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Mowing lawns, washing cars, and cleaning houses(to fill the snowy winter months). All rolled into a business?

DavidL41

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In my area it doesn't seem all that much demand to mow lawns, and the winter months there any demand to mow lawns or wash cars. I need to diversify to thrive in this area. So, the idea I have is to have employees and myself offer all 3 services. Some are dedicated house cleaners only, and others can mow and clean cars. I was thinking $28 to $35+ depending on the service to cut lawns. $28+ to do a basic wash cars inside and out, and $65+ to clean a house in under an hour. I believe it is beneficial to have multiple services so my logo can be seen driving around town a lot on the cars. I can try to cross sell people the different services. I can also upsell on different premium options, and get customers on a regular basis.

It is a bit of a blitzkrieg approach, with a bit of strategy behind it. Trying to establish myself in my area, grow presence, and client base. Is this a good approach?

How would you go about gaining a foothold, steadily profiting, and growing a client base in this type of business?
 
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Guest-5ty5s4

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I would start with 1 service first, and then add on as you see fit.

There's probably no need to have multiple services at the same time, but either way, you should get the hang of one first.
 

DavidL41

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I would start with 1 service first, and then add on as you see fit.

There's probably no need to have multiple services at the same time, but either way, you should get the hang of one first.
That is a very valid point.

Is it sort of doing whatever to survival and thrive at the start. It is about getting constant slow progress at the start, as the company develops and is doing good it is more about exponentially growing and improving. Is this sort of it?
 
G

Guest-5ty5s4

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That is a very valid point.

Is it sort of doing whatever to survival and thrive at the start. It is about getting constant slow progress at the start, as the company develops and is doing good it is more about exponentially growing and improving. Is this sort of it?
Yes I think that’s a good way to look at it.

Small wins first. Learn by starting small, build on what works, and grow in that direction.

Try to go after the best available opportunity you can find and that you can handle.

And the further you go, the further you will see!! :)
 
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DavidL41

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Yes I think that’s a good way to look at it.

Small wins first. Learn by starting small, build on what works, and grow in that direction.

Try to go after the best available opportunity you can find and that you can handle.

And the further you go, the further you will see!! :)
I see! Don't look too far ahead right now. Just plan something vague and blurry for my long term vision. Performance and aggressive execution is key at the start and for a long while. If the business becomes efficient & effective(working business model, systems and processes in place), profitable, and growing is when I can be way more strategic and look ahead

Right at this instance it's just establishing a working profitable small business.Finding customers. Getting profitable. Then growing it into a well running medium, then big business.

Thank you for the help!
 

Johnny boy

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You're a man with a hammer looking for nails.

There's a lot to unpack here.

1. "In my area it doesn't seem all that much demand to mow lawns"
How do you know? Are you the top result for google searches in your area? Are you ranked high on Yelp as well? Do you run Facebook ads, PPC ads, direct mail ads, etc.? Are all of your advertising strategies flawless? I bet my company kicks your teeth in when it comes to advertising and marketing. We signed up an ADDITIONAL 200k of customers from March through June this spring. (200k a year in 12 month contracts, not 200k a month)

Your logic does not make sense because if you plan to grow, how will it be possible if the market isn't there? If you can't find 500 people over a period of a few years that need their grass mowed, your business is pointless essentially. If you CAN, then you just need to find them quicker and advertise better. Think about it. Imagine your business in 5 years.. How many customers for lawn care only would you be able to have considering your market size? A couple hundred or more? Well then obviously there's enough out there for you to stick to just one service! And yes, offering other services raises revenue, expands the number of customers you sign up, builds relationships, etc. BUT, there's much much much better ways of growing.

2. " I need to diversify to thrive in this area."

An assumption based off of #1. Likely false.

3. "Some are dedicated house cleaners only, and others can mow and clean cars. I was thinking $28 to $35+ depending on the service to cut lawns."

