Welcome back hustlers. This is the podcast that
helps you not only build your life, but build
your business. Today we have a special guest
coach Carol. We appreciate you taking time to
be on our show. Welcome to the lawn hustle. Thanks,
man. Appreciate you having me. Let's jump right
in. What is the biggest mistake that you see?
Small business owners making when it comes to
sales and marketing Gosh, it's a loaded question,
man I Don't know that there's one mistake that
they make if they're if you're just starting
out oftentimes Taking an employee mindset into
an entrepreneurial setting means that you'll
typically take your Your your cheap mindset meaning
that oftentimes I see business owners step over
$100 bills to pick up $10 bills They run their
business just purely on a what's it cost basis.
Not what's it get me? You know ultimately at
the end of the day I See a lot of small business
owners when they start out they stay small for
far too long either because they play small or
They don't truly believe in themselves. Right.
And that was one of the like the first lessons
I had to learn is that you have to believe in
yourself, especially when nobody else does, because
the world will give you endless reasons why you
shouldn't go out there and make a million dollars
with your little lawn care business. Like my
guidance counselor, my chemistry teacher told
me my senior year of high school when I started
my lawn care business. But, you know, you only
need to believe in yourself because You're the
only one that needs to be right. And oftentimes
what I find in business is that most businesses
don't fail. It's actually the entrepreneur just
gives up. Right. Very, very seldom do businesses
fail because they like run out of money or, you
know, they close up shop. It's just it's the
it's the entrepreneur throwing the towel in at
the end of the day. And so, you know, those are
those are probably I know that's not just one,
but that was a tough question to start off with.
Well at what point should a business owner stop
winging it and Build a real -cell system in their
organization. Oh fuck day one man winging it
doesn't help you in business, you know, there's
a There's this little technology you guys may
have heard of called artificial intelligence
that's come along here recently that has really
allowed small businesses to compete with big
businesses. I talk about this in my book, The
Hunterhead Game. I call it the the access attention
AI framework. And so in small businesses, there's
really been three technological waves that have
hit them. The first one was access, which was
the Internet. you know, it allowed the free flowing
of information. You know, if you wanted to start
a lawn care company 40 years ago, you had to
go to the library and check out a book about
it, or you had to find a mentor to study under,
right, be a mentee. That still works today. But
with the internet, you can do a thing called
a Google search or Ask Jeeves. If you guys remember
ask .com, you can go in there and ask questions,
you would find information. So it allowed you
to have information at your fingertips and it
removed the gatekeepers to keep people from getting
access to the information. The next wave that
came along was the attention wave and that's
social media. And for the first time ever, small
business owners could talk directly to their
prospects and customers. You didn't have to pay
the newspaper, the radio station, the television
station any longer. You can make content, do
a podcast like we're doing here and talk directly
to your customers. And I thought, I think that
was like the biggest thing to happen until AI
came along. The difference between AI and like
software or automation, right? Creating, talking
about winging it, right? Like the first thing
you'll do is you'll go to a conference, you'll
listen to a podcast and some business guy will
tell you, you need systems, you need SOPs, standard
operating procedures or playbooks. And you're
like, cool, man. And then you go back and you
like, document it. You write it all out. You
have a playbook and teach the human. It's like,
hey, on Friday, we clean out the truck. We clean
out the trailer. We fill up all the gas cans.
We're ready to roll on Monday. And then what
happens? Human nature. You show up on Monday.
The truck's not cleaned out. The trailer's still
a mess. The gas cans are empty. And so what happens
is, you know, software came along and it said,
well, we'll put an app on your phone for all
your guys to use and they'll check off the checklist.
And then Friday afternoon, you'll know if they
did the SOP. And so software came in and kind
of like really created efficiency and lift inside
of processes that are already in place. But artificial
intelligence is creating efficiency and lift
behind the labor. right like so it's this is
where we are going to see massive impacts for
small businesses um but you know if you're listening
to this and you want to grow your business guys
i remember like i started my first business my
senior high school turned on eight football scholarships
started on grass right now walmart weed eater
and a Walmart push mower, right? I'm knocking
doors. Dude, I couldn't even afford a backpack
blower or a handheld blower. So I used a push
broom to like sweep off sidewalks when I was
done. OK, like the real hustle. Like I was so
excited when I saw this come across my calendar.
