Making Changes with Your Lawn Care Business Pt. 1 of 2
June 23, 2021 – Episode 22
Frank is joined in the studio today with Brant from All Seasons Lawn Care. Frank discusses with Brant the valuable lessons he has learned in his 20 plus years in the business and when to make changes. You will pick up some inside tips that you can apply to your lawn care business. This is part 1 of a 2 podcast series.
Lawn Care Frank:
So today we’re here with Brant with All Seasons Land Care and we’re gonna discuss with him his business and his journey in the lawn care business.
Announcer:
Welcome to the Lawn Care Frank Podcast! Where we help lawn care professionals, like yourself, start and grow their business. By tackling obstacles such as finding customers, hiring talented people, spreading brand awareness, and much, much more. And now your host…Lawn Care Frank.
Frank:
So today we’re here with Brant and he has a lawn care business here in the DFW, TX area. That’s the Dallas/Fort Worth Texas area, right? So, actually we’re, where are we? We’re in the North Richland Hills area that’s like a suburb of the Fort Worth area. So today we’re gonna talk with Brant about his journey in the lawn care business. Whenever he started out in the lawn care business that was a few years back and we just want to kinda figure out how his journey was, some of the obstacles, some of the challenges, some of the victories that he had during his journey. So, how are you doing today Brant?
Brant :
Doing well.
Frank:
Great, great. So, we’re here, this is Saturday right? So, we’re working on a Saturday. How’s that feel for you?
Brant:
It’s just another day.
Frank:
Just a typical day in the lawn care business, right?
Brant:
Yes, when you’re self-employed you work 7 days a week.
Frank:
That’s right that’s right. And I think that’s one of the….
Brant:
And 24/7.
Frank:
Absolutely, And I think that’s one of the misconceptions of people that, you know, they want to start a business and they you know say I’m working 40, 50, 60 hours for somebody else and they think you know that if they get into a business that they’re gonna work less. And that’s not always true is it?
Brant:
No not at all. You don’t go into business for yourself thinking you’re gonna work less or to work less. Your work load will increase or double.
Frank:
And that’s good you’re doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for your family, you’re doing it for your legacy. So you’re really trying to build something. But, you know, let’s go ahead and dive into what your business, how it was whenever you first started. Just tell us a little bit about how you started your business and some of the things that were challenging for you and just start with year one and then we’ll just kinda go through the journey and take a look at, you know, year by year.
Brant:
I went to work for a landscape company. Which was a pretty big outfit back in the 90’s. And I worked for them for a while. That’s actually where I really got the whole thing. Then I went to work for a chemical company doing lawn treatments. Just while I was out there I could just mow yards. I had just so many yards that would pay what I am making now. And then once I had those yards, if I had more yards. I could make more money. But it was, money was the main thing that triggered me. The hard part or the struggles I had was trying to juggle both jobs because you know you don’t start off with a whole lot of money or usually you don’t, so.
Frank:
I didn’t even realize… I think you told me in the past. But I didn’t really realize until you mentioned it again. That you worked for a chemical company. So you used to do like lawn treatments and that’s like fertilization, weed control and that kinda of thing. We’re not gonna mention the name of the company but tell me a little bit about, you know, how did you like working for somebody else? And what got you motivated to say, you know, I’m ready to move on, you know, what was there, was there like a trigger, was there a day that you said man I should be in business for myself.
Brant:
You know, I just always felt like I should be in business for myself. But it’s probably just, you know, when you’re out there and you’re working, You know you’re you know everything runs down hill. You know so you really want to be at the top of the hill so it’s not running down on you anymore. You know, so the problems that you have are the problems you create or you make for yourself. And those are the problems that you solve instead of solving problems for everyone else.
Frank:
Man, that’s really well said. You so when you work for somebody else you realize that there was something more out there for you. Right? So was there like, did you walk in one day or kinda describe to us the day that you put in your notice or just had enough. Or maybe you had already planned out that hey I’m gonna start my business and grow it to this level and then once I get some sort of an income coming in where I feel comfortable. Maybe you started part time you know, and you grew your business while you were doing the chemical treatment and then at some point you said hey you know I should go ahead and get into business for myself. Just kinda walk us through, you know, if it was that day right now?