Did you know....our guys spend like 15 minutes at a house and we get $150 a month for 12 months. They get 20 visits so $1800/20 is $90. Yes, $90 for 15 minutes. This is how you run a business. None of that "hur dur I'll charge $30 a mow for ya. Jus leave the cash under the mat on tuesdays, thank ya very much". They do 10+ of these a day. Do the math.

Please please please stop running your services business like this. It plummets costs short term and when you charge $30 a mow and then quit your business in a year because you hate your life, it helps no one. It just delays the inevitable when I come acquire your customers and they are a little bummed they're paying more but we are the only company that stays in business and keeps coming. I'm literally buying a guy's customers off of him this week in my area. Dude tried to start his own company and he 'hates it' lol.

If people are not desperate to find a company to take care of their home services, then you aren't really solving much of a problem. My company solves problems because everyone that calls says "You're the only ones who answered the phone!". That's why we are succeeding. You need to start something that people say "finally, I needed this". Now, we don't make everyone happy. Some customers are just assholes. We get them weekly. But for most customers we are a godsend because we are reliable, consistent, take auto-payments, have a sweet customer service gal answering the phones, etc. It's a value skew that is easy but sets us apart. If your market doesn't have that strong of a demand, then you are a solution to a mostly solved problem.

Be like water. Flow where there is an opening. If you do not see a place to go because you don't see a problem needing solved, then don't try to force yourself into it. But I wouldn't just blindly assume a lack of demand without being absolutely sure of your marketing and sales efforts. I would guess that they are needing improvement.
 
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DavidL41

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You're a man with a hammer looking for nails... I bet my company kicks your teeth in when it comes to advertising and marketing.
tbh, If I am honest I think you just described yourself. Don't take it too personal but you're a bit of a wild card to me John. Or maybe I am not getting what you are putting out there.

To be real. I think I need to get you more focussed in on what I am saying. You have a pov but It's not focussed. Like you said 'you john are a man with a hammer looking for nails'. That put aside. There is only one mowing company listed online in my area which is a big city. 250k people and there is only 1. It's uncharacteristically low. Neighbouring cities have 4 or 5 listed, and many more unlisted. There are a few factors. The lawn sizes are incredibly small here, most of the houses are families so often kids do the work on thes <20 minute push mower lawns(these aren't 45 minutes to 1+ hour long lawn mows for them). The only one that is here is doing hardscaping, lawn repair on the side. Lots of the neighbouring cities lawn care company I imagine service this area.

What are your thoughts on this market scenario? It seemed like there isn't enough demand to sustain just mowing. I am looking into car washing, and in the winter months it snows, so I am incorporating house cleaning, and driveway shoveling.

The business model I've worked out is to hire local highschool and college kids in different area of the city to go only door to door with push mowers. Over the months the business will gain a presence, along with putting up door hangers, flyers, signs on every street corner. From there I get employees with zero turn riding mowers to service the area mowing and washing cars. Imo, my thinking is to establish a presence physically(highschool students wandering the streets with my logo pushmowing and all the signs, and lawn signs after I cut them), and online presence. Then fill the employees schedule with car washing, and eventually car detailing, leaf clean up, window washing, gutter cleaning, and hardscaping.

Essentially, the idea to break into market is to have a physical presence, and make the company differentiated by linked to the community. If a bunch of highschool kids push mow under my company people in the neighbourhood they know or see them will join. That then spreads, and suddenly the company is intertwined with the community.

That is the strategy, and I would blitzkrieg that approach to gain a client base. What are your thoughts on the right strategy to gain presence?
 

DavidL41

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Please please please stop running your services business like this. It plummets costs short term and when you charge $30 a mow and then quit your business in a year
30 to 35 is the average rate for a mow for an average size lawn. Huge lawns are obviously higher quotes.