I was like, all right, man, that's my mantra
is hustle. It's worth it. Right. So for the longest
time, what felt like the longest time is really
only like two seasons. I kept everything in a
notebook, like a composition notebook. That's
not a system. That's not a process. It's better
than just like hoping that your memory can get
you by, but you've got to have systems. You got
to have processes. And I'll tell you where it
really makes the impact is when you go to recruit
people. If people show up to work for you, right?
Even if it's just like low man on the totem pole,
that's going to we need the ditches for you.
He's only going to stick around for so long.
If you're a scrambled fucking mess, right? It's
one of those things where you have to have them
if you ever expect to be outside of a solarpreneur
from a recruiting standpoint and if you just
like want to have a good quality of life so you're
not a frazzled mess running around trying to
remember everything all the time. You mentioned
your book. Yeah. Tell us again the name of your
book and where can our listeners find it? Yeah,
yeah, so it's called the hunter head game So
I got a copy back here behind me, but it's this
a little closer So you can go to the hunter head
game calm and the byline on it is the old world
rewarded obedience The new world demands killer
instincts Honestly here you probably agree with
me on this. I feel like in the past decade man
We've just gotten soft as a country as a whole
and it's became Acceptable right there's like
one part of the equation is we become soft as
a country the other side of the equation is it
becomes acceptable to become soft, right? Meaning
like, here's a pill for that, here's a shot for
that, here's a couch you can lay on and tell
me about, you know, why it's not fair that you
won that contract that you bid on. But ultimately,
there are only two positions to be in. You're
either the hunter... or the hunted. And so that's
why I wrote this book. It is a wake up call.
It's a battle cry for the hunter that lives,
I think, inside of each and every single one
of us. It's just a matter of if we ever want
to wake that up and dare to live that life of
adventure. That is awesome. I'm going to be ordering
a book. Can't wait to read it. I have one coming
out after Christmas. It's called Rooted for the
Long Haul. how to retain customers in the green
industry. Love it. So we have been working on
that book is after you buy it, there's a link
on the inside that you get the audio book for
free. And then we also created a custom AI model
that's trained on the book. So like after you
read it, if you're like, ah, what did coach say
about that apex framework? You just go and ask
it and it pops it right up for you. So it's very
makes it makes the book very interactive. Awesome.
What is the most effective way a service -based
business Can generate consistent leads in today's
world? Yeah, man, so I'll give you guys a couple
of ways that you can generate consistent leads
The first is like you just got to get more attention
around your business most small business owners
that I know They think they have a million problems
in their business, but really the main one is
just getting more attention Meaning that you
need more people to know who you are and what
you sell, right? You can do this through old
school tactics, right? Radio, TV, billboard,
all of that stuff still works. It's just wildly
expensive. The cheaper version of that is social
media, making your presence known locally. I'll
give you guys some free hacks. You should be
spending five to 10 minutes every morning while
you're having your coffee instead of doom scrolling.
Switch into your business profile. and go follow
all the businesses that are in your community.
And then what you're going to do is like now,
instead of doom scrolling your home feed, you
go switch into your business profile in the morning
and scroll that feed now that you followed all
of the pages in your local community and then
just engage and interact with them. Right. Like
this is one of the things we actually have an
AI platform called Ali. We were going to build
this into Ali. But what we figured out during
research and development was that the API, which
is like the. the technical term to be able to
plug into meta to do this, they do not let bots
do this. And so it's actually one of those like
cool little like nooks and crannies inside of
social media that you can't really automate with
bots. And so getting on there and creating engagement,
I call it social media cold calling, right? So
instead of calling the business and saying, hey,
I sold lawn and landscaping services. Like if
your Facebook page says Austin's lawn and landscaping,
right? And you leave a comment on the local bakery.
