Starting (and Fastlaning) a lawn care service business

[Johnny boy]

Did he not sell a single account?

They got a sale in like an hour so it was stupid to quit lol

 

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[wyattnorton]

Hey Johnny,

I am about to start flipping cars for another stream of income. How many cars per year do you sell?
Do you have a dealership license? Any tips and tricks for someone looking to do the same?

Check my Hot thread...

 

[Johnny boy]

We are moving our CRM to Go High Level and here's how it works.

Here's how leads can come in.

1. FB lead ads
- They see our ad and offer and click on the button
-They enter in some quick info.
-Sends them to a booking page to claim their offer and schedule their quote.
-Filling out the lead form puts them in the crm, and it tracks the ad and campaign that got them so we can feed conversion tracking info back into facebook for proper attribution.

2. Website form
-They search online, see our site, click get started button
-They enter in their info for a quote and it takes them to the booking page to schedule their quote.
-Filling out that form adds them to CRM and says where they came from

3. They call us
-24/7 answering service qualifies them and schedules an in-person quote for them with the right salesperson depending on their area
-That answering service agent inputs their info and doing so adds them to the CRM and it tracks where they came from.

Go High Level contacts all get marked with a new lead tag. Ones that scheduled a quote get a quote scheduled tag. If they just have a new lead tag then it puts them in an automation where it automatically texts them, responds with AI if they chat back, and it tries to get them to schedule a quote using our booking link. It does the same with email. If they don't respond it gives them a cold lead tag after a few days and it only sends them occasional reach outs until they reengage or opt out.

Upon any submission of our website form or our facebook lead form, our outbound sales service (also our inbound service) calls them and schedules a quote with them, which would then mark them as having a quote scheduled in our CRM.

If they schedule a quote it sends them sms and email reminders confirming the appointment, and sends them more info about our company and services to get them excited for the quote.

On the quote, the salesperson meets with them. They have their own company email and the calendar for that account is synced with the booking calendar so new quotes pop up in their phone calendar and if they have other quotes scheduled or times are blocked out it doesn't let quotes get scheduled for that time. On the quote, they give pricing and service information for that property, type it into a form and then it sends it off to the customer to sign, or they can sign them up right there.

When the quote is sent, it marks the customer as "quote sent" and it puts them in a new automation where it has the link to the signup form filled out for their exact quote. It sends them occasional texts and emails with that quote link and tries to convince them to signup and after some time it asks why they didn't signup so we can have perfect follow up, and the AI bot can chat with them. We can also hop in at any time.

When they sign, it marks them as a customer, uploads them into our app, we welcome them, and they are no longer in the lead nurturing system.

We onboard them by picking their visit dates, charging them for the first month, and use our onboarding alert system in our app to alert them of their visit date, and that we'll charge them for the first month.

All of these things are updated within the Go High Level CRM and then we can see which ads and sources brought in leads, quotes, and signups.

When customers call in to our 24/7 line, they can chat with sales and schedule a quote, if they are a current customer they are sent to our customer support line. The agents can lookup the customer using an admin only side of the customer portal app that has our customers in it. They can lookup the customer name in a search bar and their info pops up, which is tied to an automatically updated database so it's never updated manually. They click on the person's name after confirming the address, and there the answering service agent can enter in any visit requests or complaints and they are automatically submitted to our visit notes system so when our office makes the schedule and adds in customer notes, they can do it super fast, and see any requests they have made in the past so we have context.

For things like billing, cancellations, contract info, etc. then the answering service rep attempts a warm transfer to our main office. If they aren't available, the agent schedules a calendly call with the office and the customer calling in, so we can lookup any relevant info and have it ready for the customer.

Here's the customer's perspective:

You see an ad, you click and enter your info, you don't feel like scheduling right now, you click away. You get a text from the company saying hello and thanks for reaching out.

(Or maybe you saw the company on google and called them. They picked up right away and got you scheduled for a quote.)

You get a call within 3 minutes and a nice person asks you when you would like to schedule a quote. You get one scheduled for tomorrow and they answer your questions about the services and how it works.

You get a text and email saying "looking forward to our appointment at 5:30 September 18th". The email contains more info about the services and a nice video from the owner thanking you and letting you know more about the company and services so most of your questions are answered.

You get a reminder text and email before the appointment reminding you when it's coming up.

