Introduction - Member from MN - Thank you MJ for this awesome book!

[Freedom61]

Hey everybody!

I joined the forum a while back but haven't made any posts until now since I'm not really the type to spend a lot of time on forums. I don't like BS'ing and that sort of thing. Anyway, I'm 24 & from MN, I currently own a 6-figure lawn/landscape/snow company and I finally was able to put the key people into place so I had some more free time and I started another company back in April. Last week I finally launched my first digital product package that's being sold from the website I created. It is a how-to guide for starting your own lawn service business, the website is www.StartALawnServiceBusiness.com.

There are some competing eBooks/websites, but one of my USP's teaches almost the exact opposite that the others are teaching when it comes to obtaining commercial properties (for good reason) as customers, as well as going a lot more in depth with the financial side of owning a business since it's equally if not more important than the operations of the business, plus a few more things such as coming up with an accurate system to price your services. Nearly all the other guides say "take how long you estimate the job will take to do and multiple it by $1" or "take your materials and multiply it by 3", etc. those couldn't be further from the truth.

I've become a sponsor on the largest green industry forum and have also advertised on industry specific social media pages and am working on getting the page ranked higher in the search engines as well - I took time away from that to post this.

I have similar product packages in the works for the other sectors of the industry. There is quite a bit of difference in each sector in terms of the operations, marketing, customer communication, equipment, and more that it's best to put them into their own products

I've also uncovered a few needs in the green industry in which I could fulfill with the website I plan to build and some other products as well, I will be moving forward on them once I get my guides all up and running in the next month.

The ideal plan is to continue owning my L/L/S business for about another year as long as we reach our sales goal that I wanted to hit back when I started the business and then I'll likely sell it. I love the industry but after reading this amazing book I want to affect more lives than my L/L/S business can reach (even if it were to continue to grow exponentially) as well as solve bigger problems.

Thank you MJ for writing the book that changed my mindset on business for the better!!! I eat, sleep, and breathe the fastlane and I find myself uncovering needs once every couple days when I get frustrated with something. I can't even begin to list all the great things I've learned. One of my favorite parts of the book was learning the mantra of work 7 days per week with no days off to eventually have that ratio reversed and be financially retired as soon as possible! Which is why I love the internet based business so much - one can create a 7 figure internet company without hiring any employees.

Another great lesson would be to stop chasing money and chasing needs, I'll admit I started my first business because I was extremely good at operating equipment and saw the potential for making money in the industry, and I started my business while I went to college for Horticulture. Don't get me wrong, there certainly is millions to be made, the top companies in the industry merged last year to form a $2B/year company and that's primarily doing "commercial bid work"). The higher margin "niche" work in the industry is certainly there and I've been able to enjoy it and wanted to teach others how to find it as well with my guides. I could go on and on about how awesome this book is, I also loved the part about "looking big, but acting small" vs. the 4-hour work week mentality of "look small, act big". The only true way to become financially retired in a similar fashion that MJ did, is creating something of value and having it become the absolute best and creating customers that will want to rant and rave about your product/service, not take "mini retirement vacations" while the guy in India is talking to your customers as 4HWW preached. I read the first couple chapters and put the book down, I don't agree with most of what it was about.

I became a big fan of MJ after reading his interview on Secret Entourage, I'm a big fan of their website and the academy they have as well.
I can tell that I'm on a rant now, time to get back to work so I can bring my next products to market...

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Great intro my friend, welcome aboard. Nice to have another "doer" with us.

 

[Imgal]

@Freedom61 - Awesome to have you here! Love how you've arrived at posting after taking action and achieving some great things already in your journey. I'm sure for those new and at the start of the journey you'll be a real inspiration.

 

[Andy Black]

Great intro.

Lawns and landscaping has been mentioned many times in the forum as a way to get something started, and you're showing how much further it can be taken.

Good for you!

(Love the shades too.)

 

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[Freedom61]

Great intro my friend, welcome aboard. Nice to have another "doer" with us.

Thank you MJ, it's truly an honor that you replied to my post.