that just said, hey, this week we got blueberry
donuts. It's a one -time thing for only this
week. And you leave a comment. It's like, man,
those things look delicious. That's it. That's
all you got to do. Now guess what? Now all the
people that follow that page are going to see
that comment. And you're going to get free brand
awareness out of it. Took you 20 seconds, if
that, right? So you've got to get more attention
around it. And then the other piece of it, too,
is there are probably places that once you get
the attention and you start driving the awareness
to your business, there's probably holes in the
buckets that you already have. Okay. And what
do I mean by that? There's probably phone calls
that you're missing and there's probably website
visitors that you're not converting. Okay. And
so that's why I built Alley. Being a blue collar
guy's background, right? Like my dad grew up
with a frigging outhouse, right? It's like, you
know, I come from very humble beginnings and
I've had to work my way up. But, you know, my
whole mission now is like to go back and build
technology that helps small businesses, especially
blue collar businesses, guys in lawn care industry,
which is where I started, leverage the power
of this technology so that they can do more with
less. Right. And so Ali, our AI platform, she'll
detect leads through your phone system. So you
never miss a phone call again. And then she also
lives on your website and she can identify up
to a third. of the anonymous website traffic.
So Harvard Business says that most websites only
convert at about a 2 % to 5 % ratio. So that
means 95 out of every 100 visitors that come
to your website, they're gone, man. They don't
call you. They don't message you. They don't
leave a comment. And they're gone forever. And
so Ali allows you to get a subset of those people,
about a third of them, so one out of every three.
And we give you real personal level information,
so name, phone number, email address, home address,
and then the URL they came from. So you know
if they came from your Google ad or whatnot.
So that you can actually reach out proactively
via email and try to start that conversation
while they're still searching for other law and
landscape providers. So, you know, that's my
thing is like send more traffic through the top
of the funnel. But then also let's like look
at the funnel and make sure that we've got all
the holes plugged up so nothing's leaking out
the side of them. So let me ask you this Let's
talk about converting leads into paying customers
or clients I think there's a difference between
a customer and a client customer is more of that
one -time mulch job or that one -time head -streaming
a client is something where you have Revenue
coming in weekly from that person They become
a client instead of a customer. But why do many
leads fail to convert from a customer to client?
Number one reason is speed to lead. Most people
wait too long to follow up with the lead. There's
an MIT study that says that if you can follow
up with the lead within the first five minutes
that that lead comes in, you have a 400x chance
on closing that lead, right? I love the saying
that oftentimes people buy from the last sales
person they talk to, right? And so if you can
hop on that lead first and close them, you're
the last sales person they talk to, right? And
so I think that's the first one really is like,
they're just slow to follow up, right? A lead
comes in on a Thursday. you're busy Friday stacked
you take the weekend off and then Friday morning
you try to follow up shit dude they've already
found somebody right they found they found five
other people right they got them quotes back
and this is where I say like AI is super powerful
same thing with like phone calls right again
I think using AI to answer your phones and there's
there's a dozen products out there to do it I
think we have the best just because of the way
that we train the model it's our own custom model
that we built so she actually feels like a human
but like being able to capture every single lead
that calls your phone is ridiculously important,
right? Because that mowers, dude, I remember
that mowers humming. I don't care if your phone's
in your pocket. You don't hear it. You don't
feel it, right? And so you're going to miss those
calls. And oftentimes, especially in the green
industry. your customers on Google and they're
just going down calling people right and the
first person that answers it says yeah I can
give them your quote no problem that's probably
who they're going to do business with so the
thing I love about lawn care and landscaping
is that it is not a demand shortage industry
meaning there is not a shortage of people that
need the service typically the constraint is
on the supply side which means you just don't
have enough labor to get all the work done for
the customers that are needing the projects,
the mulching, the lawn care, the landscaping.
The beauty of that is like, that means there's
room to raise prices, right? Until you get to
a point where like 60 to 70 % of the people are
like, whoa, that's astronomically high, no way,
right? Like if you're not losing one out of every
four jobs to somebody saying your price is too
high, like you need to raise your prices. Like
I was way under price for way too long. I actually
had a mentor tell me one time. It's a funny story.
I'll tell it real quick. I had a mentor named
Ken Finner. He was out of out of Philadelphia.
I met him back in the days of the Internet when
there was online forums. This is before Facebook
groups became a thing. And Ken told me he's the
DJ. How much do you charge to go on? I'm like,
at that time, my minimum was $20. He was like,
how many people do you got at $20 a cut? I was
like, oh, man, you know, I don't know, probably
over half of my book of business. He was like,
cool, double your prices. Like what? He's like,
yeah, go to 40. I'm like, you're crazy, dude.
