Welcome back to the Lawn Hustle Podcast. The
show where we help lawn care pros, outdoor service
hustlers, and the green industry entrepreneurs
level up their business, their mindset, and their
profit. Today we're diving into a big one, how
to use social media to market your business.
whether you're running one mower or a full fleet.
Social media is one of the most powerful tools
to build your brand, to get leads, and to create
a community around your work. And to break it
down tonight, we have a special guest, Chris,
from Beater Mowers Life. Chris welcome to the
lawn hustle. Thank you for joining the show Yes,
sir before we get into Strategies, let me tell
our listeners that Chris has 60 ,000 600 followers
on Instagram. I remember when he started his
Instagram and it was zero and it took off to
60 ,600 followers tonight. Before we get into
strategies, I want to start with your journey.
How did social media first become part of your
life and what platform? gave you your first real
breakthrough? Well I started out actually doing
the social media for the company I work for and
it all kind of played into me getting onto my
mower that smoked like crazy and I kind of said
hey there's no one that does anything about beat
up mowers on Instagram let me just try this out
And it literally was just a tryout. I was like,
you know what? I'll put it up. Whatever happens,
happens. I really am not ambitious. I'm ambitious
to do this, but if it doesn't go anywhere, well,
it doesn't go anywhere. So put it up. And in
a couple weeks, I had a couple hundred followers.
And I thought it was just about old mowers, but
people started sending me videos and pictures
of their new mowers. It was kind of weird, I
guess to say it was kind of weird, but it was
kind of fun. I'd seen a lot of different things
and it was pretty crazy to see how people interacted.
And I had my personal channel, I was following
a bunch of lawn care guys anyways because I love
it. It's my escape. Everyone else does it for
a job, I do it for an escape. And so I just started
kind of following people, people started following
me. And I kept my face off of it. I thought it
was just gonna be about beater mowers. I didn't
put my face on it. And I started out, I did a
crispy edges competition between three people.
And we crowned a king of the crispy edges. And
then the guys that were involved said, hey, we
should do this bigger. And I said, sure, no problem.
If I get to 1 ,000 followers, I will do it. And
I figured I had a year. All of a sudden, like
three weeks later, I have a thousand followers.
And I'm like, oh, now I got to actually do this.
So I reached out, got some sponsors, got some
prizes. And we ran the competition with 20 different
people, submitted a crispy edges to win. And
we crowned the winner. They got about, I don't
know, like $1300, $1400 in prizes. And that's
kind of how the community aspect started popping
into the site and becoming more of a community
-based platform. And it exploded from there.
I don't even know how it exploded. I don't even
know how it took off like it did. I still look
back and go, I don't really understand. I still
don't understand how it did it, but it did. And
it was exciting. It really was. well if i remember
i was one of your first followers i followed
you right when you first started your page and
i have watched your journey i wish my instagram
would take off like yours did um but i enjoy
your content i want you to know that i appreciate
your content and i appreciate all you do for
the green industry I know you're not a lawn care
business owner, but you are a part of this community.
And we appreciate all you do for our community.
You know, you just gave me chills. Seriously,
you just gave me chills. That was... I don't...
Many people have said it to me, but that one
just completely gave me chills. That was awesome.
Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. And it's heartfelt
because I'm sincere. You know, a lot of people
can try to do stuff for an industry and if they
never hear words of appreciation, they can feel
like they're not a part of it. But I want you
to know you are a part of the green industry.
So let's talk about picking the right platform.
Because every lawn care pro here's be everywhere
Be on tik -tok be on Facebook be on Instagram
be on YouTube be everywhere But that's not always
realistic It's a lot of work to post content
Especially if you try to do it daily It's a lot
of work by the time you video You edit you upload
you add music You add your hashtags, you add
your post description. It can be time consuming.
So which platform do you feel like is the most
valuable right now for lawn care pros or other
service based industries? Is it? Facebook, is
it Instagram, is it TikTok, is it YouTube? In
your opinion, which one's the best that we should
try to focus on? It depends on what you're looking
for. If you're looking for showing a great amount
of content, a great amount of information, explaining
a process very highly, you want to go to YouTube.