@Freedom61 - Awesome to have you here! Love how you've arrived at posting after taking action and achieving some great things already in your journey. I'm sure for those new and at the start of the journey you'll be a real inspiration.

Thanks! I'm awaiting for some of my new customers to take action and put my guidance to work. Seeing an email from somebody saying how my book helped them start their own business and get their first few customers would be an amazing feeling!

I didn't market the guide & website like I should have before launching partly because I didn't know when exactly I'd be done. It was an exhausting effort to say the least to get the first book written, formatted, uploaded to the payment/transaction processor, all the business mgmt docs set up, and of course the most important part - the website done and set up so it can actually sell products! All while managing my existing business. I had it live on Thursday morning at about 4:00am after working all day in my l/l/s biz and then getting everything finished up Wednesday night. I didn't have any sales the first day which was somewhat of a bummer but I didn't do any pre-launch advertising so I knew I couldn't expect to sell 100 copies in the first 24 hours. Saturday morning I awoke to an email from E-Junkie notifying me of my very first sale, it came in at about 4:45am and I finally made money while I slept! I was so pumped! Since then they sales have been slow and steady and I'm working on increasing the exposure to the product/website as much as possible.

Lesson learned. I'm going to go about things differently for the pre-launch of my next product to get the word out. I plan to get the website built later this week with a countdown clock & email opt-in to announce the release date (end of this month) as well as get the word out on social media and the forum I sponsor so more people know about it and hopefully get 100+ copies sold within 24 hours of its launch.

Great intro.

Lawns and landscaping has been mentioned many times in the forum as a way to get something started, and you're showing how much further it can be taken.

Good for you!

(Love the shades too.)

Thanks! It's an awesome industry if you can find the right people (Human Resource Business). The work is tough especially on the hot & humid days as well as the frigid early spring & fall days. But it can be a great way learn a lot in a short amount of time if you keep your mind open.

I love my shades too, we took those pics this past Saturday because I didn't like the one I had on the website. This time of year in MN it's insanely bright on a sunny afternoon and my eyes are pretty sensitive, so I wear them whenever I'm outside. It was either wear sunglasses or look like I'm angry because I had to squint so much.

 

[jon.a]

We have a member that wants to write a How-To book. Maybe you could open a thread about that?

 

[Freedom61]

We have a member that wants to write a How-To book. Maybe you could open a thread about that?

That's certainly a good idea! I think I'll do that.

Jw, how much "rep" or how many posts does one need to become an INSIDERS and see the rest of the forums? I really would like to see some of the progress threads!

 

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[jon.a]

That's certainly a good idea! I think I'll do that.

Jw, how much "rep" or how many posts does one need to become an INSIDERS and see the rest of the forums? I really would like to see some of the progress threads!

It only takes a credit card for now. Although there has been much talk about changing that.

 

[MKHB]

Hey everybody!

I joined the forum a while back but haven't made any posts until now since I'm not really the type to spend a lot of time on forums. I don't like BS'ing and that sort of thing. Anyway, I'm 24 & from MN, I currently own a 6-figure lawn/landscape/snow company and I finally was able to put the key people into place so I had some more free time and I started another company back in April. Last week I finally launched my first digital product package that's being sold from the website I created. It is a how-to guide for starting your own lawn service business, the website is www.StartALawnServiceBusiness.com.

There are some competing eBooks/websites, but one of my USP's teaches almost the exact opposite that the others are teaching when it comes to obtaining commercial properties (for good reason) as customers, as well as going a lot more in depth with the financial side of owning a business since it's equally if not more important than the operations of the business, plus a few more things such as coming up with an accurate system to price your services. Nearly all the other guides say "take how long you estimate the job will take to do and multiple it by $1" or "take your materials and multiply it by 3", etc. those couldn't be further from the truth.

I've become a sponsor on the largest green industry forum and have also advertised on industry specific social media pages and am working on getting the page ranked higher in the search engines as well - I took time away from that to post this.