I'm going to lose all my people. He's like, check
this out. This is how economics work. You could
lose half of your customers. You're still making
the same amount of money, and now you do half
the work. And I was like, no way, dude. I'm going
to lose everybody. He was like, well, here's
the great thing. If they all cancel, you can
then just call them all back and say, hey, sorry,
we actually, that was a typo. You know, you're
not, we're not raising your prices. Everything's
saying the same. So I did it, dude. I lost like
two customers and I was like, holy smokes, right?
That's called price elasticity, meaning like
how far can you stretch your customers on raising
your prices? It's a way that you can just make
more money tomorrow without changing anything
in your business. Super valuable lesson that
I had to learn early on in the years. Now I know
before you guys hop in my DMs and my comments.
Okay. This was back in 2007 when I was driving
the the ugliest truck in Kentucky and had a Walmart
push mow and a Walmart weed eater, okay? Like,
give me a little grace. Like, $20, you low baller!
Yeah, when you said $20, that got my attention
real quick. But that is so good. I think our
industry and the service industry in general
needs to start charging according to their value.
And what they're worth if a customer If the first
thing that comes out of their mouth is how much
how much is it going to cost? That's probably
not my ideal customer Because they're more concerned
about the dollar sign Then they are the quality
and the value that they're going to receive Yes,
and no you have to be careful because there are
four there are four profiles to to every buyer.
Right. And so if you have a high driver, right,
like you if I have my like I have a guy that
cuts our lawn out here at our farm that we live
on, he was like really took a long time to get
me to the price. Like I literally had to say,
like, well, how much is going to be man? Right.
Like it was it was one of those things where
if you have a very dominant buyer, a high charger
or someone that values their time, oftentimes
you they're just like, hey, What are you doing?
When can you do it? What's the price? Like that
may be all you need, right? You know, it may
be one of those things where and again, this
is where you become better at sales is a great
way to grow your business is just being better
at selling people is identifying and understanding
who that is now, you know. uh, Miss Margaret
that lives down the road that's 72 years old,
probably gonna have to spend some time, build
some rapport, build a relationship with that
person, right? But the dude that is five minutes
late getting home to meet with you to look at
everything, pulls up in the Mercedes and shows
up in a suit and is like, yeah, yeah, man, how
much is it? He just values his time. So like,
don't be afraid of that guy, right? Cause like
the, you don't, you don't always, uh, the customer
doesn't have to match your pace, but you always
have to match the customer's pace in a presentation.
And don't be afraid to ask for the cell. I see
that happen all the freaking time, man, where
people just don't ask for the cell, right? Like,
hey, he was going to be 45 bucks a week, man.
Does that sound good? We can start next week.
That's all you have to do that. Does that sound
good? Or here's I like this or that close. Do
you want us to get started this week or next
week? It's this or that. Would you rather be
cut on Monday or Thursday? Those are two openings
I got right now, right? You can use that. And
then now you're not even about the price, right?
I say, Hey, you and if you really want to break
it down, like you can start annually, like as
you're doing your presentation, right? So here's
what this would look like. If it's a 30 week
season, right? You're going to mow for 30 weeks.
That's why I love being a lawn care podcast.
Cause I know the business I was in it, right?
So I can give you guys some stuff. So if you're,
if you know, it's going to be a 30 week season
and it's going to cost 50 bucks, right? to cut
the grass. So it's going to be 200 bucks a month
for 30 weeks. That's fifteen hundred dollars.
OK, what you can do is see if your buyer will
bite on that. Some of you guys are doing weekly
pricing, weekly billing, monthly billing like
maybe you should just ask them to pay for the
season if it's a smaller yard. Right. But you
don't. Because you sell with your own wallet
and you go, well, I would never pay somebody
fifteen hundred dollars in advance for the season.
Right. But here's what you do. You say, Hey,
Mr. Prospect, on a property like this with our
annual discount, you're looking probably about
$1 ,500 for the season. Does that sound fair?
They go, oh, no, I can't do that. It's like,
OK, well, it's $60 a week then. We can put you
on monthly billing if that's better. Right? Now
you're like, you baked in a discount. And now
if they have the coin in their pocket, they have
the $1 ,500 to spend, they'll go, shit, that's
like $300. OK, yeah, I'll just pay the $1 ,500.
