Starting (and Fastlaning) a lawn care service business

[Black_Dragon43]

it's just
names, dates, services, time period, schedule
and then
1. if we are late we make it up later, no discounts or refunds
2. if theres a problem you have to tell us and theres no discounts or refunds, we just fix it for free
3. its for 12 months and if you cancel beforehand you owe us a cancellation FEE equivalent to 2-months of your monthly price
4. if you don't pay you are sent to collections
get their signatures digitally and make the contract a pdf and send it to any a**hole that complains too much. most of the time it never comes up. It's used as a tool to keep karens from taking advantage of you and prevents people from cancelling in the winter months. Keeps our revenue consistent year round.

No delay penaltiea bro? Add delay penalties! If they don’t pay on time or refuse to pay, 0,67%/day of outstanding amount. If you ever go to court with them, they’ll pay a huge sum by the end of 2 years. And make the cancellation fee higher imo.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Johnny boy]

No delay penaltiea bro? Add delay penalties! If they don’t pay on time or refuse to pay, 0,67%/day of outstanding amount. If you ever go to court with them, they’ll pay a huge sum by the end of 2 years. And make the cancellation fee higher imo.

Maybe we should.

 

[Johnny boy]

ok, thanks. I started putting the TOS in bottom of the invoice, but pdf contracts & signatures might hold up better.

Do you still find (square footage)^.3 (x20) valid as a rule of thumb? I am bidding my first properties, & have no historical cost or time data.

with that formula a 2000 square foot yard would cost like 200 a month for weekly service (I made the formula to determine a weekly price). For a weekly customer I'd probably charge right around there, since weekly shouldn't be exactly twice as much. A lawn that you service every other week and do things like trim hedges and fertilize doesn't take twice as much time if you visit twice as much. More like 80% more since you aren't doing the extra services like triming hedges each visit. So it should only be 80% more or so than the biweekly service. Plus you're adding more revenue, less traffic to your customer service, lowering ad spend per new customer by having a higher monthly payment from a single customer so we don't mind giving them a small discount for weekly services.

I could use that formula but I don't. I think about time spent at the job, how close they are to other properties (increases the time per job since we factor in driving time as well, give steep discounts when neighbors sign up), and other factors go into pricing the jobs.

If it's a quick yard (like 10 minutes ish), it should be anywhere from 80-130 a month plus tax for 12 months for biweekly services. If its a 15-25 minute yard it should be 150-200. If it's 35 minutes or so it should be like 220-275 a month.

so a 10 minute yard +small backyard looks like these.





Nice development house tiny yard, charge them 115 a month or something and include services like mowing, edging, blowing, weed control, hedge trimming, fertilizing, raking leaves. Comes out to about 20 visits a year (biweekly service march through october, 1/mo visits in winter months if requested) $115x12=$1380/20=$69(nice) dollars per visit.

Can you mow 10 of these lawns in a day? abso-F*cking-lutely. Before noon even. Maybe when the leaves fall in october you'll have to work a bit longer, oh well.

This is for biweekly work (every other week not twice a week), so you can fit 100 customers on a 2-week period doing 10 a day during the weekday.

That's $11,500 a month. We do slightly larger places on average since half are like this and half are a little bit bigger, so the average customer pays a little more, so each crew brings in $12,000 a month. So yes, the math checks out in the real world.

If you have 100 customers, you can section off your service area into 5 different sections. For example: northern properties on monday. Northeastern/eastern properties on tuesday, southwestern/southern properties wednesday, etc. Then, all your properties are close together. You put the names on a calendar like this. Note: this is before we had a full schedule for the second crew back when we were signing up people in the spring time.



As for planning routes, its up to the crew. They just get a list on their dispatching software and they choose the route. It takes only a minute to click and see where all the properties are. Since the properties are usually all close to each other the drive time between them is like 5-10 minutes on average. Makes for a quick day. We have a couple streets where there are 4-5 houses that are all our customers. They'll knock out 4-5 in a single hour.

So $12000 a crew minimum, paying them $20 an hour ($6400 a month). After other expenses (not much, just gas, fertilizer and fixing your cheap equipment) you should be taking home at least $5000 a month per crew.

And my guys work like 5 hours a day and I pay them for 8. So that's insane and everyone loves their jobs here. But if you actually worked them 8 hours I'm sure you could have 13 customers a day and $15000 a month in revenue. I think when we get a little bigger and start to spend some energy on optimization we could squeeze out a lot more from our employees and get to 7-8k in profit per crew at scale.

