Join Frank in the studio as he continues his discussion with his production manager,  Bobby on the “ins and outs” of lawn aeration.   In this second part podcast, Frank discusses with Bobby some of the factors relating to lawn aeration like pricing, lawn challenges, and customer retention as he just finished up the late spring schedule of their lawn aeration process.

Frank:
We’re going to continue our talk about the ins and outs of lawn aeration and how it can be profitable for your 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:
What’s going on lawn care pros? So today we’re going to continue our talk with Bobby about the ins and outs of lawn aeration and how it can be profitable for your business. So now that we’ve covered that irate customer I want to talk to you a little bit about, you know, the pricing on lawn aeration and we’re not going to get specific as to the number of lawn aerations that we did we’ll just say, you know, it’s in the hundreds and hopefully in the next year or 2 we’re gonna be in the thousand, right?

Bobby:
Right. 

Frank:
So, but we’re not going to get specific into the exact numbers but as far as the profitability of lawn aeration, you know, we can kind of talk about that. And we’re gonna actually post some long form videos showing like an entire lawn aeration from start to finish and in those videos we’re gonna actually reveal how much we charged the customer and how long it actually took to do that lawn aeration and how many people it took to do it. And generally, you know, well always it’s just one person and we’ll reveal that in the long form videos that we’ll be putting out here pretty soon. So, let’s jump in into the pricing and, you know, how long it typically takes and that kind of thing. So tell me a little bit about and again we’re going general form so tell me a little bit about some of your smaller lawns that you did and how much they typically cost the customer. How much revenue that brings in for us and let’s talk about you know like a big huge lawn that we might’ve done and how much revenue that brought in.

Bobby:
Sure! So, on our smaller lawns it’s gonna be a little more around $100 or so. In those kind of lawns we can usually get in and out within 15-20 minutes of doing the actual aeration, clean up, walking it looking for safety issues to begin with and loading up and getting out. So, it’s pretty efficient on those smaller lawns. And now on those bigger lawns, you know, when you’re talking about thousands and thousands of square feet. You know, I think some of our longest ones take about 45 minutes to an hour but they’re pretty expensive. It would be a few hundred dollars to do that. I can tell you from a production standpoint what I try to schedule is about $1,000 a day and a little over $1,000 a day in revenue. And that’s kind of the best way to judge on how many to give that person as long as it’s within a good area of drive time. Because you can’t really go by how many stops cause it’s all about the square footage and just from our experience in the past if that person’s able to do a $1,000 worth of productivity then they’ve done a good day’s work and has been able to be a profitable day for us. And typically they can be done within an 8 hour day. And that’s kind of the balance of it.

Frank:
Okay, great, so another question for you. It just dawned on me is, you know, how do you handle like small gates or areas that you can’t use any of the machines. Is there like a special tool that you use where you can still aerate those areas? And again, how do you handle like small gates?

Bobby:
So, we do have 2 machines, one’s a larger machine that is kind of like what I would say is kind of the top of the line Cadillac of the market to where it does a lot of the work for you. It’s not such a manual, it’s actually kind of like a self-propelled and it pulls along and does the aeration. The other one is kind of the old school where you get behind and you push and as it’s going it’s punching the holes aerating the ground. The small one and old school one does fit through just about every 30”-32” gate. It can be tough but the thing with that one you turn it off and you’re able to push it. Whereas the other machine, the really expensive machine, you can’t push it. It has a motor in it and it just doesn’t allow you to go free to be able to push it. You actually have to let the machine do the work. So a lot of the times on a lot of the tighter ones you really have to move, you know, half an inch, half an inch, half an inch, and then you gotta get through but with the smaller one we’re able to get through probably 90% of our gates. There are few times there some areas or a small gated area or there’s a step right there and you can’t go down the stairs. We have a hand-held, just almost a pitchfork kind of thing that has 3-4 places where you can step on it and you step on it and it punctures holes just like the aerating machine. It’s kind of like a manual one that we will use in smaller areas that we can’t get the gate or the machines into.

Frank:
So that’s awesome. So basically, you know, just if you’re gonna do lawn aeration you kinda need the right tools for the job, right? And you know when I first started out way back when when I was doing the maintenance side of the business I started doing a little bit of lawn aeration as well and that was the smaller machine that you’ve gotta kind manhandle. It manhandles you, right?

Bobby:
Right!

Frank:
So, it’s like really physical and that’s the one that gets through the gate and such, right?