Now, look what you just did. You accelerated
your growth rate because you collected all the
cash for the season now. So now that $500 in
Facebook ads that you needed to run, but you
didn't have the money to do, magically, you got
three times that money that you can go get your
next five or six customers. It's called pulling
cash forward. And it's one of the easiest ways
to get the cash flow that you need inside of
a seasonal business so that you can watch it
really, really quickly in the early days. I started
doing that about three years ago, and I'm up
to about 15 of my customers that pay annually.
Yeah. And they pay the second week of December.
That way it gives me a little cash flow in December,
January and February. If we're not getting a
bunch of snow, I still have some cash. So and
another thing I'm wanting to get your opinion
on what about. 12 month building, where if you
charge someone, you know, 1500, you just divide
that by 12 and charge them that every month.
What do you think about that? Yeah, you just
have to be. Yeah, you have to be careful. You
have to make sure one that your contracts airtight
with cancellation fees and things like that.
Right. So you got to make sure your contracts
airtight. You also have to make sure that you
aren't so tight on your margins. that you'll
actually run upside down right like on that because
like you're now incurring a lot of cost especially
if you're selling them an annualized package
which means hey we're going to do a lot of landscaping
plus trim the bushes twice a year plus do your
mulch in the spring etc etc The challenge now
is like you could have a month that cost you
like $3 ,800 and you only build them $2 ,750,
right? Like that could put you upside down on
a cash flow problem. If I'm gonna do the 12 month
billing, I'd rather bill it quarterly so that
I now have three months in on the front side.
I know I got three months worth of revenue for
that. Right. And then like you build it out quarterly.
We've played around with this because I still
own a power washing business. Like it's my lab
rat. We do some of the biggest apartment complexes
all across the Midwest and Southeast. And we've
watched stadiums and all kinds of stuff. We still
have a residential division. And I tried like
the ninety seven dollar a month. Right. A ninety
seven bucks a month. We'll do two trips a year
in the spring. We'll do X, Y and Z in the fall.
We'll do X, Y and Z. And what I think has happened
is because everything has went to subscriptions.
The customers are like subscription now. They're
like, dude, my plumber charges me a subscription.
My HVAC guy charged me. My lawn care is the OG
subscription. That's always been monthly, right?
And so trying to add another one on top of that
is a little difficult. It's also the reason why,
if you guys don't know this, I'll tell your listenership
real quick. If you don't know, you get a higher
multiple on your business, meaning what's it
worth if you have annualized recurring revenue.
And it's the same reason why, like, if you go
to Verizon, you know, I recently upgraded to
the newest iPhone. I'm like, hey, man, how much
have I just paid cash? Like, it's the same price.
I'm like, what? It's the same price. It's the
same price if I pay you for the next 36 months
of payments or if you just like give me interest
repayments. And the reason is, is because that
revenue is looked at differently. If it's a one
-time cash exchange versus if they book it for
36 months as recurring revenue, it's more predictable.
So a little side note there. What is the right
way to handle the you're too expensive objection?
Thank you. I hear that a lot, but it's also followed
up with, but man, does my property look amazing.
So did next Monday work better for you or is
Thursday a better day? Roll through them, man.
You guys get so hung up on objections. You know,
I'm talking to you. I'm just talking to listeners.
It's like you guys get so hung up on objections
that you take everything personally, right? It's
like that one friend that like when you go out
and you have a couple of drinks with them, they
get a little argumentative. It doesn't mean they're
a bad friend or that they hate you. It's just
a little argument. It's not nothing personally.
It's the same thing with the customers, man.
If they tell you that like know how to handle
it and that's the difference in being a pro closer
and then just being an order taker right order
takers are like here's the price do you want
it or not a closer knows how to overcome objections
and if you're really good you'll go get a testimonial
from a customer that talks about how they spend
a little more with you than they were anticipating
but man are they happy because your customer
service is over the top and then what you do
is you put that testimonial inside of whatever
paperwork you take, right? Like your three panel
brochure or your sales flyer, whatever, right?
And you make that part of the presentation, right?
You show that there are customers that have said,
man, yeah, they weren't the cheapest bid that
we got, but boy, are we happy that we went with
them, right? And so the highest level salesmen
in the world, they make sure that they take all
of the objections that they would possibly get
and they bake them into the sales presentation.