I don't know if this works anywhere else in the country, all I know is that it works extremely well here and we're going to keep adding employees and crews for the next couple years until we are at 10 crews or 1.8m in revenue or so. Then we are going to open up another location north of us along the puget sound I5 corridor.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

with that formula a 2000 square foot yard would cost like 200 a month for weekly service (I made the formula to determine a weekly price). For a weekly customer I'd probably charge right around there, since weekly shouldn't be exactly twice as much. A lawn that you service every other week and do things like trim hedges and fertilize doesn't take twice as much time if you visit twice as much. More like 80% more since you aren't doing the extra services like triming hedges each visit. So it should only be 80% more or so than the biweekly service. Plus you're adding more revenue, less traffic to your customer service, lowering ad spend per new customer by having a higher monthly payment from a single customer so we don't mind giving them a small discount for weekly services.

I could use that formula but I don't. I think about time spent at the job, how close they are to other properties (increases the time per job since we factor in driving time as well, give steep discounts when neighbors sign up), and other factors go into pricing the jobs.

If it's a quick yard (like 10 minutes ish), it should be anywhere from 80-130 a month plus tax for 12 months for biweekly services. If its a 15-25 minute yard it should be 150-200. If it's 35 minutes or so it should be like 220-275 a month.

so a 10 minute yard +small backyard looks like these.

View attachment 40696

View attachment 40697

Nice development house tiny yard, charge them 115 a month or something and include services like mowing, edging, blowing, weed control, hedge trimming, fertilizing, raking leaves. Comes out to about 20 visits a year (biweekly service march through october, 1/mo visits in winter months if requested) $115x12=$1380/20=$69(nice) dollars per visit.

Can you mow 10 of these lawns in a day? abso-f*cking-lutely. Before noon even. Maybe when the leaves fall in october you'll have to work a bit longer, oh well.

This is for biweekly work (every other week not twice a week), so you can fit 100 customers on a 2-week period doing 10 a day during the weekday.

That's $11,500 a month. We do slightly larger places on average since half are like this and half are a little bit bigger, so the average customer pays a little more, so each crew brings in $12,000 a month. So yes, the math checks out in the real world.

If you have 100 customers, you can section off your service area into 5 different sections. For example: northern properties on monday. Northeastern/eastern properties on tuesday, southwestern/southern properties wednesday, etc. Then, all your properties are close together. You put the names on a calendar like this. Note: this is before we had a full schedule for the second crew back when we were signing up people in the spring time.

View attachment 40698

As for planning routes, its up to the crew. They just get a list on their dispatching software and they choose the route. It takes only a minute to click and see where all the properties are. Since the properties are usually all close to each other the drive time between them is like 5-10 minutes on average. Makes for a quick day. We have a couple streets where there are 4-5 houses that are all our customers. They'll knock out 4-5 in a single hour.

So $12000 a crew minimum, paying them $20 an hour ($6400 a month). After other expenses (not much, just gas, fertilizer and fixing your cheap equipment) you should be taking home at least $5000 a month per crew.

And my guys work like 5 hours a day and I pay them for 8. So that's insane and everyone loves their jobs here. But if you actually worked them 8 hours I'm sure you could have 13 customers a day and $15000 a month in revenue. I think when we get a little bigger and start to spend some energy on optimization we could squeeze out a lot more from our employees and get to 7-8k in profit per crew at scale.

I don't know if this works anywhere else in the country, all I know is that it works extremely well here and we're going to keep adding employees and crews for the next couple years until we are at 10 crews or 1.8m in revenue or so. Then we are going to open up another location north of us along the puget sound I5 corridor.

This is amazing man. The sky truly is the limit. Most people think of lawn care as a summer job done by one person but you’re proving them wrong!

There are plenty of examples of service businesses grown into massive companies and it looks like you’re well on your way.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Johnny boy]

This is amazing man. The sky truly is the limit. Most people think of lawn care as a summer job done by one person but you’re proving them wrong!