You want to have the shorts and the longs for
that kind of stuff. But that's an investment
in time. That's a huge investment in time. So
you're looking at taking 30, 40 minutes of video
and then editing it down to two to five minutes,
showing the stuff, explaining stuff, having the
right angle, doing all the right things. So you
can take up to two to three hours just to create
one video for YouTube. Then you have your quick
platform. I call it the quick is TikTok. Has
a lot of features you take a video and you can
hit an edit button and it does all kinds of different
Effects to it remixes it for you and does all
of it So I call it the quick platform is real
easy to do and what's good about that You can
drop it back into Facebook and to Instagram it
leaves the watermark on it that it's a tick -tock
But it's a quick it's a quick form then you get
into the Facebook in the Instagram now Instagram
I we'll say is for the younger generation a lot
more, so the sub 30 generation. Facebook is still
our generation, like the Gen Xers and the Boomers,
right? They still use Facebook a lot. Those are
intertwined with each other. And if you're gonna
be creating content, create one of those platforms
and link them between the two, and you'll easily
just double your bank for your buck, right? Because
you create on Instagram and you can automatically
save it to send to Facebook. It's simple easy
and quick But I always tell everyone everyone
gets too wrapped up on the time All right, I
created a 10 -minute video. I have to cut it
down to 30 seconds Don't don't get caught up
in that do time lapses and things like that,
but your best platform for quick results The
quickest results is TikTok. But you're not gonna
get a lot of customers if you're gonna look for
a customer -based environment. So if you wanna
show your online resume, TikTok is not the place
to go. You wanna be Instagram and Facebook. Everyone
has it, everyone looks at it, and it doesn't
get as lost as it does in, say, TikTok. Well
let me ask you this, Chris. How do you decide
what type of content that you want to create?
That's a good question. It is whatever comes
to my mind that day. Whatever pops up in my head.
I might have seen a video that triggered something
for me to do something creative with. Now I tend
to, I mean it's just my lawn. It's just my property
that I'm taking videos on the mower and the trimmer.
But I try to take different angles and different
things, and I can use it in multiple different
places. So I will take a hyperlapse of maybe
me cutting stripes, right? But I can take that
video and cut it into other stuff and kind of
build on what I have. I actually had a really
great discussion this morning. I actually was
on the phone for about three hours this morning
with a gentleman. kind of asking the same questions
and that's what really came to me like this is
what a good topic would be and he asked so how
long do you take to create a video I said well
I have all my stock stuff and if it takes me
more than five minutes I'm not doing it I have
it in my head what I want I'm not chasing a trend
I'm not chasing a music trend I'm not a certain
audio I'm not chasing whatever feels good for
that day I mean you'll hear anything from you
know, classic rock to Five Finger Death Punch
to Pantera, down to like Frank Sinatra. I mean,
it all... I'm a music buff. I like music, so...
I'm searching for music. Like, I'm searching
for stuff that kind of matches the video. It
kind of goes along with the video. I mean, there's
a lot of artists out there that I've never been
heard of, but I find them and I use their music
because I think it's great. And... I build it
that way, you know, build it from me. And if
you like it, congratulations, thank you so much
for liking it, but I build it for me first. It's
what I like, it's what my music is, it's what
I care about, and I'm not gonna go and chase
a trend just to try to get likes and views. Mine
is just, if you like it, great, if you don't
like it, okay, I'm all right with that. So would
you agree that... people overthink content and
don't post because they feel like they're not
creative enough or they don't have expensive
equipment. What would you say to someone who
is wanting to create but they feel like, well,
I don't have the DJI mics, I don't have the road
mics, I don't have this or that or the camera?
What would you say to them? Grab your iPhone,
grab your Android, and go to town. I have high
-end cameras that I have for the stuff that I
do for work. I have the mirrorless Sony super
duper cameras, right? I have DSLRs. I have all
these great cameras. Every piece of content that
I've created for Peter Morse life. It's been
on my iPhone. That's it. I have cheap mics that
I don't need a DJI mic. I have decent mics that
cost me 60 bucks, easy enough. I have a tripod
that has a magnetic back mount on it. And it's
light, becomes a selfie stick, it becomes, it's
a tripod. That's all I use. I don't use anything
elaborate. And I see, and this is the thing I
saw. And I see every time I go to Equip, you
got guys out there with the high, you know, the
microphones, the, you know, the GoPros and all
the high end cameras. And I'm like, now you got
to take all that off of that device, put it on
the computer, and then edit your stuff. I mean,
I edit right on my phone. Like everything is
done on my phone. I do not go extremely crazy.