The salesperson calls you telling you they are on their way. They are in a polo shirt, have a brochure with frequently asked questions and a bunch of info and you keep it so you don't have any confusion and everything is consistent. They give you pricing and you want to think about it with your wife because you're a pansy who can't make BIG decisions by yourself like who mows your lawn. Oh well.

You get a text and email saying "Thank you for meeting with me, here's the quote, just click on this link and if you want to signup, just sign at the bottom of the quote".

You ignore it for a day. You get 1 other quote after calling 7 companies and only 4 answer the phone and only 2 even offer the service you need and one of them doesn't even show up.

You get another text and email the next day saying "tired of the unprofessional companies? Still want top-notch services? Here's that quote we gave you, click here to review and sign up!"

You signup. We thank you, give you some info you'll want to know as a customer including how to login into your awesome app for managing your account. It was automatically created for you when you signed your quote. Ta-da.

Your first visit is scheduled 4 days from now on tuesday.

You have a request to make for your first visit, you can call us and get someone the first ring, and they look you up and get your request in the system, or you use the app and it works great whether on your desktop or computer, so even a grandma can use it that doesn't even have a smartphone.

And this happens with the same smooth experience whether 5 people become leads in a week, or 500 in an hour.

100% answer rate, sales or support.

Get a quote scheduled yourself with our ads, our website, etc. Or do it on a phone call.

Receive relevant communication, instant responses, multichannel, tailored for you, 100% of the time.

Our company is like a manufacturing plant, where each stage is it's own machine operating at a certain capacity. This system is removing the bottleneck of our lead gen, maximizing lead nurturing and follow up, and now our only bottlenecks will be 1. how cheap can we get those initial leads 2. how many salespeople can we have out there giving quotes. 3. how many employees can we hire and train to do the work and 4. how many trucks can we get.

But, at least we are removing the bottleneck between taking someone who's interested and getting them a quote. DIY, calling us, us calling them, or texting. All easy, personalized, instant, and smart.

Remove friction. Make it easy. Make it too easy. 1,2,3.

 

[Andy Black]

We are moving our CRM to Go High Level and here's how it works.

Here's how leads can come in.

1. FB lead ads
- They see our ad and offer and click on the button
-They enter in some quick info.
-Sends them to a booking page to claim their offer and schedule their quote.
-Filling out the lead form puts them in the crm, and it tracks the ad and campaign that got them so we can feed conversion tracking info back into facebook for proper attribution.

2. Website form
-They search online, see our site, click get started button
-They enter in their info for a quote and it takes them to the booking page to schedule their quote.
-Filling out that form adds them to CRM and says where they came from

3. They call us
-24/7 answering service qualifies them and schedules an in-person quote for them with the right salesperson depending on their area
-That answering service agent inputs their info and doing so adds them to the CRM and it tracks where they came from.

Go High Level contacts all get marked with a new lead tag. Ones that scheduled a quote get a quote scheduled tag. If they just have a new lead tag then it puts them in an automation where it automatically texts them, responds with AI if they chat back, and it tries to get them to schedule a quote using our booking link. It does the same with email. If they don't respond it gives them a cold lead tag after a few days and it only sends them occasional reach outs until they reengage or opt out.

Upon any submission of our website form or our facebook lead form, our outbound sales service (also our inbound service) calls them and schedules a quote with them, which would then mark them as having a quote scheduled in our CRM.

If they schedule a quote it sends them sms and email reminders confirming the appointment, and sends them more info about our company and services to get them excited for the quote.

On the quote, the salesperson meets with them. They have their own company email and the calendar for that account is synced with the booking calendar so new quotes pop up in their phone calendar and if they have other quotes scheduled or times are blocked out it doesn't let quotes get scheduled for that time. On the quote, they give pricing and service information for that property, type it into a form and then it sends it off to the customer to sign, or they can sign them up right there.

When the quote is sent, it marks the customer as "quote sent" and it puts them in a new automation where it has the link to the signup form filled out for their exact quote. It sends them occasional texts and emails with that quote link and tries to convince them to signup and after some time it asks why they didn't signup so we can have perfect follow up, and the AI bot can chat with them. We can also hop in at any time.

When they sign, it marks them as a customer, uploads them into our app, we welcome them, and they are no longer in the lead nurturing system.

We onboard them by picking their visit dates, charging them for the first month, and use our onboarding alert system in our app to alert them of their visit date, and that we'll charge them for the first month.

All of these things are updated within the Go High Level CRM and then we can see which ads and sources brought in leads, quotes, and signups.