There are plenty of examples of service businesses grown into massive companies and it looks like you’re well on your way.

thanks man

 

[door123]

with that formula a 2000 square foot yard would cost like 200 a month for weekly service (I made the formula to determine a weekly price). For a weekly customer I'd probably charge right around there, since weekly shouldn't be exactly twice as much. A lawn that you service every other week and do things like trim hedges and fertilize doesn't take twice as much time if you visit twice as much. More like 80% more since you aren't doing the extra services like triming hedges each visit. So it should only be 80% more or so than the biweekly service. Plus you're adding more revenue, less traffic to your customer service, lowering ad spend per new customer by having a higher monthly payment from a single customer so we don't mind giving them a small discount for weekly services.

I could use that formula but I don't. I think about time spent at the job, how close they are to other properties (increases the time per job since we factor in driving time as well, give steep discounts when neighbors sign up), and other factors go into pricing the jobs.

If it's a quick yard (like 10 minutes ish), it should be anywhere from 80-130 a month plus tax for 12 months for biweekly services. If its a 15-25 minute yard it should be 150-200. If it's 35 minutes or so it should be like 220-275 a month.

so a 10 minute yard +small backyard looks like these.

View attachment 40696

View attachment 40697

Nice development house tiny yard, charge them 115 a month or something and include services like mowing, edging, blowing, weed control, hedge trimming, fertilizing, raking leaves. Comes out to about 20 visits a year (biweekly service march through october, 1/mo visits in winter months if requested) $115x12=$1380/20=$69(nice) dollars per visit.

Can you mow 10 of these lawns in a day? abso-f*cking-lutely. Before noon even. Maybe when the leaves fall in october you'll have to work a bit longer, oh well.

This is for biweekly work (every other week not twice a week), so you can fit 100 customers on a 2-week period doing 10 a day during the weekday.

That's $11,500 a month. We do slightly larger places on average since half are like this and half are a little bit bigger, so the average customer pays a little more, so each crew brings in $12,000 a month. So yes, the math checks out in the real world.

If you have 100 customers, you can section off your service area into 5 different sections. For example: northern properties on monday. Northeastern/eastern properties on tuesday, southwestern/southern properties wednesday, etc. Then, all your properties are close together. You put the names on a calendar like this. Note: this is before we had a full schedule for the second crew back when we were signing up people in the spring time.

View attachment 40698

As for planning routes, its up to the crew. They just get a list on their dispatching software and they choose the route. It takes only a minute to click and see where all the properties are. Since the properties are usually all close to each other the drive time between them is like 5-10 minutes on average. Makes for a quick day. We have a couple streets where there are 4-5 houses that are all our customers. They'll knock out 4-5 in a single hour.

So $12000 a crew minimum, paying them $20 an hour ($6400 a month). After other expenses (not much, just gas, fertilizer and fixing your cheap equipment) you should be taking home at least $5000 a month per crew.

And my guys work like 5 hours a day and I pay them for 8. So that's insane and everyone loves their jobs here. But if you actually worked them 8 hours I'm sure you could have 13 customers a day and $15000 a month in revenue. I think when we get a little bigger and start to spend some energy on optimization we could squeeze out a lot more from our employees and get to 7-8k in profit per crew at scale.

I don't know if this works anywhere else in the country, all I know is that it works extremely well here and we're going to keep adding employees and crews for the next couple years until we are at 10 crews or 1.8m in revenue or so. Then we are going to open up another location north of us along the puget sound I5 corridor.

Thanks for the clarification on the pricing.

I just got my first customer on autopay with contract $100/month 10 min backyard monthly visit. Ordered 6k flyers, Yelp is On, Turning on FB Ads this week. Creating route density is pretty tough in the winter, but doable.

I went 100% electric with all my lawn tools including a Prius instead of a truck for the crew. less fuel costs for the prius, no maintenance for tools , electricity is cheap, more efficient workforce.

 

[Johnny boy]

Thanks for the clarification on the pricing.

I just got my first customer on autopay with contract $100/month 10 min backyard monthly visit. Ordered 6k flyers, Yelp is On, Turning on FB Ads this week. Creating route density is pretty tough in the winter, but doable.

I went 100% electric with all my lawn tools including a Prius instead of a truck for the crew. less fuel costs for the prius, no maintenance for tools , electricity is cheap, more efficient workforce.

A Prius is absolutely retarded.
You need room to haul away branches, debris, etc. You need a truck.
You’re going to have like 30 different batteries for all of your underpowered equipment? Why?

USE YOUR BRAIN
Cost of gas for equipment and trucks each month $500
That’s 4 cheap customers at $125 a month for biweekly services. 15 minute visits. Total time spent between them: 2 hours out of 160 hours a month. That’s 1.25%

Now think, how much faster and more efficient are you with equipment that works, and a truck that’s useful?