like I said if it takes more than five minutes
to edit then it's not worth it because what if
you have that you know you spend an hour hour
and a half two hours doing a video and you got
it down perfect the music's right everything's
great and it bombs that's the first thing that's
gonna throw you into that spiral of can I really
do this anymore and I think that's something
a lot of people have to get out of their head
You either hit or you don't hit it's gonna be
that every day. There is I think there's 85 or
95 million Instagram subscribers, right? Everyone's
posting all day long. I mean you look at your
feed You just use you scroll down one second
and your whole feeds refreshed again So don't
spend the crazy amount of time editing but I
also say Be yourself when you're doing it. Don't
go crazy. I don't know how to say this. Don't
go super elaborate. Start small before you go
big. That's all I say. I had one video. I recorded
myself chomping up leaves, or mulching up leaves
is the industry terminology. I said chomping
up. But anyways, I was... chomping up leaves
and uh at my house stuck my iphone on a tripod
and just recorded myself it wasn't my best recording
but i got 463 000 views off that one 10 second
video and it wasn't my best but People like seeing
lawn care businesses out there and they love
seeing that instant gratification of that clean
spot where you just mulched over a bunch of leaves
or those stripes in the spring that pop and stand
out. Let's take a short break and let's hear
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we run the office. So we're back with Chris from
Peter. Let me ask you this, Chris. We're talking
about social media. What post has consistently
brought you the most views, the most likes, the
most shares? Is there anything in particular
that you can post maybe several times and it
just blows up every time? Dumb stuff Not gonna
lie to you guys falling out of trees You know
guys getting them over stuck in ditches those
are the things that just hit people want to see
destruction they want to see and I always I call
it dumb stuff and it's called dumb stuff and
dumb luck because That's the stuff that I've
gotten the greatest views on I'm serious, it's
crazy. I probably get more followers from posting
a PSA about cutting a tree with a chainsaw off
a ladder than me showing incredible stripes.
It's just how it works. Some people just don't
want to see stripes anymore, they want to see
dumb stuff. But I've posted inspirational stuff
that has gotten over... Inspirational post that
I've had a couple of them that hit over over
a million and a half That were just inspirational
type post nice But I've had I mean, I don't want
to be on horn, but there's been maybe 60 or 70
that have gone over a million and But the ones
that were over a million with the ones that were
not mined particularly it was maybe something
that something was sent to me and I cut it up
Did my remixing that I would normally do to make
it look a little bit different make it look a
little better You know slow -motion certain sections
that like focus on a certain spot But and then
I have a bunch of collabs that have done over
a million also I mean of I mean it was one with
my buddy from trim twin Brooke up in wealthy
a mass They were it was a fourth of July thing
and it had his One of his work is there and dumping
rock into the back of a truck and there was stone
dust everywhere a thing got like I think 18 19
million views because we're saying how he was
gonna die of silica poisoning because of all
the stone dust and it just things just take off
and Some things it's some things that you know,
you think should take off don't go anywhere But
that's the truth Yeah, and I try I do recycle
content because I mean obviously we're gonna
hit the winter and well, it's called recycle
time for me too because You only have so much
you can put up My advantage point being in the
position I am with my site is I have people from
around the world So I have my South African guys
my Australian guys my South America guys that
are gonna be pushing content to me and Collaborating
and sending it to me and let me cut it up. So
I do have that advantage on my site but I encourage
anyone who's doing any lawn care is video all
they can you know the tripod is a beautiful thing
put it in the lawn and just cut you catch what
you catch you catch what you don't catch I mean
you might be mowing for a half an hour and you
realize the phone fell over three seconds into
you mowing you didn't see it fall I mean I posted
those videos I call them my fails and you see
Then I'll cut out the whole span of the being
on the ground and it'll be the video of me picking
it up going, well, I lost half an hour of content.
But the fails are good too. Showing the failures
is also a great thing because it's not all peaches
and cream out there. You know you have a hard
day. You know that you're out there and you're
cutting and the belt goes. And you gotta walk
back to the truck and you realize you don't have
an extra belt so now you're... Now you're leaving
the motor at the customer site. You're going
down the shop and picking up another belt Those
are the things that I encourage all the guys
that are doing long care to post Post the fail
post the things that happen is every time you
do these posts It is the it makes things magical
for everyone to see it's not easy all the time
You know you have guys out there that are posting
stripes every day. Well It's not like that every
day. You're not going to get a perfect lawn every
day. I mean, if everyone had a perfect lawn,
it would be really boring, in my opinion. Because
if you think about it, you're going to get lawns
that are full of weeds. But if you can take that
lawn and make it look good full of weeds, you're
a good landscaper. I mean, my lawn two years
ago was weed central. But I still put stripes
into it. It still looked good. It was green.
I mean, that's all I can say, it was green. But,
you know, that's the focus everyone has to do
is focus on your everyday life and get out from
behind the camera. If you're gonna make your
Instagram or your Facebook account a business
-focused environment, it's your online resume.
It's what people are going to go and see. You're
gonna tell a customer, Hey, if you want to see
some of my work, here's my Instagram, here's
my Facebook, go scroll through it. But if you
make your site exclusively business, make sure
you keep it exclusively business. If you want
to have a fun page, or you can say like, you
know, Peter Moore's Life, you know, fun page.
That way you can post the funny stuff, you can
post the memes, you can post all the stuff that
kind of, you know, makes you feel good and happy.