When customers call in to our 24/7 line, they can chat with sales and schedule a quote, if they are a current customer they are sent to our customer support line. The agents can lookup the customer using an admin only side of the customer portal app that has our customers in it. They can lookup the customer name in a search bar and their info pops up, which is tied to an automatically updated database so it's never updated manually. They click on the person's name after confirming the address, and there the answering service agent can enter in any visit requests or complaints and they are automatically submitted to our visit notes system so when our office makes the schedule and adds in customer notes, they can do it super fast, and see any requests they have made in the past so we have context.

For things like billing, cancellations, contract info, etc. then the answering service rep attempts a warm transfer to our main office. If they aren't available, the agent schedules a calendly call with the office and the customer calling in, so we can lookup any relevant info and have it ready for the customer.

Here's the customer's perspective:

You see an ad, you click and enter your info, you don't feel like scheduling right now, you click away. You get a text from the company saying hello and thanks for reaching out.

(Or maybe you saw the company on google and called them. They picked up right away and got you scheduled for a quote.)

You get a call within 3 minutes and a nice person asks you when you would like to schedule a quote. You get one scheduled for tomorrow and they answer your questions about the services and how it works.

You get a text and email saying "looking forward to our appointment at 5:30 September 18th". The email contains more info about the services and a nice video from the owner thanking you and letting you know more about the company and services so most of your questions are answered.

You get a reminder text and email before the appointment reminding you when it's coming up.

The salesperson calls you telling you they are on their way. They are in a polo shirt, have a brochure with frequently asked questions and a bunch of info and you keep it so you don't have any confusion and everything is consistent. They give you pricing and you want to think about it with your wife because you're a pansy who can't make BIG decisions by yourself like who mows your lawn. Oh well.

You get a text and email saying "Thank you for meeting with me, here's the quote, just click on this link and if you want to signup, just sign at the bottom of the quote".

You ignore it for a day. You get 1 other quote after calling 7 companies and only 4 answer the phone and only 2 even offer the service you need and one of them doesn't even show up.

You get another text and email the next day saying "tired of the unprofessional companies? Still want top-notch services? Here's that quote we gave you, click here to review and sign up!"

You signup. We thank you, give you some info you'll want to know as a customer including how to login into your awesome app for managing your account. It was automatically created for you when you signed your quote. Ta-da.

Your first visit is scheduled 4 days from now on tuesday.

You have a request to make for your first visit, you can call us and get someone the first ring, and they look you up and get your request in the system, or you use the app and it works great whether on your desktop or computer, so even a grandma can use it that doesn't even have a smartphone.

And this happens with the same smooth experience whether 5 people become leads in a week, or 500 in an hour.

100% answer rate, sales or support.

Get a quote scheduled yourself with our ads, our website, etc. Or do it on a phone call.

Receive relevant communication, instant responses, multichannel, tailored for you, 100% of the time.

Our company is like a manufacturing plant, where each stage is it's own machine operating at a certain capacity. This system is removing the bottleneck of our lead gen, maximizing lead nurturing and follow up, and now our only bottlenecks will be 1. how cheap can we get those initial leads 2. how many salespeople can we have out there giving quotes. 3. how many employees can we hire and train to do the work and 4. how many trucks can we get.

But, at least we are removing the bottleneck between taking someone who's interested and getting them a quote. DIY, calling us, us calling them, or texting. All easy, personalized, instant, and smart.

Remove friction. Make it easy. Make it too easy. 1,2,3.

A lot of agencies and businesses are using GHL. Thanks for the detailed write up Johnny.

 

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[Bigguns50]

Following! Great thread and congrats on your success so far @Johnny boy !

Regarding Go High Level. I have a tours & rentals biz. Most of our advertising dollars are in Google and we get great returns. We just started ads on Yelp and have all the social media sites but don't advertise there. My question is, would GHL benefit my business in any way? I've been to their website but I'm uncertain as to how we can benefit. My thought is all the Leads we get that don't convert to Sales might be advantageous in using their system. Nearly all our bookings are done on-line. Thanks!!

 

[Johnny boy]

Following! Great thread and congrats on your success so far @Johnny boy !

Regarding Go High Level. I have a tours & rentals biz. Most of our advertising dollars are in Google and we get great returns. We just started ads on Yelp and have all the social media sites but don't advertise there. My question is, would GHL benefit my business in any way? I've been to their website but I'm uncertain as to how we can benefit. My thought is all the Leads we get that don't convert to Sales might be advantageous in using their system. Nearly all our bookings are done on-line. Thanks!!