Conservative estimate would be 15% faster, but it’s probably more like 30% or higher.

Don’t trip over dollars to pick up pennies.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Johnny boy]

Thanks for the clarification on the pricing.

I just got my first customer on autopay with contract $100/month 10 min backyard monthly visit. Ordered 6k flyers, Yelp is On, Turning on FB Ads this week. Creating route density is pretty tough in the winter, but doable.

I went 100% electric with all my lawn tools including a Prius instead of a truck for the crew. less fuel costs for the prius, no maintenance for tools , electricity is cheap, more efficient workforce.

I’m all for thinking different and breaking traditional norms. That’s why we are doing great in the first place so it’d be silly of me to advise against it, BUT let’s make sure that it’s logical and the numbers make sense.

 

[door123]

A Prius is absolutely retarded.
You need room to haul away branches, debris, etc. You need a truck.
You’re going to have like 30 different batteries for all of your underpowered equipment? Why?

USE YOUR BRAIN
Cost of gas for equipment and trucks each month $500
That’s 4 cheap customers at $125 a month for biweekly services. 15 minute visits. Total time spent between them: 2 hours out of 160 hours a month. That’s 1.25%

Now think, how much faster and more efficient are you with equipment that works, and a truck that’s useful?

Conservative estimate would be 15% faster, but it’s probably more like 30% or higher.

Don’t trip over dollars to pick up pennies.

electric underpowered? I have to disagree, its just as good or sometimes better than gas. Customers also love it, & I had a customer signup just bc our equipment was electric

You'r right on the Prius part. it will be tough to make it work.

 

[Private Witt]

You'r right on the Prius part. it will be tough to make it work.

I used to take alot of Ubers when lived in Seattle and always cringed when a Prius pulled up, which was like 70% of the time. The lack of space really irked me. How the heck can you run a lawn care business out of one, pics please.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[door123]

I used to take alot of Ubers when lived in Seattle and always cringed when a Prius pulled up, which was like 70% of the time. The lack of space really irked me. How the heck can you run a lawn care business out of one, pics please.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsPH_Y7VCs

 

[Johnny boy]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsPH_Y7VCs

 

[Parks]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsPH_Y7VCs

You should look at those comments. Looks like you have a few people interested in the hitch trailer and where they can buy one.

Maybe market redirect into hitch trailers or compact car addons.

"I wish I could find a rack like this! I'm thinking of going with a aluminum wheelchair rack on my car for a small residential setup as well"

"lawn care service out of a hatch back as well! Where can I get a hitch-trailer like that?"

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ing]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsPH_Y7VCs

That looks so real! LoL

 

[Johnny boy]

Update:

The winter has gone well. We kept our profits about the same and paid our employees, all while personally having a huge amount of time off. My schedule has hovered right around 20 minutes a day of admin work. I caught covid 2 weeks ago (it was a weak a$$ flu and nothing more, as expected) and it was nice that it did not affect revenue whatsoever. I cannot stress enough the importance of removing yourself from the work getting done. I could break my neck and still run the business. Employees have stayed happy and everything has gone pretty smooth. We always lose some customers in the winter months that we can't replace until spring but it wasn't a problem at all.

Our goal is 200 more customers. We expect 120 days of people signing up between march and July. Goal is 2 signups per day. Fingers crossed, should be an excellent year. Next step is to elect s-corp status because uncle sam is going to really start dick slapping me.

 

[Veloman]

Dude I ran my all battery powered lawn mowing business out of the back of my Prius for 2 years.
It was just me and my Greenworks 80v tools. I made about $60/hr with about $800 investment. For small yards, it worked great. I did switch to a small Ranger pickup for my final year before i sold the business. Partly for perception, and it did allow me to do more cleanup work. The gas savings is not worth it, But it can be done.
Johhny Boy, you can laugh but so what. Do your thing.

As for the Prius being small - i currently do closet kit deliveries for an app, where they "require a truck or trailer". I have a trailer i use for bigger deliveries but i quickly found out that i can fit a lot in my prius with the rear seats removed. Customers and store employees are constantly surprised i could fit so much in it. Everyone thinks the Prius is small but it works great for these jobs. I had a customer with a coupe tell me her car is bigger, yet you can't fit shit in it.
So instead of getting 18mpg in a truck i get 50 and do the same job. If i move a washer+dryer or couch, ill use my 220lb 4x8 trailer and still get 45mpg.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Veloman]

I’m all for thinking different and breaking traditional norms. That’s why we are doing great in the first place so it’d be silly of me to advise against it, BUT let’s make sure that it’s logical and the numbers make sense.