Brant:
And again, I was just out there working and I was in sales at that time. I wasn’t actually doing treatments I was selling. So, I knew I had a few extra hours a day 7 days a week that I could actually mow yards. So, I took a small loan out from a friend of mine. Bought some equipment and you know just started one yard at a time from there. And then eventually I had enough lawns to support me leaving. And it was a little bit of a struggle. Actually I had to leave before I had just enough business. But anyway, I ended up leaving them, putting my notice in, serve that notice out and then just started building one yard at a time. And then I would, in the evenings I would deliver pizzas to help offset the loss of income from a full-time job.
Frank:
Man, that’s great. So, it just shows the entrepreneurial mindset that you had. You know you didn’t wait till you know you had fully replaced your income with the chemical company. You kinda went in there with not having the same amount of income. But you were able to as an entrepreneur you were able to kind of supplement that income with whatever that takes. And nowadays I look at this generation. They’ve got so many opportunities you can do like uber, grubhub, there’s so many one-off jobs that you can do nowadays that some of that opportunity wasn’t there when you were getting into the lawn care business. But you still found that way. Right? So, tell me a little bit more about when you first, you know, made that leap. You know, how many lawns, you probably don’t remember, but maybe you do. How many lawns did you have? What was your, did you have like a plan? Like I am gonna get up to like 30 lawns. I am gonna get to 40 lawns and then I am gonna hire someone. What were those dreams like?
Brant:
Well, you know of course that’s the whole purpose of getting into business is you have these plans that you’re gonna get so many lawns. You’re gonna hire somebody. You’re gonna hire another person then you’re gonna be able to start another crew. And then hire and then so on and so forth. When I left the chemical company I was at about 25 yards. It wasn’t a whole lot you know, I had $30-$27 average back then. You know and from there we just built up until about 70 yards and I then hired a guy or 60 I’m sorry 60 yards and then I hired a guy to work with me and then think when we got to about 80
I hired another guy so it was 3 of us running in this.
Frank:
So, whenever you went and did you know 25 yards you were doing that kind of by yourself. And then you kept building that route and, you know, at first you were supplementing that income by doing pizza delivery and then you kept building that route so you got up to like 60 then you said you know. And 60 by the way, that’s a lot of lawns to mow on an individual basis. Right? That’s you know 6 days a week ,10 yards a day. It’s very doable but at some point you know that gets, you know, tiring if you do it week in and week out and week in and week out. So, at that point you made the decision hey I’ve got enough income where I can go ahead and hire someone. So that was kind of a pivotal point in your journey. And what’s interesting is you said that you went from 60-80 and you then hired another person. Which personally I commend you for that. It shows you saw the value in your time and your goal was to get yourself out of the mowing and labor-intensive position so you can focus in on other things like sales, marketing, and you know answering the phone because to some of our new viewers or new listeners there is more to it than just mowing. Right? It’s not like hey I am just gonna pick up a mower or weed eater and I am just gonna start mowing. Tell us a little bit about that. Tell us about what you think made you want to get that second guy and move on to other things.
Brant:
You really, I mean I believe when you go into business for yourself your goal should be to take yourself away from the actual production side of that. And like you said, go into the sales and the marketing part of that. But anyways, that’s your goal. That should be your goal to get outta doing the production and do more of the marketing. But the easy part is the production. That’s easy to go out and mow the yard. And move to the next yard. But also, I was very fortunate too. I started off, the reason I was able to do 60 yards I started I only had 3 zip codes and they were all right next to each other and some of the zip codes ran into together, so it was so easy to run those really tight. Which is the key to doing this.
Frank:
So, you did some of the right things right from the get-go. That was something I was hoping you could elaborate on and talk a little bit more about is you know you always hear about route density and route density. And you had the foresight that or maybe you got lucky I don’t know right? But I think you had the foresight to see that it’s so important to keep the route density so you’re not traveling all over the place in order to mow one lawn to another. And that’s what lead you to be able to do 60 lawns by yourself. Even though I mean I can imagine that’s a lot of work, day in and day out. Talk to us a little bit about like how you feel about route density and you know, how that really helped you and where you are in your business right now and how that’s important now as well.
