Welcome back. Today we're going to talk about how to make your landscaping
business grow. This is a great topic. I love the girl topics. If you're watching
this video, I'm assuming that you own a landscaping business. Do you? I hope so.
I can talk about 2 main topics today which I think will be super helpful. I
really like this topic. I was a growth mentor to a local business owner on the
landscaping company. Younger gentleman and he's really grown that business
through the roof knocking it out of the park.
The first topic I'm going to talk about is process. I made him read this book.
It's called the e-myth revisited. It's by Michael Gerber. And it's really... It's just
a great book. And this book just talks about how to really build out processes
and systematize your business and move from the operator to the business owner.
And there's a major difference. He actually read this book. Took my advice
and took his business to a whole another level. Cracked seven figures in
sales which is amazing. So kudos to him. Building our process is so important. A
lot of times people in the landscape industries, landscaping your business.
Never focus on process they get started with a truck or 2. With some lawnmowers,
some equipment, a few guys and they just overnight get inundated with moving from
the next job to the next job to the next job. Which is all good. You have to bring
the jobs and do the business and grind it out. In the beginning, there's
absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there becomes a point where it just gets
extremely overwhelming and you have to make that step to becoming a business
owner and move from operator. And in order to do that, you really have to put
processes and systems in place. Without processes and systems in place, it is
impossible to grow. It's extremely tiring, it's frustrating and you find yourself
really at wit's end. So, what does that mean? You know, saying
process or systems... It's kind of hard to explain what that exactly means
but picture a business where your phone rang, you didn't answer it. Estimate...
An estimate was scheduled and completed. And then a job was booked and scheduled
and completed. And it was collected on. And you didn't get involved in any part
of that process. Because you put the right people in place and you had the
right systems and process in place in order to do each one of those
steps from the phone ringing to scheduling the job to completing the job.
And all that was done by having the right process and people
in place. If you're not there yet, it might be hard to see and there was a
point in my business where I thought a lot of things that I did were virtually
impossible to have someone else do. But there's absolutely not one thing in the
business that someone else can't can do. It just takes some time, some trading and
then putting the right process in place around how to get those, you know, each
one of those tasks done and completed. One example is there's a landscaper that
shows up with a notebook or not even a notebook. And thinks that they're going to
remember everything. Or the person that shows up with a work order and a
checklist and goes through that checklists. Does everything. It really
goes through everything that you want to get completed at your house. Whether it's
for the whole season. Whether it's the the spring cleanup, the fall cleanup.
Whether it's a monthly type of maintenance plan. But there's a checklist
to make sure that everything's being hit. But more importantly is what happens to
that checklist after you leave the customers house. who is that given to? Is
it given to someone in the back office that takes that schedules everything out
accordingly? Puts a billing in place and then ensures that everything gets
collected. It's so amazing how many landscapers don't... How not set up an auto
billing. And they're sending out invoices either once a month or every week for
weekly maintenances. All that can be set up in the simple platform where you can
automate all of your billing. And then any of the ones that fail monthly, you
just follow up with those. So these little things we can go through your
business and systematize everything. So you can keep your eye on the ball and
focus on booking more jobs and growing your business is so important. I think it
would probably be good as I have people do this is stop, take a second, grab a
piece of paper and a pen and write down you know, what are all the things
that you need to get on your business? What would that look like? Imagine your
business running... You know, running itself without you being involved in the
day-to-day. What step-by-step things that you would need to put in place? One other
example is it sounds so silly. But a lot of landscapers or contractors have their
phone go to, you know, their business phone go, to their cell phone.
What happens if you're out in the field working or with the customer? On an
answering service is such a simple thing. It's a very inexpensive cost. And every
time your phone rings you can go to an answer
service and someone can answer that call for you. A live person. So it ensures that
you don't miss any phone calls and every time someone calls you there's actually
someone live answering. They don't get your voicemail that they can tell us a
cell phone and then hang up and move on to the next,
you know, landscaper that's down the road. So, these little things, these little
different areas are super important in your business. Definitely read this book.
Check that book out. The e-myth revisited by Michael Gerber. It changed the way, I
looked at my business. When I read that book, I probably had about 10 employees.
I now have almost 100 employees. And in built a multi-million dollar business
over the last 10 years. And there's so many things in my business that I
thought for sure no one else can do and that's absolutely not true.
And once I put major focus on processes and systems, it gave me the ability to go
and grow. If you're going to try and grow without the right processes and systems
in place, it's virtually impossible. You'll get some movement and then it'll
just be a complete disaster. So, the second topic and we're going to
assume that you put processes in place and you're making an effort to do this.
You've read this book. The next step is going to be capital. In order to grow any
business, you can need capital. You can eat capital to buy trucks,
additional equipment, to book staff. Maybe run some advertising. In order to grow
any business, you're going to need capital whether you borrow from friends and
family or borrowed from some sort of a lending institution. A lot of banks
aren't so fond of working with contractors and landscapers. But there
are lenders out there that specifically focus on contractors and landscapers. And
there's a number of different products that are available that can help you
grow your business. From equipment financing to financing your trucks. All
your landscaping equipment. Over a decent period of time. 2 to 5 years.
And there's also credit lines that are available where you can draw funds as
needed. Let's see it get a big job and you don't have the cash on hand. If you
have a credit line in place then you can use that money to take on the additional
job. You should never capital access to capital. Should never be a reason why you
don't take on any additional work. So, it's super important that you get all
this stuff in order in order to grow your business. Over the years, we've
helped business owners across the country obtain 1 billion dollars in
financing. Thousands of different business owners,
thousands of contractors and hundreds of landscapers just like you. If you'd like
to learn more, click on the link below. We'd love to help. Thanks for watching my
video, please subscribe and I look forward to seeing you again.