But if you want to call yourself a business page,
keep it all business. Don't post political stuff.
Don't post anything that can cause a problem.
It can cause people to get angry. Because I've
made mistakes and posted some stuff that I thought
was a good thing to post. But it turned out to
backfire. You know, I posted something a year
ago in June, and it backfired really bad. It
dropped about a thousand followers in less than
24 hours. Wow. Because I said something that
I thought was very good to say in our community,
and I had a lot of people that disagreed with
me. And the comments I received... The nasty
things I received on DMs and on the post was
just, I had to delete the post. It was, people
were just so nasty to me and I was like, I can't,
I'm done. And one guy responded to me, oh what,
it took all of us yelling at you to take the
post down. I'm like, I just didn't want to deal
with the comments anymore. I said they were just
so negative and this is not the place we live
in. and I always say it too on all the videos
that I do and stuff like that, people that come
in and make political comments, I literally just
tell them, I'm hiding your comment because I
think it doesn't belong here. This is an escape.
This site is an escape from real life. It is
to have fun, get away, have a laugh, learn something,
and just share it in the community and build
each other up. Well, there's one thing I've noticed
about your content. If a video isn't yours, you
always give credit to who produced that video.
What is the importance of that in your opinion?
It's extremely important to pass that credit
back because those are the people that created
the content that took their time to make the
content and they used their editing skills. They
did what they had to do. Even if someone sends
me the video and asks me to do the edit form,
the right, I mean, first of all, it's not automatically
a collaboration. There's no questions asked,
it's not a tag. It's a collaboration instantaneously
if you send me something. But I take the video
and I cut it up, I do everything. The first line
in the comment is the person's name, their handle.
That needs to be up front in the right at the
beginning because, It gives someone an opportunity
to click on their name and go and follow and
comment on their stuff. And that's how I try
to put it out there. If I find something that's
a guy falling out a tree, I try to go as far
back as possible to find the original creator.
And if I can't, you'll see it in the comments.
Original creator could not be found. Pulled it
off of this page. So that way, if the original
creator sees it, They can go back to the page
that I pulled it off of and go talk to them and
say, hey, you didn't tag me in this. But I encourage
everyone to share each other's stuff too. I try
to often to get people to get into that and say,
hey, go out and pick 10 people today and share
them to your story and tag them. And to kind
of bring people to go look at other people's
content to like follow other people and enjoy
their content, too Well, I want to say I appreciate
the authenticity of your page I Think it's very
important. Like you said give credit to where
credit is due You know, I had a guy in my city
That was doing Facebook post in our local groups
and he was using pictures of my work. When I
was scrolling through what's happening in Newcastle,
Indiana, I saw his post and I recognized that
house and I got to looking. Well, that's the
rock job I did, or that's the mulch job that
we did, or that's the fence I built. So he's
using my pictures, advertising that he can do.
the quality of work that I do, and if you're
not careful, those kind of situations can bite
you and they can bite you very hard. Because
if you get a job and you really don't know how
to do it, it's going to show. And then people
will know that you're not the one doing it. So
I appreciate the authenticity of your page. It
really means a lot to me that you're giving credit
to where credit is due. So let me ask you this.
Is it more important to focus on high quality
content or posting consistently? Consistently
posting is what you need to do to hit that algorithm.
Now, and when I say consistently post, that doesn't
mean you have to post 10 times a day. That means,
if you're gonna post three times a week, and
you're gonna do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Do it every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Get on
that consistency, that way people that start
following you will know, oh, I'm, he was gonna
put out a new video on Wednesday, so cool, it's
gonna pop up in my feed, and I'm gonna get to
see a really cool video. That's where... I tell
people consistency matters. If you can sustain
one a day, that's it. You gotta do it. You can't
lax out. I take time off. There's during vacations,
I take time off from doing content. But what
I've done is I scheduled everything during vacation
to come out. I'm not gonna be commenting and
responding to comments on video, but there'll
be content going out every day. And that's the
most important thing. It's not about, and I'm
gonna say, it's gonna sound bad when I say this,
it's not about high quality content. It's about
good content, engaging content in 15, 20 seconds.
That's it. Because you're not gonna catch to
one side. Consistency is the key. Yes. Yep. Because
the algorithm likes consistency if you if you
if you're like say you post every day three reels
a day for an entire week and then don't do anything
for the next two weeks you fall off it's proven
fact the marketing group that we use for my company
I have a direct link to all the research all
the market status market data for Instagram and
I said you could post once a week as long as
you post once a week But consistency is the key.
Well, let me ask you this What mistakes do you
see people making? In trying to build their following
on social media If you could share what you you
think people are doing wrong, maybe you can help
some of our listeners grow their page and maybe
hit that that number where they can start getting
some revenue from their page it's the interaction
that is what so don't chase the follower chase
the interaction a page that may have 5 000 followers
but you have an interaction rate of over 10 percent
you hit the mark. That's where you want to be.