I have similar product packages in the works for the other sectors of the industry. There is quite a bit of difference in each sector in terms of the operations, marketing, customer communication, equipment, and more that it's best to put them into their own products

I've also uncovered a few needs in the green industry in which I could fulfill with the website I plan to build and some other products as well, I will be moving forward on them once I get my guides all up and running in the next month.

The ideal plan is to continue owning my L/L/S business for about another year as long as we reach our sales goal that I wanted to hit back when I started the business and then I'll likely sell it. I love the industry but after reading this amazing book I want to affect more lives than my L/L/S business can reach (even if it were to continue to grow exponentially) as well as solve bigger problems.

Thank you MJ for writing the book that changed my mindset on business for the better!!! I eat, sleep, and breathe the fastlane and I find myself uncovering needs once every couple days when I get frustrated with something. I can't even begin to list all the great things I've learned. One of my favorite parts of the book was learning the mantra of work 7 days per week with no days off to eventually have that ratio reversed and be financially retired as soon as possible! Which is why I love the internet based business so much - one can create a 7 figure internet company without hiring any employees.

Another great lesson would be to stop chasing money and chasing needs, I'll admit I started my first business because I was extremely good at operating equipment and saw the potential for making money in the industry, and I started my business while I went to college for Horticulture. Don't get me wrong, there certainly is millions to be made, the top companies in the industry merged last year to form a $2B/year company and that's primarily doing "commercial bid work"). The higher margin "niche" work in the industry is certainly there and I've been able to enjoy it and wanted to teach others how to find it as well with my guides. I could go on and on about how awesome this book is, I also loved the part about "looking big, but acting small" vs. the 4-hour work week mentality of "look small, act big". The only true way to become financially retired in a similar fashion that MJ did, is creating something of value and having it become the absolute best and creating customers that will want to rant and rave about your product/service, not take "mini retirement vacations" while the guy in India is talking to your customers as 4HWW preached. I read the first couple chapters and put the book down, I don't agree with most of what it was about.

I became a big fan of MJ after reading his interview on Secret Entourage, I'm a big fan of their website and the academy they have as well.
I can tell that I'm on a rant now, time to get back to work so I can bring my next products to market...

Welcome to the forum.

While you at it though you might want to add a service platform for existing landscaper/owners that guides them on becoming more successful and restructuring their business model that makes them attractive mini M&A targets.

I worked with a landscaping firm doing financial analysis and green shaping (making making them more green friendly) and after the merger between Brickman and Valley Crest he has been inundated with buyout and partner requests, and all he does is residential lawns.

There is a huge demand for small operators that have consistent recurring cash flow generation. The big guys consider this so much easier than organic growth.

 

[Freedom61]

Welcome to the forum.

While you at it though you might want to add a service platform for existing landscaper/owners that guides them on becoming more successful and restructuring their business model that makes them attractive mini M&A targets.

I worked with a landscaping firm doing financial analysis and green shaping (making making them more green friendly) and after the merger between Brickman and Valley Crest he has been inundated with buyout and partner requests, and all he does is residential lawns.

There is a huge demand for small operators that have consistent recurring cash flow generation. The big guys consider this so much easier than organic growth.

That makes sense to why I see so many companies being bought by larger players and some of the larger companies being bought by private equity firms.

What do you mean by "service platform"? Like a type of cloud based online software that potentially rates how likely their company is to being bought or at least more attractive to companies that want to acquire them? Or potentially another book/guide? I really like the idea, especially for the lawn maintenance side of the industry since the revenue is in fact recurring, whereas the construction side, you need to hustle or have a sales team hustling to keep the company going.

 

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[MKHB]

What do you mean by "service platform"? Like a type of cloud based online software that potentially rates how likely their company is to being bought or at least more attractive to companies that want to acquire them?

@Freedom61 I don't want to hijack the new member thread - so PM me,

but yes:

a platform that teams PE with potential buyout candidates, and your entity vets the buyout candidates (small landscape shops) according to a matrix you devise after obtaining required $ targets, e.g., EBITDA, growth, and revenue, from the PE groups.