The cleaning businesses I was unaware prices are so overinflated. $150 to $200 to clean a 2,000 sq house.. $100 for a one bedroom apartment.. $300 for deep cleaning. What are you schmucks doing? There is a cleaning company I saw that basically cut the price down by 40% because they actually know what they are doing and develop their employees skills. They in turn get loyal customers. If that is what the people in that industry are doing I should get into it. I guess the saying is right 'it is like taking candy from a baby'. There really is money to be made everywhere if that is how incapable the supply side is.

There is a lot of details and moving parts to that business. I imagine that's why the inefficiency is so high aka prices inflated. What are your thoughts on that industry john?
 

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tbh, If I am honest I think you just described yourself. Don't take it too personal but you're a bit of a wild card to me John. Or maybe I am not getting what you are putting out there.

To be real. I think I need to get you more focussed in on what I am saying. You have a pov but It's not focussed.
An owner of a successful lawn mowing business with several years of massive growth behind his belt shares what you could tweak in your approach and mindset and you say it is he who needs to focus?

It sounds like you haven't started yet and you're already in your way. Go and TEST what @Johnny boy is saying. See if you can get 1 paying customer according to his customer acquisition model and pricing strategy. Keep tweaking until you find a sweet spot for your own business (end-to-end). The only thing you have to lose are limiting beliefs.

Good luck!

Be like water. Flow where there is an opening. If you do not see a place to go because you don't see a problem needing solved, then don't try to force yourself into it. But I wouldn't just blindly assume a lack of demand without being absolutely sure of your marketing and sales efforts. I would guess that they are needing improvement.
View: https://youtu.be/V4A37PDduls
 
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Johnny boy

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When I use the example of having a hammer and looking for nails, I mean this:

Many people start businesses and say "I would like to do ____ as a business, how do I get a lot of customers?"

The only reason I am successful is because we are solving a problem, and other companies are not competent enough to answer the phone, essentially.

I started the business because I was a young 21 year old and wanted to get started doing any business and wanted to start using 'specialized units' math vs salary or hourly math to make my money. I did not see the opportunity until after starting it.

The only reason it works so well is because of the legitimate opportunity that exists in my area. There is underserved demand. When you look around and see something in abundance, you build afterwards. You work backwards when it's really working forwards. You don't start with a hammer and look for nails, you see thousands of screws and build a screwdriver. That's what I mean.

I am not saying to become a copy of my business. I am happy if that's what you want and you just want some free advice. I'll show you everything about how we run if you want. If you do something completely different that's awesome too. This is your business and your journey. I can only speak from what has worked from me. There are millions of other great ideas and niches and ways of doing business and many of them are much better than what I have going on.

My experience tells me that doing it the way you initially described will result in you either changing your business model or quitting. When I first started, we actually advertised as offering many other services! I had the same thinking. "What if we did it all? And for a good price? And we were super nice and everyone loved us? Yeah!" lol.

"$30-$35 is the average price for a mow"

Where are you getting this information? Do 100% of companies all have open accounting books and show you what everyone is paying for your entire city? No? Then you are basing that off of anecdotal evidence!

I don't like cleaning businesses because you introduce the problem of being inside peoples' homes. Someone has to let them in. Now you have scheduling nightmares since it has to be at a certain time. You can have a bigger mess or a smaller mess and not know until you're there. Lawns are not like this. The grass grows pretty predictably, so with cleaning, you have scheduling uncertainty, WITH the problem of having to be exact with your arrival time since they have to let you in. AND you have to deal with the liability of having employees in someone's house. You are going to have a fun time hiring men who will mow lawns AND go clean someone's house, AND finding customers who will love having some random laborer in their home. You hire women for cleaning, men for outdoor labor. Any business that strays from this will experience problems to the degree in which they stray from this standard. Your business by default completely rejects this standard and you will have a LOT of PROBLEMS. You can call me sexist but you can't call me broke.

Let's talk about a successful company and how you can use their original strategy to help you grow.

AMAZON

Amazon wanted to become the online store for everything.

They started by looking at which vertical to take over first.

They settled on books. It was a good place to start. It was a good fit for them and a good fit for the first thing to be sold online and shipped.