Here's how I would set it up...

Chat bots with trained knowledge base and booking links integrated with all social media inboxes. Instant responses, 24/7, sending people to a lead gen form or booking a call or something.

Phone number that sends sales calls to hellosells, 24/7 answering where they can signup customers or at least do a warm transfer to someone to sign them up, and if not available, schedules a call where you can close them, but at least everyone get's called.

Form submissions where everyone ends up in your crm, get's automated texts and emails, and the hellosells team does an outbound call to them immediately to get them warmed up and if needed transfers them to you on the call for you to close them.

Each stage they get updated in your crm and get texts and emails that have context for that stage in the buying process. So they are getting ideal follow up at all times.

It all should funnel to your online booking. Your phone agents at the answering service can have their own booking link too, so people can get called and then signup on the phone, all automated.

 

[Bigguns50]

Here's how I would set it up...

Chat bots with trained knowledge base and booking links integrated with all social media inboxes. Instant responses, 24/7, sending people to a lead gen form or booking a call or something.

Phone number that sends sales calls to hellosells, 24/7 answering where they can signup customers or at least do a warm transfer to someone to sign them up, and if not available, schedules a call where you can close them, but at least everyone get's called.

Form submissions where everyone ends up in your crm, get's automated texts and emails, and the hellosells team does an outbound call to them immediately to get them warmed up and if needed transfers them to you on the call for you to close them.

Each stage they get updated in your crm and get texts and emails that have context for that stage in the buying process. So they are getting ideal follow up at all times.

It all should funnel to your online booking. Your phone agents at the answering service can have their own booking link too, so people can get called and then signup on the phone, all automated.

Perfect! Thank you!

 

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[Johnny boy]

We will be adjusting our pay system for employees

Every customer already has a set “visit time” value relative to their monthly payment so we can track how full schedules are.

Right now, workers wages start at 17 and go up to 21 when they’ve done well and have stayed for a while.

If they get all the jobs done, they can head home early.

Guaranteed 40 hours a week of pay + OT, but they may actually only be working 5,6,7 hours a day.

It incentivizes fast efficient work.

But people ask for raises, and it doesn’t give any opportunity for ambitious people to work more and make more money.

The crews are allocated around 360-375 minutes worth of “visit time” value right now.

So here’s what we’re changing.

We are going to have a chart, and let the employees pick which “hourly” wage they want, which comes out to more of a salary like our current system except this lets them pick.

“I want $22/hr”

“Great, okay so it looks like that’s up to 385 minutes of work allocated on the schedule, we can adjust it starting next week! That’s only 20 more minutes a day of ‘visit time’!”

You want more money? You’re in charge. Agree to more work.

It may not be a full schedule some days, other days it will be, but you’re guaranteed the same pay just like before. The only difference is if you’re willing to do a little more or not, that’s how much you’re paid.

Jobs left over you didn’t get done? Those “visit time” values are deducted, no worries. Slightly less money for you.

This will let the people that want to work more get paid more, and work longer days if they want. And it will ensure that nobody is asking for raises without it being explicitly tied to doing more work.

It will end up being roughly the same profit at worst case, and best case we’ll be getting better profits from guys willing to do more, and they’ll be able to take home much better money if they want. We will have options for them to make much more than current wages.

“I want $26/hr”
“Okay we can do that, that’s an extra 40 min a day”
“Sweet”

Going to switch over during the winter. Anyone who wants to leave can leave. Anyone who wants to stay can stay.

 

[Panos Daras]

We are moving our CRM to Go High Level and here's how it works.

Here's how leads can come in.

1. FB lead ads
- They see our ad and offer and click on the button
-They enter in some quick info.
-Sends them to a booking page to claim their offer and schedule their quote.
-Filling out the lead form puts them in the crm, and it tracks the ad and campaign that got them so we can feed conversion tracking info back into facebook for proper attribution.

2. Website form
-They search online, see our site, click get started button
-They enter in their info for a quote and it takes them to the booking page to schedule their quote.
-Filling out that form adds them to CRM and says where they came from

3. They call us
-24/7 answering service qualifies them and schedules an in-person quote for them with the right salesperson depending on their area
-That answering service agent inputs their info and doing so adds them to the CRM and it tracks where they came from.

Go High Level contacts all get marked with a new lead tag. Ones that scheduled a quote get a quote scheduled tag. If they just have a new lead tag then it puts them in an automation where it automatically texts them, responds with AI if they chat back, and it tries to get them to schedule a quote using our booking link. It does the same with email. If they don't respond it gives them a cold lead tag after a few days and it only sends them occasional reach outs until they reengage or opt out.