It's if you want to grow your page, growing your
page is about the interaction. It's about answering
comments. So example, say you do a mulch job
and someone comments, boy, that looks really
awesome. You follow it up with a question. Be
like, hey, you think it looks great? Is there
anything that I could have done better? You put
the ball on the court again, so you get the interaction
to start happening. You start getting discussions.
You know, other people see the comments, and
then they start chiming in. Hey, you know what?
If you used a pitchfork to spread it over here,
you would have saved yourself at least 20 minutes,
instead of hand throwing. You know, all these
things, and it starts a conversation. Once you
start a conversation, People get involved and
you start growing and people see it more I Call
there's a lot of guys out there. It's posting
ghost They literally post something and they're
gone they're not wait, they don't answer that
first comment that comes in and That's key You
answer that first comment that comes in you start
grabbing that cut that information back Well,
how important is hooks to get someone that's
scrolling to stop and watch your video? Highly,
highly important. If you're going to do, if you
have a three second clip of just a stripe, you're
gonna lose it right away. You need something
that's gonna snap them into, oh, I wanna see
the stripe. fade in or a pop of heavy music.
The other thing, too, is with the music. I'm
gonna tell you about 60 % of people are not even
watching the music, we're using the music. I
call them the work -in -bathroom scrollers. They're
sitting at their desk and they're like, they
don't want people to hear what they're listening.
So, words are important. People to read, that's
a hook. So if you're gonna do a voiceover or
you're gonna talk about something, put the captions
in there because that's your hook. Because people
start reading. Once you start reading, you tend
not to stop. And if you get anyone past the three
second mark, your reel's gonna work. Because
that's what Instagram's looking at. How long
is someone sitting on that reel? It's gotta be
at least three seconds. And if you look into
your statistics and stuff, you can see that.
Move to Facebook and Instagram you can look at
your professional dashboard and see the statistics
on each Item and you want to see what's the retention
rate of your of your reel? Now if you start having
45 minute to a minute reels your retention time
is going to be probably about 15 seconds So you
see that number and that's what you want to you
go to unless it's a video a big video that you're
describing something and It's more for your customer
base If you're trying to grow, you're gonna want
the quicker stuff. You want the snappy, high
vibrant colors, flashy stuff to draw your attention
in. But then you have the extreme on that. You
have guys that literally, it's all flash. And
you just kind of slide by it because you don't
really, you know what's gonna happen. Oh, it's
all flash, it's really nothing there. But the
three second hook. So it's not. just wanting
to get views on your page. It's about likes,
shares, repost, and it's about me or whoever's
posting responding to comments. And then to really
get the algorithm going in your favor, it's important
for me to comment on your post. or share your
post or like your post save them all of these
things matter now folks let me just tell you
we have someone who started with zero and got
sixty thousand six hundred followers tonight
so he knows a little about building his followers
Building his his page and what content gets people's
attention This has been really good Chris. I
appreciate you coming on the show I mean, I appreciate
the value that you are sharing with our listeners
Let me ask you this what has helped you grow
your audience the fastest over the last year
the commitment to the interaction, responding
to DMs, responding to comments. If someone specifically
says something on a reel, like, boy, that looks
good, how'd you do it? That's a comment you have
to respond to. You're gonna get a lot of people
say, oh cool, awesome, great, that looks good.
If someone actually makes a specific comment,
you need to be on that. I mean, it doesn't have
to be within five seconds, but you need to be
into your inbox a lot more often. And the way
I've done it and how I encourage people to do
it is schedule a time during the day. Take a
time, give yourself a half hour, give yourself
45 minutes, and go to that every single day.
That'll keep you on track so you can work all
day. All right, all right, it's lunchtime. I'm
gonna have a sandwich, I'm gonna grab a drink.
I'm going to scroll through my DMs, make sure
I answer all my DMs, and go through all of your
comments. You know, if you're only posting a
couple a day, it's easy to do. I mean, I'm posting
7, 8, 9, 10 a day, so it's a little more labor
-intusive, but my job allows me to do that. I
have a lot of downtime. I'm watching things happen.
I can scroll and respond to comments. Once you
get a reel that hits or a viral reel, you can
stop commenting You don't have to keep going
because it's already done itself for you It's
already it's already doing the comments for you.
People are responding people are talking. It's
staying healthy So you don't have to jump in
So when is? Posting too much You said you you
post nine or ten times a day When is it too much?
