Hello and welcome back to the LAN hustle.
I am your host Andy Wilson.
If you are ready to take your lawn care business to the next level, you're in the right place.
With 16 years of experience in the field, each week we dive into strategies, stories, and secrets that can help you build a legit thriving business.
Whether you're just starting out or you're ready to scale your business, this is your space to learn, to grow, and to hustle smarter.
Let's get started.
In today's episode we have Scott with Landscapes by Atme.
I appreciate him being here.
Scott started his business in 1996.
He's been in business for 29 years.
He is a veteran in the green industry, full of knowledge and wisdom, based on his real life experiences in the industry.
Scott, thank you so much for being on the LAN hustle.
Thank you for having me.
Let me ask you, Scott, every great lawn care business has its story of origin.
What was the moment for you personally when you knew this was the path that you wanted to take?
I started in the green industry right out of high school working for a company.
I knew within the first year of working for that company that I wanted to be more than just an employee.
I wanted to run my own place.
That's what I did is I went off and started my own stuff and still was able to work with the company that I was working with at that time.
The owner was pretty much a great help and get my business off the ground.
That was a great start for me.
That was 29 years ago when you started.
You have obviously seen just about everything that you can see in working in the green industry.
What's something unique about the way you approach business today versus the way you approached business 29 years ago?
Mostly, we take pride in our work.
That's one of the things is even when I started, I always wanted to go above and beyond.
I still do that today as we try to go above and beyond for the customer.
If we sell a landscape job and we're only installing, let's say, five plants into an area,
but the area that needs it done, once we're planting, it's still kind of bare.
We'll go ahead and grab a couple more plants and put it in there because we want to make sure that it looks better than it did from the get-go.
We wanted to look 100% better than anything else.
We wanted that customer to be amazed just in awe when they look at that job and how the neighbors go by and say,
wow, who did this and that's what we want.
I've always had that approach from the get-go and things had gotten skewed up there for a couple years and the way business has gone.
We've always came back to that point where we wanted to look 100% better.
We always make sure we take our time.
I like to say show up and show out.
Show up, do the job, show out and just show your customer and everyone that drives by the kind of job you do.
So I agree with you completely on that because showing up and showing out sometimes will get you more work than advertising in a local magazine
or putting an ad on Facebook because they drive by and they see the beautification that your team brought to that client.
So that's very important.
I appreciate that.
The green industry comes with its ups and downs.
Can you share with us a challenge that you have faced in the 29 years that you've been in business and how did that challenge change you or how did you overcome it?
Yeah, I'd say that the biggest challenge I've always had is employees.
When I first started, I really worked one year by myself and then I started getting employees.
Our business grew really fast.
So one of the biggest challenges has been employees trying to keep employees and get the right people to work for us.
The first employee we had worked for 10 years straight and we had no problem with that.
He just got kind of burned out at that 10 year mark and wanted to do something different, which it happens.
I see a lot of that, but we see a lot of other employees that come in and they think they can do this job and they get going and then, yeah, it's too hot for me or it's too cold when it comes to winter.
I didn't think it was going to be this strenuous.
There's always that, but I think the best thing that we look for now when we hire people is look to tell them, this is what goes on.
You're going to lift 50 pounds a day, maybe.
You're going to push a wheelbarrow that's full of rocks.
There's all these different things that we want them to know exactly where they get to go and we want to keep them here as soon as they get in here.
Then, you know, them to leave really in the first couple weeks.
We always try to say, you know, this isn't something that you're going to get used to right away.
This is something that you got to put the dedication into and it's going to take a couple of months.
It could take a year before you're fully up to our par where me and my other employees are.
You know, take your time and make sure that you take your time, ask questions, you know, don't overthink it and don't get burned out as much as, you know, other people have in the past.
So from what I have been told, I have a lot of younger listeners that are starting or have started the neck in the last four or five years.
What advice would you give those young entrepreneurs?
Those lawn care businesses that have been in business for two to three years.
What advice would you give them to help them have stickability and be able to stay in the industry?
I'd say the best thing I could say is you can know your numbers.
I mean, you know, when I first started out, I didn't know all my numbers and it took years before I finally found all my numbers.
And there's so many CRMs out there that can get you where you want to be at, you know, but take it little by little.
You don't have to go with the biggest program, the CRM, just go with the first program, learn your numbers, learn, you know, all your numbers come from everything you do normally on a daily basis.