Upon any submission of our website form or our facebook lead form, our outbound sales service (also our inbound service) calls them and schedules a quote with them, which would then mark them as having a quote scheduled in our CRM.

If they schedule a quote it sends them sms and email reminders confirming the appointment, and sends them more info about our company and services to get them excited for the quote.

On the quote, the salesperson meets with them. They have their own company email and the calendar for that account is synced with the booking calendar so new quotes pop up in their phone calendar and if they have other quotes scheduled or times are blocked out it doesn't let quotes get scheduled for that time. On the quote, they give pricing and service information for that property, type it into a form and then it sends it off to the customer to sign, or they can sign them up right there.

When the quote is sent, it marks the customer as "quote sent" and it puts them in a new automation where it has the link to the signup form filled out for their exact quote. It sends them occasional texts and emails with that quote link and tries to convince them to signup and after some time it asks why they didn't signup so we can have perfect follow up, and the AI bot can chat with them. We can also hop in at any time.

When they sign, it marks them as a customer, uploads them into our app, we welcome them, and they are no longer in the lead nurturing system.

We onboard them by picking their visit dates, charging them for the first month, and use our onboarding alert system in our app to alert them of their visit date, and that we'll charge them for the first month.

All of these things are updated within the Go High Level CRM and then we can see which ads and sources brought in leads, quotes, and signups.

When customers call in to our 24/7 line, they can chat with sales and schedule a quote, if they are a current customer they are sent to our customer support line. The agents can lookup the customer using an admin only side of the customer portal app that has our customers in it. They can lookup the customer name in a search bar and their info pops up, which is tied to an automatically updated database so it's never updated manually. They click on the person's name after confirming the address, and there the answering service agent can enter in any visit requests or complaints and they are automatically submitted to our visit notes system so when our office makes the schedule and adds in customer notes, they can do it super fast, and see any requests they have made in the past so we have context.

For things like billing, cancellations, contract info, etc. then the answering service rep attempts a warm transfer to our main office. If they aren't available, the agent schedules a calendly call with the office and the customer calling in, so we can lookup any relevant info and have it ready for the customer.

Here's the customer's perspective:

You see an ad, you click and enter your info, you don't feel like scheduling right now, you click away. You get a text from the company saying hello and thanks for reaching out.

(Or maybe you saw the company on google and called them. They picked up right away and got you scheduled for a quote.)

You get a call within 3 minutes and a nice person asks you when you would like to schedule a quote. You get one scheduled for tomorrow and they answer your questions about the services and how it works.

You get a text and email saying "looking forward to our appointment at 5:30 September 18th". The email contains more info about the services and a nice video from the owner thanking you and letting you know more about the company and services so most of your questions are answered.

You get a reminder text and email before the appointment reminding you when it's coming up.

The salesperson calls you telling you they are on their way. They are in a polo shirt, have a brochure with frequently asked questions and a bunch of info and you keep it so you don't have any confusion and everything is consistent. They give you pricing and you want to think about it with your wife because you're a pansy who can't make BIG decisions by yourself like who mows your lawn. Oh well.

You get a text and email saying "Thank you for meeting with me, here's the quote, just click on this link and if you want to signup, just sign at the bottom of the quote".

You ignore it for a day. You get 1 other quote after calling 7 companies and only 4 answer the phone and only 2 even offer the service you need and one of them doesn't even show up.

You get another text and email the next day saying "tired of the unprofessional companies? Still want top-notch services? Here's that quote we gave you, click here to review and sign up!"

You signup. We thank you, give you some info you'll want to know as a customer including how to login into your awesome app for managing your account. It was automatically created for you when you signed your quote. Ta-da.

Your first visit is scheduled 4 days from now on tuesday.

You have a request to make for your first visit, you can call us and get someone the first ring, and they look you up and get your request in the system, or you use the app and it works great whether on your desktop or computer, so even a grandma can use it that doesn't even have a smartphone.

And this happens with the same smooth experience whether 5 people become leads in a week, or 500 in an hour.

100% answer rate, sales or support.

Get a quote scheduled yourself with our ads, our website, etc. Or do it on a phone call.

Receive relevant communication, instant responses, multichannel, tailored for you, 100% of the time.