Or is it ever too much? It's never too much in
the respect that if you can keep consistently
doing it Now like I said earlier if you go and
do nine to ten posts of the day for an entire
week And then you go three weeks without posting
anything You might as well have taken all that
and just spread it out and used it across three
weeks There's no I mean you can you could post
30 times a day 40 times a day. I mean it can
be done, but you have to stay up on it. Personally,
I'm posting maybe three to four a day, but I'm
getting about three to four, five, maybe six
collabs a day. So a lot more is ending up on
my page that I'm not just doing, but I also have
a reservoir of pre -made reels. that are all
set to go, that I can drop in at any time. If
I notice that, like, all right, I only posted
twice today. I'll throw another reel in here.
Because there are days that I just don't have
time. And I use the edits app from Instagram
to do all of that stuff. And it's just a list
of all the videos I've done. I can literally
take and bring those over, go back and edit some
music, and change things up if I have to. Let's
give some beginners a little advice here. If
Elan Pro is starting out today, which platform
do you feel like they should try to master first?
And once they master that platform, should they
add other platforms to their list? I would say
master Instagram and Facebook. Those are the
quick scrolling, easy to catch eye things. TikTok,
I don't know how, it's for the much younger generation,
which I don't tend to look at. I'm on there,
but I don't look a lot. I don't have to spend
a lot of time there, because it feels like it's
just overwhelming. But Instagram and Facebook
doesn't feel as overwhelming. I say focus there.
Those are the places that if you wanna grow your
business, work out really well. If you wanna
grow yourself personally, they work really well.
Then, if you decide that you wanna start trying
to make the real money, and you wanna make good
money, you gotta go to YouTube. That's plain
and simple, but that's a dedication. That's,
you know, guys like Phil's and Nathan and all
these big time, and SB Mowing, they're all doing
YouTube. That's where they're making their money
because now they have the time to create a video
Spend two or three hours editing because that's
what they do for their work now is create videos
As a lawn care guys working seven eight ten twelve
hour days Last thing you want to do is come home
and create videos So I tell everyone Record as
much as you can and then pick a day pick a day
to just create as many videos you can Put them
into a schedule put them in your drafts and you
can pull from them all week long and you don't
have to worry about Creating all new content
every day Well, you have given us a lot of things
that we need to be doing As you look at content
and you watch people's videos What is the one
thing that you see that people should not be
doing? Unboxing. As soon as I see someone opening
a box, I tend to skip. It's just me, just how
I feel when I'm looking, because I've seen 100
of them. Unless you do it cool. Like I just saw
a guy do a pair of Elgin headphones. He lit the
box on fire, then opened it up. Okay, something
different, something cool, right? Something to
kind of get your mind into a different spot.
Like, all right, this is cool unboxing, right?
It's something different. You know, I have some
plans for a future unboxing that involves a lot
of stuff, and I think it's gonna be fun, but
you know, but just make sure you don't chase
the trend every single time. That's a big thing.
Be original, be yourself, and get your face in
front of the camera. A lot of people make that
mistake. Oh, I'm camera shy, I don't... It's
I don't think it works. I think you people want
to see faces. I Know we're hitting on the 45
-minute mark here. Oh, you're fine. I'm enjoying
this Okay, we can talk. I mean I have all night
to talk Well, what is the single best piece of
advice That you have for someone trying to grow
their business through social media Make quality
content. That's not about volume at that point.
It's about quality content. Discussing what you're
doing, especially if you're going to go in and
do a landscaping job. Maybe an entire yard makeover,
like new garden beds, new bushes, new walkway
stuff, and lighting. Take that and make several
videos of the steps that you went through. explaining
each step like we went and we priced out rock
you know and you have them at the at the at the
distribution place you know looking at different
rocks and showing the rocks explaining what is
different like all right this customer has no
budget really is an unlimited budget they like
river rock we found a place that had four inch
river rock or six inch river rock this is gonna
look amazing on the property Or, hey, this customer's
under a budget, here's some of the stuff that
you could do under a budget. We can go with three
quarter inch crushed stone. This is a good budget
friendly thing. And kind of explain your process.
And that will get you out there with a lot of
information. And it will help a homeowner to
make that decision. they're gonna see, you know,
Joe's Landscape Corporation, you know, multi
-billion dollar company, right, come in and they
have 30 guys that come in, the job's done in
like 15 minutes, right? But you're just one person,
it's gonna take you longer. But when you explain
the processes, people start to understand, all
right, well, I saw, you know, my next door neighbor
have their whole property done in... in less
than a day, but there's five guys there. I'm
one guy, it's not gonna take that period of time.
So you explain the process and what it takes
to do this. What equipment are you gonna use?