Then, after dominating the market, they were in a better position to expand to other products. That's what they did and it worked out pretty well for them.

They did NOT start out and say "we will sell everything on our one little website, so people will get a bunch of choices and we will build a customer base". They picked a single vertical.

This is what we are going to do (possibly).

We are going to grow our lawn care company because it's the best vertical for us right now. If we end up controlling the bulk of the market after scaling up, we will have hundreds of thousands of customers, a great corporate structure and organization, commercial properties and systems set up all over the place which would allow us to easily expand into other services, with separate employees though. That works much better than being some scattered general handyman company who kinda sorta does it all but not very well.
 

DavidL41

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An owner of a successful lawn mowing business with several years of massive growth behind his belt shares what you could tweak in your approach and mindset and you say it is he who needs to focus?

It sounds like you haven't started yet and you're already in your way. Go and TEST what @Johnny boy is saying. See if you can get 1 paying customer according to his customer acquisition model and pricing strategy. Keep tweaking until you find a sweet spot for your own business (end-to-end). The only thing you have to lose are limiting beliefs.

Good luck!


View: https://youtu.be/V4A37PDduls
I need to try to unpack what he is saying. Most of what he said was completely unusable on face value. I have to analyze the jist of what he is saying. Not what he's literally saying. Maybe he was drunk, or raging out like a hot head when he wrote it, idk. I couldn't make sense of most of what he's saying, not that I don't think he's saying anything.

He simply can not know what my market is or isn't(and what business model may or may not work) if he doesn't have enough data and insight to what my market situation is. He doesn't know the demographics, psychographics, what they make per year. Yes, I need to do market test to validate my hypotheses, but that DOESN't mean HIS hypothesis on the market situation(that he is oblivious to) is prevalidated. My business model hypothesis is something I need to iterate till it is feasible, though given the market conditions my estimation is in the ballpark, though of course like anything needs to be validated.

The concept I proposed is do all the basics right. Make the experience a pleasure. Offer a reasonable price. Be efficient and organized to be able to capture adequate profit. Offer 2-3 services mobile car wash, lawn mowing (house cleaning to fill up the winter months). Mobile car wash is straightforward. Lawn mowing service I would need to hire someone that has the mentality to also work as a house cleaner in the winter months(so I don't lose my talented mowing staff premature). I would also need to really talk to the house cleaning experts to find a process train them all to be 2x faster. The last thing was part of the promotion was to get highschool kids, and young college kids to be trained, given a regular push mower, so I can gain a lot of eyes on the brand logo as they roam the streets, knock on doors, put out flyers. Some could just sit in the busiest sidewalk of main roads with large signs. Every sunday on their lunch breaks they go to the bigger public parks to cook hotdogs to serve in order to promote. Baseball/softball/soccer games are promoted.

The basic concept is to infiltrate every space. The streets. Busy roads. Every lamp post. Mailbox. Promote local sign up sports events or something. And of course the internet presence. The last would be p.r (trying to get into newspapers, local events, and so on). The concept is to gain the awareness through many means and become a community thing.

The only thing I could make sense of what he said is that a friendly receptionist is an important, yet often overlooked aspect. People want assurance, and human contact for these type of jobs. Validate hypothesis. Optimize all the different touch points aggressively and constantly.
 

ZCP

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so much gold advice .... wasted on unlistening ears.....

@GravyBoat want to give it a shot in case someone else is coming along years from now?
 

ZCP

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welp sounds like you've got it figured out. Nice!
proud of you. you tried.

hopefully he sets a calendar reminder to come back to this thread in 6 months, read it, then come see you and take you to dinner to thank you.
 

DavidL41

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When I use the example of having a hammer and looking for nails, I mean this:


The only reason it works so well is because of the legitimate opportunity that exists in my area. There is underserved demand. When you look around and see something in abundance, you build afterwards. You work backwards when it's really working forwards. You don't start with a hammer and look for nails, you see thousands of screws and build a screwdriver. That's what I mean.