Our company is like a manufacturing plant, where each stage is it's own machine operating at a certain capacity. This system is removing the bottleneck of our lead gen, maximizing lead nurturing and follow up, and now our only bottlenecks will be 1. how cheap can we get those initial leads 2. how many salespeople can we have out there giving quotes. 3. how many employees can we hire and train to do the work and 4. how many trucks can we get.

But, at least we are removing the bottleneck between taking someone who's interested and getting them a quote. DIY, calling us, us calling them, or texting. All easy, personalized, instant, and smart.

Remove friction. Make it easy. Make it too easy. 1,2,3.

Amazing work keep it up!

 

[jclean]

We also do it this way, the hardest thing is getting the colleagues aligned in this.

Some want to earn more others want to be able to quit on time.

A bit of puzzling to get the right crews together.
But this is indeed going to make you create more margin.

 

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[Johnny boy]

We also do it this way, the hardest thing is getting the colleagues aligned in this.

Some want to earn more others want to be able to quit on time.

A bit of puzzling to get the right crews together.
But this is indeed going to make you create more margin.

We’re moving to having them work alone.

They get a ton done.

Should push margins up to 53%

 

[Redwolf]

We’re moving to having them work alone.

They get a ton done.

Should push margins up to 53%

Each "crew" is just one person?

 

[Johnny boy]

Each "crew" is just one person?

It was two but I’ve been experimenting with just one person and it’s way more profitable.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

It was two but I’ve been experimenting with just one person and it’s way more profitable.

Next you’ll need a drone and a robot lawn mower

 

[Johnny boy]

Next you’ll need a drone and a robot lawn mower

One can dream.

 

[jclean]

We’re moving to having them work alone.

They get a ton done.

Should push margins up to 53%

I have also considered this what I like about it

1)More margin per crew/employee
2)If something goes wrong with a customer you know immediately who is responsible for it.
3)If there is damage to a vehicle idem ditto
4)No nagging about each other or others
5) more flexible to schedule
6) in our case smaller vehicles

What I do not like about it

1) if there is an accident someone falls or gets seriously injured in a backyard when no customer is home it can take a while before help arrives.
2) less job satisfaction
3)no social control ( theft)
Doing extra work and receiving cash
4) if 1 person always does the same customers and this person gets sick then there is more chance of mistakes.
5) more vehicles on the job which increases the chance of accidents.
6) more vehicles = more insurance/maintenance/fuel to pay.

I am curious to see how it turns out,
thanks to this golden thread:

1)hired a call center,
2)had an additional CRM software system linked to our scheduling software.
3)automated a lot of things
4)hired someone to take over a whole chunk of administration from me.

And I haven't regretted it for a second.

Moral of the story if you follow a thread take action and do something with the information that is given.

Thanks for this !

 

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[NervesOfSteel]

What I do not like about it

1) if there is an accident someone falls or gets seriously injured in a backyard when no customer is home it can take a while before help arrives.
2) less job satisfaction
3)no social control ( theft)
Doing extra work and receiving cash
4) if 1 person always does the same customers and this person gets sick then there is more chance of mistakes.
5) more vehicles on the job which increases the chance of accidents.
6) more vehicles = more insurance/maintenance/fuel to pay.

7) You teach every employee all the skills at ground level.

Now they need some tools and they're confident to quit the job !

 

[Johnny boy]

2) less job satisfaction

With all the extra money I’ll be able to throw a pizza party to boost moral once a year.

 

[door123]

It was two but I’ve been experimenting with just one person and it’s way more profitable.

I came to the same conclusion when I did the math, 1 crew trucks bring more profit per truck, but I decided against the 1 crew model because if one guy is out, who is going to take on his workload for the day. BUT It's actually the same issue on a 2 man crew, when one of the guys is out due to "illness" the other crew member can't always finish their full days route anyways.

 

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[Johnny boy]

I came to the same conclusion when I did the math, 1 crew trucks bring more profit per truck, but I decided against the 1 crew model because if one guy is out, who is going to take on his workload for the day. BUT It's actually the same issue on a 2 man crew, when one of the guys is out due to "illness" the other crew member can't always finish their full days route anyways.

Here’s what you do.

Every person you hire, you only hire people who are enthusiastic about taking any available overtime.

Now you have multiple people who are all happy to work the weekends.

Then, you can pack the schedule, if anyone’s gone, just send a late visit alert, move the jobs to tomorrow, have the guys catch up on the weekends.

Do not hire people with kids if you can avoid it.

Excuses non stop. Constant drama. “Hey my kid is sick”. Blah blah blah. Never can work on weekends.