Brant:
Well route density is the key if your yards are not tight the route is not tight you’ll lose. I mean you cannot do this business. You cannot go across town doing $35 yards. You know you have to try to keep those with a 4-5 mins a piece to the best of your ability. Sometimes when you’re starting out you take whatever you can get especially when you’re by yourself. Because you can eat the labor up because it’s just you but it is key to your success is to keep that as tight as possible.
Frank:
Absolutely, absolutely. So, going back now in your journey so, now you got a couple guys and how are you feeling at that point? Man this kinda of easy breezy or are you kinda feeling like man there’s a lot more to this that I thought. When I left that chemical company I had a different vision than I do now. Right, so your goggles kind of change from the point that when you leave a company and you start your own company and when you start moving into your company and you know going through that journey. Did you find it like it was easier than you had expected whenever you first started or did you think man I have a lot of challenges ahead of me?
Brant:
Of course, you definitely have a lot of challenges ahead of you. It’s much easier to work for somebody else and dream about what you want to do. But when you get out there and actually do it it’s pretty scary. You know cause now you’re depending on yourself. You know when you work for somebody and you make a mistake you still get a check. When you make a mistake when you work for yourself you don’t get paid.
Frank:
That’s right that’s right. That’s something that everybody forgets. Right? That you know like maybe an employee comes up to you. Well, you do it that way. Yea if I break it I pay for it. If you break it I still pay for it. Because I am the owner right? So, going back to you’ve got the 2 employees, you’ve got 80 lawns. Remind me again that was like a year or 2 into your business.
Brant:
It’s probably yeah like 2 years into it. And by the time we got there. We’ve, I grew extremely slow. You know because I had to do everything. I had to. Back then technology wasn’t like it is now. So, it wasn’t as easy. You had to go out and physically bid every single yard. So, you know you had to squeeze that in. That was one of the things that help getting the route density was you know you’d be on that street and they’d come out and you want to mow that lawn immediately. When they come out there and ask hey can you do my yard because you don’t want, you know you want to bring those in and make it as tight as possible. But anyway to answer your questions that was 2 years in when.
Frank:
And at that point I know you said when you first started you were doing mowing. Were there some additional things you were doing that were you doing like you know shrub trimming or were you just picking up anything and everything that you could. Tell us a little bit about that.
Brant:
I stuck with, I would do some fertilization and mowing. Shrub trimming, some bed cleaning and if they wanted flowers or mulch I would put that in as well.
Frank:
So, what would you do like let’s say I am a potential customer or a neighbor of somebody that you are servicing and I come out and say hey I saw you guys doing this great work. I would love for you guys to mow my lawn. But I am looking for a full service, I want someone to take care of my landscaping. What would you tell them? Did you go ahead and take on some of those accounts?
Brant:
I did. Looking back maybe I shouldn’t of. Some of it was a little more than what I was capable of doing and I think it held me back on growing.
Frank:
And that’s typical right? I mean that’s typical whenever we’re first starting out. We’re trying to please everyone. It doesn’t matter if somebody calls from across town. Or a family members friends daughters sisters uncles brothers aunt says hey can you come mow my lawn and I am 50 miles away. And when you’re first starting out and you’re like oh sure I’ll do it.
Brant:
You want to take everything you can. You want to do everything cause you don’t want somebody else coming along and do it. Or you don’t want to let somebody else down who referred you over. And then they go find somebody else and then now you lose them to that new person they found as well. One of the biggest misconceptions in at least in this industry for me is and you might disagree but there’s a concept out there or a phrase out there and it’s own that yard. Or own the backyard. Own someone’s yard. No, you don’t want to do that. You don’t want to do everything. It’s ok to say I don’t do that. That’s something that I had to learn. It took me years to actually learn that.
Frank:
That’s a really good point. And that is a misconception in this business that a lot of people think that you have to do everything. I am a believer that you have to niche down. So, at what point in your journey did that lightbulb come on and say that I don’t need to do everything. Was it year 3? Or was it year 10? How long did it take?
Brant:
Because I am a slow learner it was probably year 15. When I started realizing that concentrating on the things you’re good at and that you know how to do. And focus on those.
Frank:
Thanks again for being here Brant and we’ll continue with this interview on the next episode. Thank you for listening and we will catch you on the next podcast. See you next time lawn care pros!
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