The user experience of quality battery tools is the main reason for me. Gas machines are an assault on the senses. I could cut 15 8k sq ft properties a day with 4 small 2ah and 4 large 5ah batteries. If i had a lot of overgrown new yards, maybe i would charge during lunch. The power is plenty. I wasnt mowing foot tall acre properties. I once did 72 yards in one week by myself. Thats $2100 profit.
A lot of companies are using battery tools for city properities because the advantages outweigh the negatives. Just saying it works for some and the tech is nothing like it was 8 years ago.

 

[Johnny boy]

The user experience of quality battery tools is the main reason for me. Gas machines are an assault on the senses. I could cut 15 8k sq ft properties a day with 4 small 2ah and 4 large 5ah batteries. If i had a lot of overgrown new yards, maybe i would charge during lunch. The power is plenty. I wasnt mowing foot tall acre properties. I once did 72 yards in one week by myself. Thats $2100 profit.
A lot of companies are using battery tools for city properities because the advantages outweigh the negatives. Just saying it works for some and the tech is nothing like it was 8 years ago.

the only benefit is getting press for virtue signaling in a liberal city

 

[door123]

UPDATE:

the only benefit is getting press for virtue signaling in a liberal city

It can be a competitive advantage, depending on your city.

As I look through my search terms report in Google ads, I see people typing in "electric lawn care" or "electric lawn service", So there is definitely demand for electric lawn service.

Also, Some of my customers(15%) tell me that they went with us bc of the electric equipment we use.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Veloman]

the only benefit is getting press for virtue signaling in a liberal city

Hey, if you enjoy the noise, vibration, stench, extra weight (slower manuevering a push mower) and maintainence, then that's your choice.

 

[Zoobs]

@Johnny boy I have just skimmed a few of the most recent pages of this thread. Huge respect to you for what you have achieved.

What impresses me most is your attitude and approach to running your business. You keep things simple, don't listen to outside 'noise' and you get sh1t done.

Inspiring.

 

[Zoobs]

@Johnny boy I finished reading the post over the weekend. As I said above I have huge respect for what you have done and are doing. You will have inspired many here. Thank you for sharing your detailed journey. I also hope it has served you well documenting it!

You mention about replacing the least profitable customers ? I am intrigued as to how you facilitate this ?

What is your process for the renewal of contracts - do customers sign their 12 month contract and it auto renews on to the next year after month 12 unless they give 2 months notice?

Have a great day, I hope you recovered well after covid? (We have just gone through it in our house, it wasn't that bad tbh)

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Johnny boy]

@Johnny boy I finished reading the post over the weekend. As I said above I have huge respect for what you have done and are doing. You will have inspired many here. Thank you for sharing your detailed journey. I also hope it has served you well documenting it!

You mention about replacing the least profitable customers ? I am intrigued as to how you facilitate this ?

What is your process for the renewal of contracts - do customers sign their 12 month contract and it auto renews on to the next year after month 12 unless they give 2 months notice?

Have a great day, I hope you recovered well after covid? (We have just gone through it in our house, it wasn't that bad tbh)

This has been great to document. It's so crazy to type some words and it turns into relationships, meeting people, doing awesome things with other entrepreneurs.

If customers take way too much time or complain too much we just drop them. Profitable, easy properties fill the space.

After a year, we have successfully weeded out any crappy customers, so we let them go if they wish. Any reason for cancelling after 12 months is genuine and we aren't here to play a game of "gotcha". We just want to make it hurt to be a dick to us.

Covid was nothing, couldn't smell for a bit but that's all.

Hope you have a good day too bro.

 

[ZCP]

@Johnny boy = beast mode. listen to and watch and support this dude!

 

[Cool_Llama]

Your the man @Johnny boy

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Johnny boy]

@Johnny boy = beast mode. listen to and watch and support this dude!

It was great meeting you, I took what you said and really thought about it for a while. Made me think more creatively about how we'll grow and help more people much more quickly.

I heard you have a wedding coming up very soon...congrats!