You hire women for cleaning, men for outdoor labor. Any business that strays from this will experience problems to the degree in which they stray from this standard. Your business by default completely rejects this standard and you will have a LOT of PROBLEMS. You can call me sexist but you can't call me broke.


AMAZON

Amazon wanted to become the online store for everything.

They started by looking at which vertical to take over first.

They did NOT start out and say "we will sell everything on our one little website, so people will get a bunch of choices and we will build a customer base". They picked a single vertical.



We are going to grow our lawn care company because it's the best vertical for us right now. That works much better than being some scattered general handyman company who kinda sorta does it all but not very well.

What I am reading and seeing from the professional lawn care forums, and prices of local competitors. It starts at $30 to $35, but it goes up depending on how big/how many long it takes to mow. Commercial could be more per hour. I am sure you know the specificities and the details from inside the industry.

Imo, Amazon kept going for the lowest hanging fruit and kept going. What I believe they actually did as their master strategic approach is to build up their platform to critical mass. The platform where everyone goes to wins. They were actually capturing different customer segments that were lowest hanging. It is much better to buy books online than a store. 100,000 at the click of your fingers compared to having to roam a store of 10,000. Dvds and electronics are also hard to find in store and a chore. They went for 2 things, things that are hard to find in store, things many people wanted to buy. That was what helped them grow their platform to how it is now for an online marketplace that is more convenient for most products.

The strategy of Amazon was to provide the highest customer experience. That allowed them to gain more and more customers on their platform. That allowed them to bring in more products than clothing, books, electronics. That also allowed them optimize their logistics to be able to ship things so quickly. In the end customer experience is everything in that industry. In the service industry I think it's the same.

--------

I agree with looking for the demand or the opportunity then building backwards. Imo, what I am better at is creating the experience and sucking and captivating the customer into the experience. I am also good at making a process in which I can 'indoctrinate' aka train my employees to only do it by the process, and naturally want to follow the process as they are better doing it. I can retain and motivate employees by providing decent wages, incentives, and so on. The last thing I am good at is in overall strategic approach, plus systematically cutting down the inefficiencies, and systematically ramping up the effectiveness. The rest of it like the marketing/pr/sales I would need to outsource and hound them to get the results.

That is why my strategy is different because it's done in the way I know. I prefer to spread slowly and steadily and captivate. Once that traction is in heavily and surely retargeting, upselling, cross-selling, referrals. While the whole time To do it a different way is like asking one boxer to fight like a different boxer. It's just not going to fly.

At the end of the day what I am trying to create is a pleasurable customer experience, employees that serve my customers, and a business that is part of serving the community. I am looking to differentiate the businesses by making sure everything is a pleasure, all the basics are done perfectly, the customers are served and have a great experience.
 
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DavidL41

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so much gold advice .... wasted on unlistening ears.....

@GravyBoat want to give it a shot in case someone else is coming along years from now?

I don't think so. His advice is good for him as it's the way he runs his business best. It has to be translated and reworked to work for me. Otherwise I am take 100 different pieces of advice from 100 people and have no cohesive approach. Instead I need to be translating other's advice into good insights that work for my approach and continually implementing them in my way of thinking.

Do you think a Russian boxer takes every single advice a mexican boxer gives them about boxing in a mexican style. No. The Russian boxer has his approach which is methodical. The mexican boxer goes to war. There are russian and mexican boxing champions. An approach has to be cohesive and right for the individual.

having said all that the basics are universal. In business look to dominate average or even top competitors by effectively differentiating in one way. Gaining a competitive edge. Make a superior customer experience in a specific way. Earn a good profit margin and profit. Have an impactful marketing/sales/pr strategy. Have workers that are incentivized. Put it together in a business, and be at the helm of it.
 

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how many have you sold?

get 5 customers and prove the model.
then pivot.

CHALLENGE: what three things will you do this week to make it happen?
 

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There is a lawn company in the UK with 450,000 customers. US population is 6 x larger.