Your insurance, your phone, your gas, your truck, your loans on anything you need.
Knowing all that will be able to get you where you want.
And I was always told by one of my entrepreneur guys that I worked with for years ago, he always said,
what do you want to make an hour?
Put that into your numbers and then that gives you what you actually need to make per hour and then divide it between your 12 months, you know, and then that's exactly what you want to make for your budget for the year.
I think that's one of the best things to do is once you know that number, you can go on and on and just keep growing from there.
And then, you know, if you want to add a person, you have to put that person's hours in there and you can still figure it all out easily if you know all them numbers right from the get go.
But, you know, starting out, it's always hard, but usually once you're in that second and third year, you can start to figure that out better and then advance your business and keep going with it.
You know, sometimes days are not always perfect too.
So, you know, you'll get some days that it'll be, you know, we have certain days that, you know, we only make, you know, 40% of what our goal for the day is.
But then the next day we'll make 150%.
So, each day depends on what kind of work you're doing too.
So, you have to realize that you're not always going to hit that goal every day.
But as long as you're hitting it in a weekly, you know, on a weekly fashion, that's awesome.
And that's where you want to be at.
And I don't think we can allow a client or a potential client to dictate our price.
Right.
You got to know your value, know how much it's taking you to get through that day and set your prices and stick to it.
You know, I've used this illustration before.
No one goes shopping at Kroger or the local grocery store.
And when the cashier rings up the car full of groceries and it comes to $300, no one says, well, that's too much.
I'm only going to pay you at $225.
Right.
It's that price.
So, stick to your price if you are starting out in the industry or you've been in the industry for just a few years.
Know your value, know your price and stick to it.
And don't let the customer dictate what you should be charging.
Right.
Every landscape business, I know I did probably within the first couple of years, you kind of plateau.
What do you do when you feel like you're plateauing to keep your business scaling in the right direction?
Sometimes you have to look back at what you have started and why you want to do it.
I think that's one of the main things is where do you want to go and where you started from?
You know, I started with a 20 inch and worked my way up and, you know, we went from one year to we had 12 employees and now we're back down to only a couple of employees.
And I think we realized you can still grow with the right employees.
If you have the right employees, you don't need a whole massive crew of employees just to get to where you want to have.
You need the right employees to do that.
And you always have to look at where you want to go and how you want to see yourself in the future.
And that's how you can be able to keep scaling from where you're at.
That's good advice.
Looking at your journey as you look back through the years, is there one thing you wish you would have done sooner?
I don't know.
I mean, I've made, we've had ups and downs.
I think one of our main things that I wish we would have done years ago in, it took us almost 20 years before we actually bought land and built our own shop.
And then we kind of moved out of it for a couple of years just because we didn't have the security and the electricity.
And I think I wish I would have started that years before that, getting my own property right away and being able to build our shop and be able to have the room for whatever we need to be.
I think that was a downfall and expenses.
You know, expenses are expenses and sometimes you don't want to pay too much for a place, but you want to have it the way you want it.
And that's, I think that was one of the things that I wish I would have done earlier than I did.
Oh, you and I were at Equip Expo just this past October.
What trends do you see heading towards our industry and the direction that our industry is heading?
I see a lot more battery-powered equipment coming in.
And I know there's some that are just, they're there, but they're not all, all of them are totally perfect where they need to be at.
And I think it's going to take a while before we get to that right going on battery products.
But there are certain uses that you can use battery for.
We love to use battery for our prunines, our chainsaws and stuff.
And I think in the long run, it's going to help us out in a long way, you know, from the future.
And I see that's one of the main trends that is going to continue to go that way.
And, you know, there's always room for gas equipment. There's never room for gas equipment.
And I think that's one of the main trends that I see.
And then I also see more younger people coming into the business.
And I appreciate that they want to be able to grow in this business and keep going and just keep at it.
That's all I got to say is just keep at it. You know, don't give up.
Well, I agree with the battery powered equipment. It's quickly coming to our industry.
And I agree also that we're probably a few years out still before it dominates our industry.
I've had some companies send me a few pieces of battery operated equipment.
And I don't think the battery technology is quite there yet.
But it's changing. It's getting better.
And eventually it will probably overtake our industry.
Last year in March, I was in California and the Airbnb where we were staying, a mowing crew pulled up
and they grabbed a gas powered backpack blower steel BR 800.
And he started blowing off the driveway in the sidewalk.