Or as @Andy Black, one of TMF 's moderators and an e-commerce expert, calls it - a lead generation service.

 

[Freedom61]

@Freedom61 I don't want to hijack the new member thread - so PM me,

but yes:

a platform that teams PE with potential buyout candidates, and your entity vets the buyout candidates (small landscape shops) according to a matrix you devise after obtaining required $ targets, e.g., EBITDA, growth, and revenue, from the PE groups.

Or as @Andy Black, one of TMF 's moderators and an e-commerce expert, calls it - a lead generation service.

I see what you mean now. I have a similar idea for a platform where any type of contractors do business with subcontractors that they need. I'll PM you.

 

[Freedom61]

Sorry about the delay on keeping this thread going. I'll try to keep this story short, perhaps I should start a progress thread?

Shortly after creating this thread, I get a call from a close friend (him & a close friend own a landscape construction & irrigation company) about going to look at a project that they were referred to. I guess the previous contractor got arrested at the jobsite (our customer's home!) a couple weeks prior, progress stopped 2 days after they started this project which was completely redoing a family's backyard - 800 sq. ft. paver patio, 3 different retaining walls, a pergola wood structure, outdoor kitchen, outdoor fire pit, irrigation system, new turf (sod), shrubs, mulch, etc. The customers wanted the job done as soon as possible and money was basically no object because they just wanted it done since the project was supposed to be done in May, it required all hands on deck (including mine, which took several days away from my Fastlane endeavors). I submitted a proposal to the customer and we started at the beginning of October.

The previous company put in half the patio but at the incorrect slope (a huge dip in the middle) so we had to remove the patio, bring more base material in, and install it again. Then the customer wanted to add in a retaining wall and remove & replace part of the landscaping of their next door neighbor's property which had some erosion issues due the customer not having a lawn to absorb the water and it ran-off underneath the newly constructed fence to the neighbor's place. The customer also wanted to add in a few other things that required more time & material. We experienced an entertaining fiasco with the previous irrigation contractor. I get a confirmation email from the customer stating that the irrigation company whom was already paid by the customer would be there the next day in the afternoon to complete everything so my team can get the sod, shrubs, mulch, etc. in and have everything totally finished the following day. The company representative (crew leader) shows up 2 hours late and basically gives a long list of excuses to me & the customer for why it can't be finished (I learned they put half of the system in the ground before any of the other construction work was done for whatever odd reason) because there were too many broken parts and it was too short of notice, etc. and they could come out in 4 days. All the while he could have been getting things done so the system would be completed! The customer looked over at me while we were listening to this guy's "story" and she said..."Dave (former irrigation contractor), we'll talk later. Matt, can you guys do it? We just want this done so we can have an actual backyard" I told her I'll connect her with my colleagues that initially got us this project (my friends that do irrigation) to ensure they can get out here tomorrow to do it. So she contacted them and they were out the next day to install the irrigation system, we installed the shrubs, mulch, and then sod and had the entire project wrapped up that day with the exception of a couple pavers that will need to be cut when the outdoor firepit is completed by the original stone masonry company that was hired.

Working 14 hour days in the field (I forgot how labor intensive all the work is!) wore me out and took away a solid week and a half away from my internet business work but I was able to take the majority of the profit made from it (since I spent a lot of time in the field) to pay ahead some expenses so I can focus some time on my Fastlane pursuit without worrying about bills being paid and I invested in a new desktop computer which was more than needed, my 2008 Macbook could not handle all that I need to do without freezing every 5 minutes. Plus, I learned a bunch of good info that can be included in my next ebook/doc pkg/vid course, so everybody won!

I should have the landing/opt-in page all set up later tonight for my next project.

 

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[Freedom61]

The landing page for the new project is up & running. Just working on trying to drive more & more traffic to collect as many email address before the launch. I ran an ad on an ultra-niche industry IG page last night and was able to collect some email addresses but you can never gain enough. I'll have to do some more research on driving targeted traffic and of course increasing SEO.

For those interested, I'd love some constructive criticism www.StartALandscapeBusiness.com