 

[Johnny boy]

Lot's of calls, ad campaigns, scheduling and signing up customers. It's going to be a busy spring if we are to get to 500k/yr revenue and 250k/yr profit but that's our goal for this year. Employees are doing good.

After a few great talks with @ZCP, we need to stress test this model in different areas. If we have ambitions of having multiple locations, we need to test market viability.

We could:

Do soft testing with like 10 grand and run our own ads, give remove quotes for locations in other parts of the country and see how our ad spend is, speak with leads and see if they are behaving similar to the people in our area (similar needs, similar expectations, similar closing ratio) Very quick testing, very simple. We can use that to say "if we did this exact business model in ______, ______, and _____ cities, it would work", then set the stage for having multiple locations next year.

I think we need to be more flexible in how we skin this cat, because it's easy to get caught up in thinking the way you go from 1 to 3 locations will be the same way you go from 3-50 locations. It may not be. I've always thought the franchise model was a bad idea for this because it gives away so much profit for short term growth, but why can't we just use that short term growth as a kickstart for the first period of expansion and then shift soon after?

It's time to map this out and ask "what exactly do we need for this to be huge?" and then ask "well...how do we GET that?" That'll give us a goal, then a plan, then a to-do list.

Time to take the 5 and 10 year goals and say "why not 1-2 years?".

Less imagining, more testing. You do it first, and then you know how to do it afterwards. I knew that when I started the business, so growing it is no different. I was comfortable with things being a shit show the first time I did it. I knew it would get more dialed in as time went on. Our next couple locations should be the same. You don't need to wait for the first kid to turn 18 before you have another. We don't need to be perfect at a full scale in one spot before we plant the seeds in other areas. I have been using the fear of being a mile wide and one inch deep to justify not widening at all until we are at full depth. It doesn't need to be like that, we can do both simultaneously.

I do not want to be 40 thinking back to if I could've saved 10+ years of my life by simply having some F*cking balls and doing what I needed to do the entire time.

Currently writing up different options and different plans. It will probably end up being a combination of a few of them all at once.

Always be reflecting and asking yourself "What am I avoiding?" "What would I do if I was 10x smarter?" "What would a billionaire do if he lost it all and was put in my shoes?" "What am I afraid of?". Those questions have been giving me lots to think about lately. Go spend time around winners because they'll just force the answers out of you, which is exactly what you need.

 

[Parks]

Lot's of calls, ad campaigns, scheduling and signing up customers. It's going to be a busy spring if we are to get to 500k/yr revenue and 250k/yr profit but that's our goal for this year. Employees are doing good.

After a few great talks with @ZCP, we need to stress test this model in different areas. If we have ambitions of having multiple locations, we need to test market viability.

We could:

Do soft testing with like 10 grand and run our own ads, give remove quotes for locations in other parts of the country and see how our ad spend is, speak with leads and see if they are behaving similar to the people in our area (similar needs, similar expectations, similar closing ratio) Very quick testing, very simple. We can use that to say "if we did this exact business model in ______, ______, and _____ cities, it would work", then set the stage for having multiple locations next year.

I think we need to be more flexible in how we skin this cat, because it's easy to get caught up in thinking the way you go from 1 to 3 locations will be the same way you go from 3-50 locations. It may not be. I've always thought the franchise model was a bad idea for this because it gives away so much profit for short term growth, but why can't we just use that short term growth as a kickstart for the first period of expansion and then shift soon after?

It's time to map this out and ask "what exactly do we need for this to be huge?" and then ask "well...how do we GET that?" That'll give us a goal, then a plan, then a to-do list.

Time to take the 5 and 10 year goals and say "why not 1-2 years?".

Less imagining, more testing. You do it first, and then you know how to do it afterwards. I knew that when I started the business, so growing it is no different. I was comfortable with things being a shit show the first time I did it. I knew it would get more dialed in as time went on. Our next couple locations should be the same. You don't need to wait for the first kid to turn 18 before you have another. We don't need to be perfect at a full scale in one spot before we plant the seeds in other areas. I have been using the fear of being a mile wide and one inch deep to justify not widening at all until we are at full depth. It doesn't need to be like that, we can do both simultaneously.

I do not want to be 40 thinking back to if I could've saved 10+ years of my life by simply having some f*cking balls and doing what I needed to do the entire time.

Currently writing up different options and different plans. It will probably end up being a combination of a few of them all at once.