So when he shut it down, I walked across and I said, I thought you were going to,
we're supposed to be using battery powered stuff out here.
He said, they're going to have to catch me.
He said, we've got some. He said, but the batteries don't last as long as they should.
He said, so until they catch us and we get a fine, we're going to use the gas powered stuff.
So it's going that direction though.
And I know you're a part of Echo Means Business and they sent me that pink blower
for my breast cancer awareness campaign that we do every October.
And I love using that blower.
I have gotten so many comments and people stopping and asking me, where did you get that blower?
And I always tell them Echo Means Business, Echo sent it to me and it's for our campaign.
And I appreciate that.
I just want to say thanks again for that.
You're welcome. You're welcome.
What is it about the lawn care industry that still excites you and motivates you every day to get up,
strap on your boots and go work hard?
I'd say the main thing is just to be outside running my own business and being able to be outside.
I like to be outside. I like to put my hands in the dirt.
I like to mess around with landscapes.
I'm more of an artist. I grew up. I went to art school and stuff.
So literally when I go to do any landscape, I love the ability to just run with whatever I can.
And a lot of customers allow me to do that instead of drawing up a lot of plans and detail.
They tell me colors and I'll say, okay, I'll make it beautiful.
I'll run the colors around to where you're going to be amazed at.
That's one of the things I love about every day is when I woke up that I can go out and play in the dirt
and just do whatever I want to do that day.
And that's one of my main things I love to do.
It keeps me going. That's one of the things that definitely keeps me going.
We're going to take a break and listen to a word from my sponsor. We'll be right back.
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We're back with Scott from Landscapes by Acme.
I believe I heard on a podcast the story behind your business name.
Would you like to share that with us today?
Sure. I started like I was saying before I was in the art background
and I started to grow into wanting to do this when I got out of high school.
I took a business course and the place I took the business course,
the teacher said make a name for yourself that's going to stand out.
Back then we had the phone book so one of the things was I wanted to be part of the phone book right away.
And I liked art. One of the main things of why I liked art was all the cartoons.
One of my favorite cartoons is Mooney Tunes.
One of the main companies that's Acme that always sold stuff to Wiley Coyote and the Roadrunner.
That's why I went with Acme is because of my art background.
That was one of the first things that popped in my head.
At that time that was the first part of the phone book. It was AC.
Why not go with Acme? That's what I went with.
That's what I stayed with.
We've changed it around a couple of times but we still have Acme as our main name.
That is a really cool story.
Before we start to wind down here, let me ask you this.
We all have those unforgettable clients whether good or bad or unforgettable jobs whether good or bad.
What is a moment in your career? You have 29 years in this industry.
And let me just say our industry needs your voice.
We need your input because you have experienced it.
What has happened in your career that stands out the most to you?
What is the one job that you just can't forget?
It was just wow factor overload.
I've had plenty of them.
The one factor that always stands out is that we did a nine month project for the local business complex.
We had to bring in everything. We had to do all the irrigation. We had to do all the plants.
We actually got to redesign some of the stuff at one of the buildings.
It's a big restaurant so we get to go in every three to four months and we have to redesign some of the landscape planter beds.
It always stands out to me that it took us nine months.
Some of the hardest times because some of these beds were rocks.
We had to pull out rocks. We pulled out boulders out of these beds because these beds were not the best beds.
They were getting built over with pads and concrete.
It took forever to do a lot of this stuff.
Every time I go over there to change out the plants for the planter beds, I look at all the plants and I said wow.
Look at all what we put in.
When we started installing the plants and the trees, we installed 36 trees and over 350 plants.
A lot of that was done in three days.
We had to hurry up and get all the plants in before it froze.
That was one of the main things that it just wilded me how fast three of us could do it.
We just got going to it and was like okay here's the plants to this bed.
Let's just go ahead and every time I go by there, I look at it and I said wow.
Look at all that me, my company did and we've done this.
We still come back to the restaurant and continuously do work.
It just amazes me every time we go there of all that work that we've done for this place.
That's one of our biggest ones that we enjoyed on doing.
Even though it was a longer project, we still love that we have to be able to be a part of it too.
After 29 years in the business, where do you see your business in five years?
I see my business is still growing.
We're making some changes.
We've always been making changes.
We've actually been making changes more to the landscaping, more to the hardscape, more irrigation work.
We feel that we're going to continue to go at it for at least another 10 years.