Are you gonna go rent something? And this is
good for across the industry. If you decide you're
gonna do five new beds, are you gonna do it by
hand? Are you gonna go rent a dingo? Are you
going to... Are you going to rent a miniax? Are
you going to run into problems? What about call
before you dig? All those little things. If you
discuss that kind of stuff, that's good content
and it's good information for people to see and
see the process. I like it when I look at the
guys that have been doing it for 20, 30 years
and they have processes. They have thoughts and
they like to share them and absorb it. So if
you put up good quality content, all these young
kids are going to absorb this. But they're also
going to be the ones that are going to say, could
we try this differently? And I think that's where
this line's got to start melting back together
is, hey, the young kids have all these thoughts
in their heads. They haven't been doing it for
30 years. They have a thought. Let's embrace
that thought and try to see if it works. if everyone
just kind of talks about things and Be friendly
with each other, you know, it's a big thing that
I have been pushing for the last two years is
Shake the hand of the landscaper that's on the
same street as you right now It's it's a duck.
It's it's so silly to say that but people are
in such competition with each other they're causing
more problems because if You are on the same
street as another landscaper. You walk up, shake
his hand, say, hey, my name is Chris. I would
love to talk. Can we have a coffee one day? We
can sit back and talk about things. Or, hey,
can we just talk on the truck? Because I got
an idea. Now, you're working the same street
as I am. We're about the same price. You say
you're 60 bucks a lawn, I'm 60 bucks a lawn.
Let's have a discussion. When we have to raise
prices, we raise them together. So we both go
up to $70 or $75. Because at that point, you
literally, you make your competition disappear,
and you become peers. That's good. Because you're
not knocking someone. So if. I don't raise my
price and the next guy raises his price. I'm
gonna get more jobs because everyone's gonna
say, well, Chris is 60 bucks and this guy is
75, just go to Chris. Now, I'll be overloaded,
I won't be able to handle them all, and I won't
succeed. But if we go up together to $75, no
one's pushing anyone out of the realm of that
area, and everyone wins. And now you have this
nice relationship. God forbid you dump a frickin
mower into a ditch. You got someone you can call
and go over and help rescue you. Or God forbid
you run out of 50 to 1. Something that happens
very often, because you don't think about it,
you fill in your gas tanks up and you're like,
oh, wait a minute, I didn't fill up 50 to 1.
Or I don't have oil. And hey, but can I grab
a tank full so I can just finish this yard? And
when I leave and I go to the gas station, I'll
I'll refill up. And those are the little interactions
that will save each other. There's a couple guys
down in Florida that started getting together
once a month and talk about the industry. And
some guys are like, hey, you're driving 20 miles
out of your way. I'm driving 20 miles out of
my way. Let's swap customers. Let's keep you
guys closer. And just building that and having
Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or anything like
that and if everyone kind of interacts with each
other and Likes their stuff and pushes their
stuff out It grows everyone together and you
get that community back no more fighting and
I know I'm kind of rambling, but it's kind of
like it's weird But I have these levels in my
head when I think about landscapers you have
the truck in the truck you have the weekend warrior,
and then you have the good guy, the real, you
know, good guy. Then you have the elite. There's
room for everybody. But every one of those has
to associate with another one. So if you're an
elite, you better have a weekend warrior. Because
if you don't want to take a lawn, you feed it
to that weekend warrior. You know, the good guy
is now feeding to the weekend warrior and the
truck in the truck. Now we all we all have areas
that people rent and They're required to take
care of the lawn They're not gonna pay a guy
80 bucks cut the lawn. They're gonna hire the
guy for 20 bucks just to make it short But associate
with those people and you feed off each other
because the chuck of the truck guy will not be
able to handle a high -end lawn because He won't
have the equipment But if you feed him the ones
that people that don't really care about the
quality just want to cut He wins and he's gonna
pass the good stuff on see on to the higher end
guy and everyone wins That's good all comes this
is all we we're all here to do one thing Make
some money feed our family and put a roof over
our heads. That's good. And if we can all work
together to do it It's good. I hear this all
the chuck -in -the -truck the chuck -in -the
-truck. I'm like they have a place at one point
when we all check in the truck At one point when
we started, I was, because I was clueless on
how to run a business. I was clueless on what
to charge. I was guessing. It didn't take me
long to figure out, you know, I'm not making
any money on this job. So I started raising my
prices. It didn't take me long to realize if
I'm running 30 minutes to do a job, And then
another 35, 40 minutes to do the next job. I've
got too much windshield time. So I tightened
up my route. I began to practice route density.
Now I've got one street I pull up on. I mow seven
right in a row. And all seven of them take me
about an hour and 15 minutes. But in that hour
and 15 minutes, I bring in almost $500. And that's
the way it's gotta be. It's just this, think
about everything intelligently and you start
working your magic. And I had this, like I said,
this morning I had a three hour discussion with
a gentleman that was asking almost all the same
questions. And I had told him some really interesting
stuff and he was really impressed by the knowledge
that I was giving him. And I said, but it's just
my marketing mind. I do marketing, I do the social
media for a high -end instrument company. I see
this. And you know Tom from Oxford Lawn, right?
