, you are going to have a lot more weeds in your lawn because we're not going to be able to be here as often. I think. I feel that our fertilization will still be effective. You know, you're still going to have a pretty green lawn, but, you know, the weed control is going to be more of a thing. And because you're going to go to a, if you have a lower program or if you reduce the amount, you're going to let them know, like for us, we do not. If you, if you want to cut back on services, your, the freebie call, the callbacks that we have, they're not applicable to you. You're just going to have to wait until the next scheduled appointment for us to treat those. So, you know, I'm telling them upfront saying we can do that, but this is what the expectations are. You are going to have more weeds. You are, it's going to be harder to control the weeds that you don't want in your lawn. And when they do pop up and you give us a call, I'm not going to be running out there the next, the same day or the next day. You're going to have to wait until your next app scheduled application for us to treat them. And you know, I've also told people this too. I'm like, the price per application kind of goes up too, because we're spending more time to treat those weeds. We're spending more chemical. It's, you know, it seems like a good idea, but at the same time it's, you know, you're not going to get the desired results from your, you know, reducing the amount of applications. But when you do this and you do it confidently, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, okay. And I, and again, I tell them, I said, listen, this is not, you know, fertilization, weed control services. They are a luxury service. And I don't want you to have to think about, you know, oh, this is going to impact my groceries for the month because you're paying for our service, you know, and granted, most of our applications, you know, they're, they fall anywhere between on our average size loans, you know, between 100 and $125, you know, per application. It's not huge money when you really think about it. But at the same time, if somebody's struggling, I want them to know. I'm like, I understand your situation. I'm empathetic to how you're feeling. You don't have to have our services. It's like I almost talk them out of it. And most people end up, and I don't do that to be any kind of psychological warfare or anything like that. I'm just being honest with them. And a lot of times people are like, yeah, you know what, I'll just stay with you. It's like, I'm serious, if you don't, if you cannot afford it, don't, don't put yourself, don't put your neck out too far for us. Okay? I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, but, you know, I don't know, this is, I think this is why I have so many loyal clients that, you know, they trust me and they, they know I'm not going to try to swindle them out of anything. So anyhow, another thing is you need to really tighten up your numbers. You should do this every year, every six months, every quarter, whatever it is. I would, you know, we're in a process of, you know, literally, like on a daily basis. I'm just making sure we're hitting our milestones. I've been doing that for years. But you know, if you're sitting there and you're only doing it once a year, or maybe you're doing it twice a year, you might think you're okay, but really you're, you might be bleeding money, you might be missing opportunities just because you're working off of old data. So, you know, this is huge. You know, if you, if you tighten up your numbers, whenever your cancellations or people pause services and things, your margins get exposed, you know, and if you don't know what it costs you to operate, what your break even is and what your true bottom line needs to be, you're flying blind. You know, and this is exactly why I created budgets, break evens and bottom lines. That's why it exists. It's, it's, it's because in seasons like this, guessing is going to hurt you. It's not going to help you at all. So when you know very confidently what it costs you to operate, what you actually need to be profitable, those numbers are, you know, invaluable. They're priceless to a degree. Otherwise, you know, you're just guessing at whether you're going to make money this season or not. Another thing is, you know, you need to identify your, your core clients because I'll tell you, not all customers are equal. That's why I use for my clients. These are people that I take care of. Our customers, they're more of a transactional based person, you know, because we do sell some product on the side, you know, there's stuff that's like DIY category. We, we carry that and we could sell it to them if they, they choose, you know, and they only buy stuff occasionally. They don't have services with us. You know, those are customers, those are the ones that they're just kind of hit and miss. I can't guarantee that, you know, income is going to be coming from them. They just show up out of the blue. Those are customers. To me, clients are the ones that are reoccurring, the ones that we actually build relationships with. And I'm not saying you can't build a relationship with the customer, but it's, it's a lot harder. You know, you're not going to be like, hey man, I bought like a, you know, gallon of the, you know, the tree ornamental treatment stuff and you know, you're going to start talking about everything, you know. But anyway, going back to, you know, the difference between clients and customers, you know, some are loyal no matter what, you know, some are price sensitive, some will leave the moment things get tight. And you know, you basically need to identify like, who are your ride or die customers? And when you do, it might be a short list, it might be a long list. When you just, when you identify who your ride and die customers are, how do you serve them? Even better. That's what you should be thinking of. It's not