Always be reflecting and asking yourself "What am I avoiding?" "What would I do if I was 10x smarter?" "What would a billionaire do if he lost it all and was put in my shoes?" "What am I afraid of?". Those questions have been giving me lots to think about lately. Go spend time around winners because they'll just force the answers out of you, which is exactly what you need.

Good stuff. Will you start hiring estimators? Or with your business model do you think you'll still be able to get to that revenue level with only your self doing the bids. If I remember right you only bid once which is pretty game changing.

Also margin insanely good. Nice.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Johnny boy]

Good stuff. Will you start hiring estimators? Or with your business model do you think you'll still be able to get to that revenue level with only your self doing the bids. If I remember right you only bid once which is pretty game changing.

Also margin insanely good. Nice.

Car dealership model. Sales reps to build rapport and close deals and gather information. They’ll be digitally connected to a single manager at a desk who picks the price. Car salesmen dont pick the prices of the cars they sell, it would be a shit show, so we’ll do it like that. One trained pricing estimator who can do 100+ quotes a day from a desk and many many salespeople meeting with customers and providing value that way.

Automation+humans is the best combo. Not purely one or the other.

At first I may just be operating as the pricing guy, with some hired customer service reps doing the salesperson scheduling when we are at different locations and I’m not able to be everywhere at once.

And yes, one bid and they’re signed up for at least a year and maybe more. I’ve got 5 of them today. Possibly could add like 7,000 in revenue from just todays normal quotes. And that’s yearly so it continues well into the future.

 

[fridge]

Lot's of calls, ad campaigns, scheduling and signing up customers. It's going to be a busy spring if we are to get to 500k/yr revenue and 250k/yr profit but that's our goal for this year. Employees are doing good.

After a few great talks with @ZCP, we need to stress test this model in different areas. If we have ambitions of having multiple locations, we need to test market viability.

We could:

Do soft testing with like 10 grand and run our own ads, give remove quotes for locations in other parts of the country and see how our ad spend is, speak with leads and see if they are behaving similar to the people in our area (similar needs, similar expectations, similar closing ratio) Very quick testing, very simple. We can use that to say "if we did this exact business model in ______, ______, and _____ cities, it would work", then set the stage for having multiple locations next year.

I think we need to be more flexible in how we skin this cat, because it's easy to get caught up in thinking the way you go from 1 to 3 locations will be the same way you go from 3-50 locations. It may not be. I've always thought the franchise model was a bad idea for this because it gives away so much profit for short term growth, but why can't we just use that short term growth as a kickstart for the first period of expansion and then shift soon after?

It's time to map this out and ask "what exactly do we need for this to be huge?" and then ask "well...how do we GET that?" That'll give us a goal, then a plan, then a to-do list.

Time to take the 5 and 10 year goals and say "why not 1-2 years?".

Less imagining, more testing. You do it first, and then you know how to do it afterwards. I knew that when I started the business, so growing it is no different. I was comfortable with things being a shit show the first time I did it. I knew it would get more dialed in as time went on. Our next couple locations should be the same. You don't need to wait for the first kid to turn 18 before you have another. We don't need to be perfect at a full scale in one spot before we plant the seeds in other areas. I have been using the fear of being a mile wide and one inch deep to justify not widening at all until we are at full depth. It doesn't need to be like that, we can do both simultaneously.

I do not want to be 40 thinking back to if I could've saved 10+ years of my life by simply having some f*cking balls and doing what I needed to do the entire time.

Currently writing up different options and different plans. It will probably end up being a combination of a few of them all at once.

Always be reflecting and asking yourself "What am I avoiding?" "What would I do if I was 10x smarter?" "What would a billionaire do if he lost it all and was put in my shoes?" "What am I afraid of?". Those questions have been giving me lots to think about lately. Go spend time around winners because they'll just force the answers out of you, which is exactly what you need.

Johnny,
I'm curious what's working best for you at the start of this season advertising wise. So far using slybroadcast and dropping voicemails or sending out mass texts to last years clients has been effective for me. I'm doing mainly one off jobs (pressure washing, gutter cleaning, gutter guard installations, leaf clean ups) till I can purchase a company vehicle and start scaling, but my advertising is rocky right now (doing a mix of EDDM, yard signs, FB ads w/ a sales video, google ads, and refining GMB) - nothing is really performing that well. Just wondering what you're seeing the most return out of so far - probably google ads pointing to a request a quote page on your website?