Another tactic is to get the nose out of the
way, meaning that I will give them artificial
nose, right? So like when I used to look at a
property, like I clearly could tell where the
property line would stop. But then I would be
like, so do we mow all the way to their driveway?
And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. That's
not where my property is over here, right? It's
like, I'm letting them say no for other things
so that when I get them to say yes, it's not
the first time they've said no. And so it's a
lot easier. It's a little psychological trick
that you can use on there. It's like, you know,
do you guys want us to weeded, you know, only
once a month or, you know, it's like, no, no,
no, I want you to weed it every time. OK, cool.
No problem. Right. It's like you get those nos
out of the way. so that then when you ask for
the business, they've said no already and then
hopefully it's a yes, right? And if it's not,
they say, well, it's too expensive. If you don't
want to be like, well, I'm passing, say I hear
that often times. Here's my second follow up.
Compared to what? And then just shut up and let
them talk, you know, hey, wow, man, you know,
I don't know this thing, this quote, 200 bucks
a week, that seems expensive compared to what?
Oh, just compared to what I was thinking. And
what did you compare that to? Because I know
I went to dinner with the wifey last weekend
and it was $200. So what are we talking about
here? It's like, don't be afraid to be combative.
Because here's the other thing. If I'm going
to lose the customer, I'm at least going to have
fun. I'm going to have a fun story to tell when
I'm walking back to the truck. You can't be afraid.
Because if they're not going to be your customer,
they're not going to be your customer. What do
you care? Well, let's take a short break and
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onboarding Earth a pro you run the outside work
we run the office. All right, we're back with
coach Carol. And he has really given us some
great information and strategies to help our
businesses and help us as business owners to
grow. our service business. Let's talk about
some mind shifts. What is the biggest mind shift
that had the greatest impact on your business
when you started? Yeah, it was the very first
lesson that I learned, man. It was, uh, you got
to believe in yourself when no one else does.
Um, you know, when I was looking at eight football
scholarships, my senior high school and I'd started
mowing grass and I was like, man, I'm making
like four grand a month as a high school senior,
right? Signing myself out, working for myself,
you know, co -oping as everyone else went to
the factories and the offices in the area. Like
I was co -oping for my own business. The guidance
counselor and the chemistry teacher was like,
you know, what are you doing? Right. They act
like I was like throwing my life away. But I
knew that If it didn't work out, I could still
go back to college, right? Oftentimes, the worst
case scenario is really not that bad, right?
Oftentimes, the decision that you make is not
like 100 % irreversible, right? Like most of
the time you can reverse whatever you did. You
can change course, might cost you some money,
might cost you some time, but that's okay. That
is... that is business right there is not the
sooner that you detach yourself from this like
expectation that there is a perfect way to run
a business and it's done this way and then like
we got a little bit of time and a long way to
get somewhere when you can detach from that and
realize that this journey of business is endless
iterations or changes to how you operate in the
never ending quest for volume growth and max
profitability, right? Because you don't like,
you don't just like surprise, we ended up into
profitability. That doesn't happen. By nature,
most small businesses are not geared towards
profitability because the more money you make,
the more money you have to spend, right? So then
what happens is eventually either that spending
outpaces the earnings or you have a rollback
in earnings, right? So like, uh -oh, we had a
bad month. but the expenses were still high right
so like you have to be careful with that but
it's the it's that mindset of believing in yourself
man like knowing that you can achieve anything
like guys i'm telling you i was i was dyslexic
right i tried to go to community college i dropped
out after three semesters i was arrested twice
by the age of 25 right? Like, and I'm from Kentucky.
Like, if you say where are businessmen from Kentucky
is nowhere on the fucking list. Okay. And so
I promise you that if a dyslexic, twice arrested
college dropout kid from Kentucky can build a
business and become a millionaire, so can you.
It's possible. It's all in your mindset. And
that first shift is believing it. You have to
be crazy. You have like, you have to think that
it's nuts, right? Like, you like, We've lost.
I think I think we've lost touch with how crazy
it is to have a million dollar a year business,
right? Like we see all the sports cars on Instagram,
the penthouses in Brickle, Miami, and like the
kids saying, come join my life insurance team.
And like it's so far out of touch that you need
to understand that, like I think it's like less
than 10 percent, like 11 percent of small businesses
ever hit a million dollars in revenue, right?