It’s not just some of the time, it’s all the time.

If I’m in a lawsuit from some shitty employee in 5 years and they read this out to the courtroom…

We do not make hiring decisions based on age, race, sex, ethnicity, orientation, family status, etc. This supersedes any and all previous statements regarding our hiring policies and shall remain the primary statement of our company regarding our hiring practices from now thenceforth until a new official statement is made and labeled as such.

Guys working together always seem to ask for the jobs to be skipped. It’s like they get some confidence when working together. They look at each other and say “you think we should ask for the jobs to be pushed to tomorrow?” “Yeah bro F*ck it” “okay”

When they’re alone they just bust their a$$ and say nothing.

You want to compartmentalize people at least a bit.

 

[borbug]

The guy I was talking about in my earlier post does not take cash.... credit cards on file and billed the day after. It's the only way he takes payment and lots of other guys are going to this also.

Yes.... very hard to run even 1 truck but it can be done. Lots of guys in snowy states make a lot off money doing lawn care.

Since it is seasonal, think about placing snow at winter.

 

[Bigguns50]

@Johnny boy ... so this is a bit confusing to me, but I don't claim to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Our businesses are not related but they do have some commonalities. I have Tour Guides. Each tour pays x amount + tips. Want to make more $ ? Do more tours. The motivated people rise to the top. Would this work with your business? You pay x amount per yard. Want to make more $, do more yards. I might be way off here.

 

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[door123]

I came to the same conclusion when I did the math, 1 crew trucks bring more profit per truck, but I decided against the 1 crew model because if one guy is out, who is going to take on his workload for the day. BUT It's actually the same issue on a 2 man crew, when one of the guys is out due to "illness" the other crew member can't always finish their full days route anyways.

Here’s what you do.

Every person you hire, you only hire people who are enthusiastic about taking any available overtime.

Now you have multiple people who are all happy to work the weekends.

Then, you can pack the schedule, if anyone’s gone, just send a late visit alert, move the jobs to tomorrow, have the guys catch up on the weekends.

Do not hire people with kids if you can avoid it.

Excuses non stop. Constant drama. “Hey my kid is sick”. Blah blah blah. Never can work on weekends.

It’s not just some of the time, it’s all the time.

If I’m in a lawsuit from some shitty employee in 5 years and they read this out to the courtroom…

We do not make hiring decisions based on age, race, sex, ethnicity, orientation, family status, etc. This supersedes any and all previous statements regarding our hiring policies and shall remain the primary statement of our company regarding our hiring practices from now thenceforth until a new official statement is made and labeled as such.

Guys working together always seem to ask for the jobs to be skipped. It’s like they get some confidence when working together. They look at each other and say “you think we should ask for the jobs to be pushed to tomorrow?” “Yeah bro F*ck it” “okay”

When they’re alone they just bust their a$$ and say nothing.

You want to compartmentalize people at least a bit.

Exactly, thats what constantly hear on the interview process. I have to pick up my kids from school and such. If you have kids, $18 a hour job is not for you. Leave it to the high school graduates, not 30 year baby daddies.

So for 1 person crew, you will have 250 minutes allocated per day.

 

[Johnny boy]

@Johnny boy ... so this is a bit confusing to me, but I don't claim to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Our businesses are not related but they do have some commonalities. I have Tour Guides. Each tour pays x amount + tips. Want to make more $ ? Do more tours. The motivated people rise to the top. Would this work with your business? You pay x amount per yard. Want to make more $, do more yards. I might be way off here.

There is not a bucket of customers we can scoop up and pour onto their schedule at an exact capacity.

People come in through our ads or finding us, we sign them up, they go on the schedule.

The first day our employees would be like “hey I’m ready for more yards”. And we would have to say “sorry”. Or if we lose customers or hire someone new, there’s less work for each person and they take a pay cut through no fault of their own? That’s a recipe for failure.

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

responding to an old post in case it is useful:

The problem with this approach is it relies on adding new business near the existing territory. It heavily penalizes new accounts outside of the existing service zone. A better methodology (although probably a bitch to accomplish using spreadsheets) is averaging out the total drive time across all the orders scheduled for one crew on each route.

I'll just assume that you have a spreadsheet with crew name (column A), customer address (column b), arrival time (column c), and departure time (column d). All column titles are in row 1.