Bobby:
Correct.

Frank:
And now would you want to just have that one or has it been more profitable from a production standpoint to have the more expensive machine even though the more expensive machine might not get into the very, very small gates. But it does get into like most gates, right?

Bobby:
Oh correct. It does, realistically if it’s 36” or bigger it’s gonna get through. It’s really those few older properties that have a 30” gate or maybe they’ve made some adjustments to the gate or they have some stairs or stone-work or something that makes it to where you can’t quite fit through. But that big machine is definitely worth its weight in gold. That guy, the productivity is like 10 to 1. You can really do 10 feet to 1 foot of that other machine. It’s just so much faster and then not only that you can really do, you know, thousands and thousands of square feet with that machine and your, that operator is not worn out. Whereas hundreds of it with that other one will wear them out really fast. It’s a totally different operation. It’s completely different.

Frank:
Awesome, awesome. So, let’s go back a little bit. We were talking about you know when you’re doing the lawn aeration how we have the customers that are flagging the different areas and obstacles and such. But again, they fail to do that from time to time. And what I want to talk to you about is you know damages, right? So sometimes there are going to be damages especially, you know, those solenoid irrigation solenoid covers. Which those are like a buck or two from home depot. So if you’re going to do lawn aeration it’s probably a good idea to have 10 of those on hand , 5 of those on hand and not even worry about “they didn’t flag it oh ok I’m just gonna swap it and replace it” customer doesn’t even know that it was damaged so they’re happy. So, it’s kind of being proactive right? But there are circumstances where you might run into some other obstacles or things underground. So, tell us a little bit about that and your experience from your production side. You know what things have we damaged or letting the audience know what to expect when they first start out. 

Bobby:
Great! Well first of all you’re right on the solenoid covers we do just have like 5 or 6 of them on the lawn, I mean 5 or 6 of them in the truck at all times. And if we happen to hit one that they didn’t flag we just swap it out. I mean usually it doesn’t break it just puts a hole in it…it is noticeable though so that’s just kinda the way we handle it. And in the past I have had technicians that hit it, broke it, and then, you know, they would go “ oh I’m gonna go run to so and so big box store and buy some more and then fix it” and that’s great, I mean they are trying to take care of the customer. I just made it easier on them by just having some in the truck. They’re pretty much, the majority of them are a standard size so it’s something you don’t have to have 20-30 different ones. You just basically need about 6 and that will cover you on most of them. Other than that we have hit some fiber optic lines you know for people’s computers and internet service that are supposed to be at least 6 inches deep and the machine goes about 3 inches deep and somehow we magically hit some and the customer will come out usually if they are home they will let you know immediately. Like “wow my tv just went off and my computer is not working” and unfortunately if it hasn’t been flagged there not really,  they don’t, they come out upset and they kind of want to know where you were at but they know it’s from the emails that we send them to start out that that’s their responsibility to let us know and to have it flagged but a lot of the time they don’t even know it’s not that deep. So we had a customer last year that that happened too. We were right there on the site doing the job and he came running out “oh the TV just went off” and he was like “where we were at” and I showed him and he was like “man it should have been deeper than that”. I mean he owned up to the responsibility of like wow that’s not your fault that should have been a lot deeper than that. So fast forward to a year later and we come back and the technician is like “ hey I know you don’t have it marked where that fiber optics was from last year” he was like “ oh no I had it rerouted all along the fence” and he’s like “I can show you exactly where it is at and you don’t have to worry about it this year”. So you know it was nice that he took ownership and he actually didn’t ask for anything to be compensated for what happened but every now and then we’ve hit a sprinkler head that the customer didn’t know was , maybe it had grass that had grown over it and then we hit it and then now it’s got a leak when they turn it on. And you know we’ve never had to replace anything as far as sprinkler heads. I have had from time to time given some good will to somebody and said “oh wow I’m sorry about that. If you didn’t have a flag you know but to kind of make things better for you and me we’ll just go ahead give you a little credit on the next service of something. You know whether. And I don’t ask them “hey how much did it cost?” That’s not my concern. If it cost them, if they called one person and it was $100 and they could have got it done for $20. I don’t want to make them feel bad that they could have fixed it themselves for $10. But I am just going to say “hey ok this is what I am going to do for you next time”. I don’t negotiate or I try not to let them negotiate the price with me on what they’re having to spend, I just tell them “hey just remember for next year we need to have all those areas flagged.” Sometimes there’s some underground drip lines from the sprinkler head to a tree and I know we’ve hit those before cause they’ve thought that they didn’t have to mark it. And I’m like you have to mark anything that’s not 6 inches or you know below. It’s kind of an education thing whenever you reiterate what you’ve already told them up front. That “hey this is what it says. You gotta let us know. Cause you’re the expert on your own lawn” and they kind of understand. And I’ve really never experienced anyone really upset. There’s always disappointment that it happened but it’s never, I’ve never had anybody that’s said “ don’t ever come back. And I don’t want you on my property “or anything like that. They do ask us ,you know, when you send the email and say that we’re not going to be responsible for any damages. I’ve had customers call in and say “what are you not going to be careful?”. I’m like that’s not what it says on the email. Our email just says if you fail to flag it or fail to flag anything we can’t be held responsible for that happening. You know obviously if we were to damage something that is our fault we’d take care of it. If we broke a window or did something crazy but you know because you didn’t flag it, it’s not like we don’t go ahead and try to help them look for those opportunities first. 