Then probably at 10 years, we'll go ahead and close up doors.
In them 10 years, we're going to keep making wonderful, beautiful landscapes for everybody.
We'll be able to get ourselves out there farther.
I've been in a lot of green industry magazines and I'd love to be able to have a full page ad on all the landscaping that we do.
Just a big, beautiful landscape project and we'd be able to have it out there.
That's one of the things I've loved to see in five years from now.
If you're in the business for 10 years, it would be almost 40 years in this industry.
You and I both know it's not an easy industry.
The work is hard.
It has its ups and downs.
One of the things is, I'll let you guys know is that when I first started, I was perfectly fine.
I was in a car accident within a couple of years.
I have a metal hip which definitely puts some strain on me.
I still get out there and do it.
I think anybody can get out there and continuously do this.
That's one of the things that you move things around and it can hurt you in right away.
You're going to feel it, especially after 30 years.
You're going to be definitely feeling it.
I'll probably be really feeling it and be like, yeah, I'm not going to lift this plant around.
I'll make sure I get a machine to move this plant around.
I still get out there and do it.
That's one of the things I love to do.
Let me ask you this on a fun note.
What is your favorite brand of hand tools and what is your favorite brand of mowers?
I'd say my favorite brand of hand tools is AM Leonard.
We started using them about five years ago.
We love the quality of them.
The ones that are just more of a poly kind last forever.
We love that because we can run them over and we're not having to replace the handles.
It's a lot better for us time wise too.
They're one of the best hand tools I love.
Mowers, we've been using gravely for, I just pulled up a picture the other day.
We were using gravely in 2004.
We've grown almost 20 years using gravely mowers.
We go back and forth like, hey, let's go try this mower.
We'll try a mower out at a quip and then we'll be like, nah, we're just going to stick with our gravely.
We love gravely and that's one of our favorite brands to use between gravely and errands.
Actually, we bought an errands last year and we love it.
With them having both brands, it's nice to be able to use both brands and know that you're getting good quality product out of it too.
How can our listeners find you online?
How can they support you and how can they stay in contact with you?
You guys can find me at Landscapes by Acme.
I'm on anywhere from YouTube to Instagram to TikTok to Facebook.
You can also find me on my podcast, which is a weekly podcast, Landscaping to the Point.
You can find it on Spotify.
You can find it on Apple.
You can also find it on Boots on Ground radio station every Thursday at noon.
So definitely if you need to go get a hold of me and just look up Landscapes by Acme, I'll be anywhere.
There's 2,449 followers on Instagram, 670 followers on TikTok.
He has 234 subscribers to YouTube and I want to encourage my listeners to follow him.
Give him a like, give him a subscribe to his podcast.
Hit the notification button so you don't miss an episode.
I am a frequent listener.
I see them live on Instagram and listen to their show quite often.
And I appreciate his voice in our industry.
And 29 years is just amazing to me that I've been in it for 16 years and I thought that was a long time.
Oh yeah.
You don't realize it until you actually think about it.
You know, you're like, wait a minute.
That long vow, you know, it's it adds up quick.
Well, before we wrap this up, why don't you give one piece of motivation to our listeners or a piece of advice that you would like to leave for our audience of hustlers in the green industry?
Yeah, I can give you guys a good advice.
I would say that no matter how hard it gets, just remember that tomorrow is a new day.
And, you know, every day that you start is going to be better, you know, than the next.
And you can always predict how you want it to go throughout the day.
So just take your time.
Just realize some things are not going to go right.
But sometimes you got to take that time and just say, okay, I'm not from today at this and I'll reach it back at it tomorrow and just keep going.
Don't don't ever stop and don't ever give up.
Just keep going.
Follow your dreams, follow your goals and just be able to keep going and growing and get to those goals that you need when you want to.
So don't stop at it.
And know that failures are not fatal.
Right.
If we make a mistake, if we come up short, if we learn a lesson from that mistake or that failure, then it becomes a an education.
An educational issue for us and we learn from it.
We press ourselves off, we get up and we fight another day.
As Scott said, don't ever quit.
Don't ever surrender and don't ever give up.
I hope today's episode gave you the tools and the inspiration to grow your lawn care business and reach your goals.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Leave us a five star rating and a kindly worded review and share this episode with fellow hustlers in the green industry.
And as always, keep hustling, keep growing and keep turning your passion into profit.
Until next time, take care and keep the grass greener on your side.