I bet the UK guy would be thinking 'I can get 3 million customers in the US' including where you live.

He would not be worrying about cleaning peoples cars and houses or having people strolling around and hosting BBQs

Johnny's advice is essentially stick to one thing, learn to grow it as much as possible where you live, then expand to other areas and then, and only then, think about other services which you would probably figure out are not necessary by then.

Pretty good advice.

Dan
 
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DavidL41

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how many have you sold?

get 5 customers and prove the model.
then pivot.

CHALLENGE: what three things will you do this week to make it happen?
Again, this is your approach. Your approach is not universal. It's your 2 cents. That is just how it is. On top of that it doesn't even touch on the critical aspects. It is straight from the 1940s..

The standard process is customer validation(validating the market, and validating customer). Then validating the value proposition. Then validating the business model. From there it is the trek taking a vulnerable small business at a beginning stage to a repeatable more stable business model. Which you want to likely differentiate, put in systems, process, optimize to gain a competitive advantage. And of course trying to grow, and scale it to a big business for an exit, or so on. Roughly speaking that is the accepted industry standard way.
 

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Maybe he was drunk, or raging out like a hot head when he wrote it, idk.
Drunk or raging out? Lol... I see a guy genuinely trying to help and warn you about frustrating dead ends and limitations.

The standard process is customer validation(validating the market, and validating customer). Then validating the value proposition. Then the business model. From there it is taking a vulnerable small business at a beginning stage to a repeatable more stable business model. And of course trying to grow, and scale it to a big business for an exit, or so on. That is the industry standard way.
Let me guess: you know that from reading and observing others from the sidelines?

To reiterate what @thechosen1, @ZCP and others have said: go get 1, 2... 5 customers and prove YOUR OWN assumptions. Go close the knowing-doing gap. The rest is hot air.
 

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CHALLENGE: what three things will you do this week to make it happen?
I like this style A LOT. Challenges that force your brain to think.
 
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ZCP

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@DavidL41 love it. Show results. We can learn from anyone!

The beauty of this community, instead of arguing and trolling, I want to help your success and learn from your ideas. Show me results and let's talk through the processes that get them!
 

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I like this style A LOT. Challenges that force your brain to think.
As you gain momentum and experience, it begins to switch to ..... WHO can help me accomplish this goal this week? The Who Not How book is awesome
 

DavidL41

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Johnny's advice is essentially stick to one thing, learn to grow it as much as possible where you live, then expand to other areas and then, and only then, think about other services which you would probably figure out are not necessary by then.

Pretty good advice.

Dan
it's his 2 cents, just like anyone else's. It is also his approach, not necessarily a mentality that works for everyone. I respect his way of doing it. It's his unique approach to tackling business. Everyone's got theirs. I don't understand how letting someone else think for you, let alone someone on the internet is even a valid thought to be frank.

My philosophy is to aim for a few objectives: pleasurable customer experience, good value (for price), a culture (focused on serving the community a pleasurable experience/companies philosophy and mission/vision). To obtain that I would need good efficient & effective business model, good profit/grow, good leadership/management/employees. Doing these things to a level that develops a competitive advantage and above average value for price.

My goal/mission from the beginning is to develop a company that is a full service business that serves the household/customer, the community(free community events), and provides local full time jobs for adults, and part time seasonal (summer jobs) for highschool and college students.

My strategy would be to start with one which may be house cleaning, mowing or car washing. Then introducing the rest gradually. The competitive edge is doing things to my philosophy, and my goal/mission which creates a unique and valuable value proposition.

That is the goal to differentiate as a full service business (house interior, car, lawn), and try to cross sell 2 or 3 of those to as many that want it. People are have inherently different philosophies, values, way of being, and only they can bring a different approach to the table.
 
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G

Guest-5ty5s4

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As you gain momentum and experience, it begins to switch to ..... WHO can help me accomplish this goal this week? The Who Not How book is awesome
This is something I am learning and getting better at...