Frank:
Absolutely! So, that’s a really good point. So, in the email or in the communication we let them know that, you know, we’re not responsible for anything that’s underground or things that we can’t see. So, that’s something that I encourage our audience to really take a look at. And you tell them that upfront, right? So. if that doesn’t work for the customer then there’s not a mutual meeting of the mind. And when there’s not a mutual meeting of the mind then there’s not going to be a transaction. So, it’s that simple, right?

Bobby:
Absolutely!

Frank:
So, you’re gonna do the transaction with us but you’re going to do it on our terms. And our terms are that we don’t have those, you know, special powers of being able to see things that are under the ground, right?

Bobby:
Correct.

Frank:
 And you know your lawn the best. And it’s your responsibility to make sure that you notify us by flagging things or you know talking to us or whatever it may be. That “hey there’s something in this area make sure that you’re real careful or don’t even do that area”.

Bobby:
Right.

Frank:
So, if they can’t do that then, you know, they don’t have to sign up, right?

Bobby:
Correct. And then we do, we have had a couple customers in the past that said “ hey if you’re not willing to be responsible for any damages then I don’t want you to do the service.” I’m like…that’s fine. That’s absolutely your prerogative as the owner of your property. If you don’t want us to do the service it’s fine. We’re still gonna continue to do your weed control and fertilization. It’s not mandatory you get aerated. It’s an additional service that we offer. And if you don’t want to take that offer you are more than welcome to opt out and not do it. So, and like you said, if it’s not a win/win for both of us then that’s fine. But like you said they aren’t going to dictate the terms of how we do our business. If they’re not ok with it then that’s fine. They can, actually I’m ok, sometimes I go to lawns and they have already been aerated when we’re doing weed control and fertilization and I’m like we didn’t aerate this lawn. And it’s not like I go to the customer and go “hey what’s going on why did you have it aerated? Why didn’t you have us do it?” That’s fine if they want someone else to do it. Somebody out there trying to hustle make their money too. That maybe it’s the guy who mows their grass that’s fine. It’s just a service we offer for the customers.

Frank:
So, when comparing like lawn A, right? Lawn A that hasn’t had lawn aeration compared to lawn B, that you know gets regular lawn aeration from year over year, what would you say, you know, the difference is? Do you see a considerable difference? Do you see a slight difference? Or in general would you say lawn aeration is beneficial for the customer?

Bobby:
I would definitely say it’s beneficial for the customer. It really helps to help the lawn thicken up over time and when you pull those cores out and give the soil a chance to spread and let that air and water get down to the lower part of the root system, I mean, it’s one of those things you can really tell year over year the people who get it and those who don’t. I mean, I can almost always tell that hey these people are getting aeration. Or if I go look at that lawn and I think man they really needed an aeration and I look and they haven’t had one in 2,3,4 years. A lot of it too is in those high traffic areas where they’re walking and walking and walking and kind of beating it down. And that aeration can really loosen that area and gives the grass a chance to kind of thicken up and pop out and definitely makes the color better. I think the overall health of the lawn is greatly increased.

Frank:
Awesome, awesome! Thanks for joining me today Bobby.

Bobby:
Thanks Frank it was great being on the show!

Frank:
And for the audience I hope this was helpful. And we’ll catch you in the next podcast. See you next time lawn care pros!

Announcer:
Thank you for listening to the Lawn Care Frank Podcast. Please subscribe and visit lawncarefrank.com for more helpful tips and information.