Yes. So you know those sandwich boards that he
uses now? He has on the ends of the truck? That
was January's discussion. Him and I were on the
phone for an hour. He was like, how do I advertise
more to get more business? And I said, do you
use cones? He's like, yeah. I said, how about
making sandwich boards instead? Put all your
information on one side, you know, what you do,
your QR code, your phone number on one side.
Then on the other side, you're going to put,
just in case you missed it, the number and a
QR code. That's it. So now as people drive by,
they see the first sign, they kind of get an
idea of what he's got. And then by time they
get down another, you know, 45, 50 feet after
the end of the trailer. They now have another
sign that says, just in case you missed it, here's
our information again. Real quick, and you can
snap it. And he said it's done wonders. And it's
a simple thing. It was $250, but now he's advertising
his business on the street, on the corner of
his truck, and using it for safety. All in the
same thing. Awesome. You spend $55 on a traffic
cone. that doesn't advertise anything. Right.
Well, in my city of 17 ,500 people, I don't have
one lawn care company that I look at as a competitor.
I look at them as friends. Because on a rain
day, we all meet at a little restaurant here
in town. It's called Parks. and we'll sit around
a table and we'll just talk business. What are
you doing to market your business? What are you
doing to scale and go to the next level? What
aren't you doing that maybe you should do? Or
what are you doing that you shouldn't do? And
we just bounce ideals off of people. off of each
other and we learn from each other. And I think
it is so important. You hit the nail right on
the head. Everyone is not your competitor or
your enemy. We're in the green industry. We're
all a part of this community. We better get along.
Because there was one of those times when I slid
down into a steep hill and a guy drove by pulling
his Trailer and I seen him hit his brakes and
he looked at me And he knew it was me. He went
up turned around came back unloaded a mower Got
a tow strap out and pulled me out of the ditch
or I would have had to call a tow truck Now had
I been that guy's enemy or I was running down
his business He'd have kept right on going and
I'd have been stuck and I would have been out
the price of a tow truck. But because I treat
them as friends, you know, and I would do the
same, and I have done the same thing for other
guys. Because, you know, I can't do every yard
in Newcastle. The ones I can do, I can make them
look the best that I can. And I can give my customers...
a quality job and they can know that they're
spending their money wisely when they hire professional
lawn maintenance to do their job. So it is so
important and I appreciate that information you
just shared with us. As a matter of fact, all
of this has been so good. You've been a great
guest. You have given our listeners a lot of
information. that will help them grow their business,
help them grow their social media, and help them
level up. And that's what we're all here to do,
is help each other level up, grow, and be successful.
Because when you win as someone in the green
industry, I win. That's the way I look at it.
If I lose, somebody else loses too, because we're
all tied together. And that's one thing I love
when I went to Equip Expo the first time and
I walked into that massive showroom floor and
seen all of those booths. I was overwhelmed by
it until I realized I'm in a community. These
are people that do exactly what I do. So I started
walking up to people, introducing myself, shaking
hands, taking pictures. And now... People are
coming up to me, shaking my hand, wanting to
take a picture with me, asking me for advice.
So, you know, you will get out of the industry
exactly what you put into the industry. Nothing
more, nothing less. But Chris, I really appreciate
you dropping so much valuable information to
us tonight. And I'm an open book, so if someone
needs to ask me a question, they can... DM me
and I'll talk it through with them. You know,
all my advice is not perfect, but sometimes I
can light a spark somewhere. Well, you have given
me a lot of ideas for my page and I'm going to
try it. I think if you want, if you want to do
a couple of collabs, throw them on, just throw
my name on there. I'll accept every single one
of them. I do not. And that was one of those
things that someone asked me like, will you accept
everything? I'm like, as long as it's yard care
related, I accept it. I will do that. To everyone
listening, if you're not using social media to
grow your business, now is the time. Your customers
are online. Your competitors or your co -companies
in your cities. are online people who know how
to tell their story are the ones winning so if
you can master learning how to tell your story
you can win you can grow your social media you
can grow your business and you can be successful
if you enjoyed this episode share with a lawn
care professional subscribe and follow us on
social media. I encourage you to follow Beater
Mower's Life on Instagram or TikTok. Direct message
him. He'll respond. If you have a question, he
can help you. So I encourage you to do that.
And this is the Lawn Hustle Podcast where we
help you work smarter, grow faster, and hustle
harder. We'll see you on the next episode of
the Lawn Hustle.