Slowlane networking = finding people who might help you get a better job, or colleagues to have drinks with

Fastlane networking = people with business ideas (who actually DO things and have track records), deal makers, those with customers/resources/expertise and are willing to work together
 

Antifragile

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From this thread, mad respect for @Johnny boy
Great, applicable, useful, actionable advice from someone who has been there and done that.
The OP is in the “I have an idea” stage and already rope a doping with a pro. Back to the boxing analogy to paraphrase: it’s like a Russian pro against an amateur, and the amateur says “your advice is just your two cents, I have a better idea because I read something on another forum”. Reading is not doing. MJ said it “you can read about swimming but at some point you have to get into the pool”.

I used to own a landscaping business with my partner (coincidentally also John and on this forum). We pivoted from landscaping to hardscaping (retaining walls and paving stones) because this focus made us market leaders and profit came with that.
We couldn’t make the lawn mowing and yard care work, profits weren’t there. But we saw that no one wanted to do or knew how to do well the installation of paving stones.

I’d like to read this in a few years again and see what you @DavidL41 accomplish or learn. Please share. Thanks.
 

SteveO

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From this thread, mad respect for @Johnny boy
Great, applicable, useful, actionable advice from someone who has been there and done that.
The OP is in the “I have an idea” stage and already rope a doping with a pro. Back to the boxing analogy to paraphrase: it’s like a Russian pro against an amateur, and the amateur says “your advice is just your two cents, I have a better idea because I read something on another forum”. Reading is not doing. MJ said it “you can read about swimming but at some point you have to get into the pool”.

I used to own a landscaping business with my partner (coincidentally also John and on this forum). We pivoted from landscaping to hardscaping (retaining walls and paving stones) because this focus made us market leaders and profit came with that.
We couldn’t make the lawn mowing and yard care work, profits weren’t there. But we saw that no one wanted to do or knew how to do well the installation of paving stones.

I’d like to read this in a few years again and see what you @DavidL41 accomplish or learn. Please share. Thanks.
That would be great. I hope for success.

I have been on this forum since the very beginning. Have watched many people become successful and wealthy. Still hang out with many of them.

I made a few million by learning from others and improving on their processes.

One thing that stands out to me on this thread though is that the original poster instantly took a stance against input from the experienced and successful people without researching their background. Most people that do that fade away quickly.

I hope that is not the case but it is an observation.

My first business was a landscaping company. It did not fail or succeed. I dropped it for another opportunity. I did not chime in to advise when I saw the responses from the OP.
 
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joshres

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From this thread, mad respect for @Johnny boy
Great, applicable, useful, actionable advice from someone who has been there and done that.
The OP is in the “I have an idea” stage and already rope a doping with a pro. Back to the boxing analogy to paraphrase: it’s like a Russian pro against an amateur, and the amateur says “your advice is just your two cents, I have a better idea because I read something on another forum”. Reading is not doing. MJ said it “you can read about swimming but at some point you have to get into the pool”.

I used to own a landscaping business with my partner (coincidentally also John and on this forum). We pivoted from landscaping to hardscaping (retaining walls and paving stones) because this focus made us market leaders and profit came with that.
We couldn’t make the lawn mowing and yard care work, profits weren’t there. But we saw that no one wanted to do or knew how to do well the installation of paving stones.

I’d like to read this in a few years again and see what you @DavidL41 accomplish or learn. Please share. Thanks.
Back to the nail analogy, I think this hits the nail on the head, 2 different people in this thread and one made the landscaping business work and the other turned to something else where they felt they could make profits work better. The end result is find something that you can do better than your competitors and you will succeed. Maybe for the OP that might be doing multiple things at once, the only way is to try it and find out. But also wouldn't turn away free advice from someone who has made a success in the niche you want to get into. Yes different environments and I'm sure the market is different but I bet Johnny boy could still have lots of valuable advice for you.

Also great first reply @Johnny boy, was really educational!
 

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