To add to the other advice in the thread, I think it's worth outlining "why" you are experiencing what you are (your situation is not uncommon - you're just being overly anxious about it). If you zoom out, it may help you see what you're doing more objectively.
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Ultimately, I believe there are 5 steps to entrepreneurial success: -
1. Mindset <-- FTE, MJ's books, "waking up"
2. Belief <-- becoming attuned to your limits, understanding what you need to work on, reframing failure as building experience
3. Hustle <-- you are here
4. Product <-- you'll develop a system in #3 which can be packaged into a product to sell (this is where you start to build a "real" business)
5. Scale <-- sometimes a product from #4 will go parabolic, which is where the big numbers come from
It seems you are in #3 but have not done much work on #1 or #2.
The result is you are doubting yourself (#2) whilst also being confused about whether you're "on the right path" (#1).
To fix it, you need to develop "independent value".
This is value you develop in yourself, which is not tied to external factors, such as a job or industry.
It is what I've found to sit at the heart of most business success stories, and is why most people fail to build one... they have no value outside of their job, so they jump onto external trends/factors to compensate.
Whilst I don't think this is a huge problem for you, what does seem to be the case is your lack of self belief is preventing you from honing the one thing that really matters in the lawncare thing - outreach.
@Johnny boy hasn't really built a lawncare company, but a leads generation company. It just so happens he's selling lawncare services, but he could switch that to other things.
In your case, you're currently trying to get that rolling. You don't need to be the best lawncare guy in the world. You do, however, need to have a strong grasp of where you are getting your leads from, and you need to constantly innovate on how to generate more of them as inexpensively as possible. Mr. Bjerk has done that in a variety of ways, including the mass text/voicemail thing.
Actually delivering the work should be easy. The primary focus needs to be on getting a system set up where you are able to blast ads, get leads, follow up with the leads and have them put into some sort of system that allows you to manage their account. The cheaper you get the leads, and the more efficient you are in delivering the work, the more profit you make.
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Regarding the "hustle" phase - your calling may not be lawncare.
In my case, I always felt compelled to use computers.
Whilst I'd have no issue doing lawncare, I always felt a natural draw to sit at a computer. This eventually lead me to write code.
I don't consider myself a "coder". I'm more an artist, but I could never shake the computer thing, so kept at it. Over time, I tried a lot of different business projects - all of which used the Internet or code as a base.
At the time, I thought I was building a marketing company but, after looking back, it's pretty clear that I was actually building up my software acumen, which I'm still doing now. I have 100's of ideas I want to pursue. Obviously, they all need money, which is why I'm still grinding.
Each time I embark on a new idea, I always frame it in the context of what I can do to force myself to grow with it. There's always "one" thing you can focus on with a project. I think the "hustle" phase is best used as a means to expose yourself to as many ideas/pursuits as possible in a business context. If you do enough projects, you'll eventually find that 5/10 won't make any money, 3/10 will break even or make a small amount of profit, 1/10 will do "OK" and 1/10 will be a runaway success.
When you find "the one", you should double-down on it and focus everything on becoming the best at it.
The lawncare side of things for you is likely going to teach you a lot about lead generation, outreach, advertising etc. It may not make a lot of money for you. If that's the case, that's fine. Just move onto a new project and use the experience you gained to push yourself in a new direction.
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I would ditch the second one of these - the likelihood that you're going to get any meaningful results from it (for the time you invest) is minimal. Personal brands are not worth much and you're unlikely to get traction considering the way the market works.
For the first one - is there anything you can do to expedite the process? Can you set any specific goals on how many leads you want to generate? Perhaps something like... "I want to generate 100 leads by the end of August", and then work towards trying to make that a reality?
Try and ignore the money side of it for the time being. Put money from your job into the business to facilitate the goal. Business expenses are a tax write-off. If you make a loss, the loss can be carried forward to offset future profits. Your primary focus should be on a) getting leads b) getting the price paid for each lead as low as you can. The costs associated with that will be your moat.
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You need to reach out to competent professionals with specific requests.
If you want to know about how to sort out a lawn, why not pay a professional gardener $200 to give you instructions? The $200 will be a tax write-off and if you don't have the money, put in some overtime at work to get it.
Johnathan is doing well for himself but there's a limit on the help he can provide. I wouldn't trust his advice for anything other than figuring out ways to build up lead flow from the likes of Craigslist.