just like, oh man, I need to get more clients now being like, well, how can I take the people that have been very loyal to us? How do I take them and serve them better? How can I be of more service to them? Sometimes that it doesn't necessarily mean making more money for you, but in the long run it usually does translate into that because whether we're offering them more services or there's more recurring work that they, they sign up for, you know, if we can find out how to serve them better, it kind of locks them in and they don't want to leave you. Not only that, but again, their law, you know, lifetime value generally tends to go up. So this, I just want to say this for 20, 26, this. And I could be wrong. Okay. Because I'm just, I'm just looking at the wall right now and just kind of reading things. This may not be your biggest growth year, but that doesn't mean it can't be a growth year. Okay? Don't get confused. I'm not saying you can't grow. I'm just saying it might not be a record breaking growth year for you, but that does not give you the excuse to just sit back and go, well, I'll just. I guess I'll just wait till next year. No, no, no. You could still grow. You know, it might take a little bit more work. It might take a little bit different strategies, and that's okay, you know, because sometimes the win is just staying profitable. It's keeping the right customers, it's running a tighter operation. And not every season is about expansion. Some seasons are about strengthening that foundation. So to wrap this up, I just want to say, you know, there's some. There's three steps I want to give you. You could take action on these today, but review your cancellations without emotion. Don't look and be like, feel sad. Don't be, you know, blaming anybody. Look for patterns. Why are they canceling? Is this a issue that is because of me and my company, or is this out of our hands and they are making a judgment call based on what is happening to them? It's huge. It'll help you from getting all emotional about it. It's very easy to get emotional. Trust me. I still feel it sometimes. And then I gotta remember, like, oh, yeah, yeah, go back to your training. You know, think of your training. You'll. You will survive. That's what they say in like the war movies and stuff. But another step you could take is communicate the value before customers even question it. You know, don't wait until they're thinking about canceling. This might involve like a campaign right now. Like, you're. You might be focused on just getting new clients, but remember, those people that are already with you, take care of them too. You know, send out a newsletter, you know, make a. Another page on your website to where they, you know, maybe you just text them a link or, you know, you communicate in some way. And maybe they get access to a YouTube video or something that is talking. You're talking to them. Don't talk to everybody. Talk to one person, the person that clicked that link, and just be like, yeah, you know, it's kind of a crazy year, but whatever. This is what we're doing. Tell them how you're trying to make things better for them. Don't worry about, like, hey, we got a new machine here, so that's pretty cool, right? No, don't. Don't approach it like that. Saying like, we, we invested in some new equipment and this is going to help serve you better. You're going to notice, you know, an uptick in the, you know, the edges of your property are going to get fully treated with Less time on our hands. I don't know. I'm just trying to make something up real quick off the fly. It's not working out too well. But you want to just, whatever you're doing, shift it so that it's a benefit to your clients. Show them that you're always thinking of them. You know, hey, we switched to a different herbicide because we were concerned about anybody that has a dog. We know you have dogs, and we just want to make sure that, you know, our furry little friends stay healthy. And, you know, it's got a quick dry time. So, you know, 20 minutes after we're done treating the lawn, you can let little Fido run around the yard and not have to worry about them, you know, licking wet stuff in the lawn. That sounds so good, doesn't it? Oh, but the last step I would like for you to. To do is know your number's cold. You know, if revenue shifts, you need to know exactly how it's going to affect your business. So it's. Again, you know, customers aren't necessarily acting irrational. This spring, I think, you know, a lot of people have been contacting me and asking, what do I do? A lot of them, they're just reacting to pressure. You know, some of it is local, some of it's national. Some of it's just perception. I know there's plenty. I have a few clients that I swear, I'm like, I need to move out by you. Because it seems like you guys don't have any problems. I just raised my prices again, and I still haven't turned, you know, Almost, you know, nine out of 10 people accept our bids. I'm like, man, you still have a lot of Runway. Maybe you, you know what's going on, you know, what happened. You know, the thing is, it's like, oh, it might be. It's always greener on the other side. No, not necessarily. It's like, when you understand how your business operates, how people think, it gives you just. It's more tools to have in your toolbox that you could kind of, when things do get a little tough, you can ride it out. But, you know, all this shows up in your business. You know, your job is not to control the economy. Your job is to understand it, to adapt to it, and position your business to win. Anyway, so, again, look at every cancellation you've had so far this season and ask yourself, was this about my service or was it about their situation? Because the answer is going to tell you what you need to do next. So I hope this has been helpful. I pray that everybody has a great 2026 season and as always, 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.