You sort that data by crew / arrival time. You then make a new column "travel time from previous job" (column E). You leave the first job of the day (cell E2) blank per crew (or put in the time it takes to drive the trucks from wherever you keep them). In cell E3, you type in the formula "=C3-D2" - the difference between the arrival time of the second job and the first job. You just drag that all the way down. Then you make a pivot table and take the average of column E and there you go. You can add extra granularity if you'd like. Traffic is probably as big a factor as distance too.

 

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[Johnny boy]

responding to an old post in case it is useful:



I'll just assume that you have a spreadsheet with crew name (column A), customer address (column b), arrival time (column c), and departure time (column d). All column titles are in row 1.

You sort that data by crew / arrival time. You then make a new column "travel time from previous job" (column E). You leave the first job of the day (cell E2) blank per crew (or put in the time it takes to drive the trucks from wherever you keep them). In cell E3, you type in the formula "=C3-D2" - the difference between the arrival time of the second job and the first job. You just drag that all the way down. Then you make a pivot table and take the average of column E and there you go. You can add extra granularity if you'd like. Traffic is probably as big a factor as distance too.

We have a map of customers.

Salesman pulls up map and guesstimates drive time from nearby houses and rounds up to closest 5 minute interval to factor in unloading the trailer, stopping for gas, etc.

It’s an art not a science.

The key is “leave yourself some margin for error”

One persons house can be an extra 30 minutes one visit just because the trees at their house decided to dump all the leaves at once on one specific visit.

God laughs at you for being too analytical.

Do not count pennies and trip over dollars.

You can charge way more money and not have to be so granular in your pricing, just wear a polo shirt, smell good and brush your teeth.

Leave room for errors and miscalculations. Nothing will be ideal, that’s okay.

Relying on perfection will break down when it’s time to put $18/hr employees to work and find out that they don’t give a F*ck.

Biggest focus is on how we can do the 80/20 of servicing as many people as possible and get everyone quoted.

Remote quotes are garbage, not recommended. Way better to close in person.

 

[AceVentures]

Biggest focus is on how we can do the 80/20 of servicing as many people as possible and get everyone quoted.

Remote quotes are garbage, not recommended. Way better to close in person.

If they ask for a quote over the phone how do you respond?
Do you close them over the phone or are calls being scheduled for in-person visit?

 

[Johnny boy]

If they ask for a quote over the phone how do you respond?
Do you close them over the phone or are calls being scheduled for in-person visit?

Answering services agent asks if they want a quote

They say yes and then the agent asks for their info and picks an available time that works for them and they’ve got a quote scheduled

We call before heading over.

If they aren’t there or there’s any bs, we still take a look, put together the quote, which is a prefilled form that all they have to do is sign,

And we send it over email and text

On to the next quote

 

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[door123]

We have a map of customers.

Salesman pulls up map and guesstimates drive time from nearby houses and rounds up to closest 5 minute interval to factor in unloading the trailer, stopping for gas, etc.

It’s an art not a science.

The key is “leave yourself some margin for error”

One persons house can be an extra 30 minutes one visit just because the trees at their house decided to dump all the leaves at once on one specific visit.

God laughs at you for being too analytical.

Do not count pennies and trip over dollars.

You can charge way more money and not have to be so granular in your pricing, just wear a polo shirt, smell good and brush your teeth.

Leave room for errors and miscalculations. Nothing will be ideal, that’s okay.

Relying on perfection will break down when it’s time to put $18/hr employees to work and find out that they don’t give a F*ck.

Biggest focus is on how we can do the 80/20 of servicing as many people as possible and get everyone quoted.

Remote quotes are garbage, not recommended. Way better to close in person.

why is remote quote garbage? lower conversion rate or hard to price? We are currently signing up 2-3 clients every business day consistently, all remote. 12 month contracts and everything.

 

[Johnny boy]

why is remote quote garbage? lower conversion rate or hard to price? We are currently signing up 2-3 clients every business day consistently, all remote. 12 month contracts and everything.

A place with a 2000 square foot area could actually take 50 minutes a visit

A place with a 5000 square foot area to service could actually take 20 minutes a visit.

If you standardize your pricing, the only people that will signup with tend to be the kind with properties that seem like a good deal (the kind that take too long that you underbid)

You MUST. PROPERLY. BID.

Too high, no signups, too low, no profit.

Imagine you buy homes…

But you say “I’ll pay $X per square foot for anyone’s house”

The only people wanting to sell their house would be people with a shit house since it’s attractive for them.

But you’ll succeed at buying houses if you submit PROPER offers that are sure to be not too high or too low