Like, OK, like if you ever get there, like you've
done a really good job. But I'll also say it
on the other side, that if you just want to have
your lawn care business, because you want to
make 150 grand a year in your pocket, work 10
months out of the year, nine months out of the
year, never miss a ball game for your son. Never
miss a dance recital with your daughter. Take
a couple of vacations a year that you wrap around
conferences so you can 100 % write the whole
thing off of your active income. Like, dude.
Good for you, too, because there's not enough
people like in my position that call these podcasts
and talk. They all want to like twist their mustaches,
smoke their cigars and be like, you need to make
a gazillion dollars a year. It's like, fuck for
what? Like, what makes you happy, man? Like,
if being happy is like taking care of your family,
not being stressed about the bills, going to
Disney World and like your kids want for, you
know, nothing like within reason, like, dude,
that's super fricking achievable. You just have
to show up every day, right? I have this mantra,
if you will show up with a positive mental attitude,
you'll beat 90 % of the rest of the world. It's
that easy. Well, how do you push through self
-doubt when the results aren't showing up yet?
Yeah. So... I'll share a story with you guys
because it's not all rainbows and butterflies.
I had a fitness center that I bought back in
the end of 2015. Over 18 months, I grew this
thing 300%. It was on fire, man. We completely
rebranded it. We were crushing it. And I had
a real estate agent that I did a deal with. I
was going to sell the facility. Long story short,
I can't talk about too many of the details because
there was a lawsuit that happened with it. At
27 years old, I ended up losing a half a million
dollars worth of real estate and a six figure
business. That business is what put my net worth
over a million dollars. I had a goal that I was
going to be a millionaire by age 30. I had it
by 26. I lost it by 27. And so for me, that was
a very tough time. It challenged me mentally,
but I also realized during all of that, that
If you don't give up, you don't lose. That's
the beauty of business. You can play this game
for till you're 80, right? Like go watch CNBC
in the mornings. They have like the Barry Dillards
on these dudes that are in their 80s, right?
They've just played this game for their whole
life. it's not like pro sports like you know
me like I'm an Indianapolis Colts fans like we
got Philip Rivers again he's 44 years old so
I guess you could play till you're 40 in the
NFL now but you know it's like and then you're
done right the beauty about business I think
is that it has such a long time horizon and you
guys have all heard that quote like we uh, underestimate
what we can do in 10 years, but we overestimate
what we can do in a year. It's the same thing
on this man. Um, and that's why when I started
building my personal brand online, I just completely
detached from the numbers, right? Like I, I said,
Hey, I know that coaches and speakers really
don't pop off until they're in their like mid
to late forties. So like, I was 25 at the time,
like I got all the time in the world. And so
when I didn't see the results fast, it just stuck
to the plan. And I'll also tell you, man, like
I'm a man of faith. And so like trusting that
God has a plan for me and what's been beautiful
is like the closer I get to God, like. the better
the outcome becomes right it's like whoa i did
not plan for any of this stuff over here right
it's like this was my plan like this over here
was god's plan for me which is pretty cool and
i'm no theologian by any stretch of the imagination
but um i i think when things are tough oftentimes
you got to look at yourself and make sure that
you're putting out maximum output, maximum effort.
Like you're doing what you're supposed to be
doing. Right. My basketball coach back in high
school used to always say it's physical fitness
and mental toughness is what wins championships.
Right. So like are you taking care of yourself
and are you put in and putting in the work if
you are then, you know, maybe take a different
approach. There might be some iterations. That's
why I say, man, it's like business is not one
way to the promised land. Like there are multiple
ways to get to the top of the mountains and you're
always trying to change and tweak that. But I
also think that this is this question here is
one of the absolute pinnacle reasons of why you
need a tribe. Like you got to have other entrepreneurs
in your life, because if not, if you're trying
to build a business and the five people you hang
around are like people that are, you know, still
working at the factory or still working in the
plant or in the warehouse or wherever like. They're
going to be like, yeah, dude, why? Why? Just
come back, right? Dude, just give that up. Or
how's that little business thing doing, man?
You're stressed out, dude. You're losing your
hair, DJ. It's like you just have to understand
that anything worth having is going to take sacrifice,
right? That's why oftentimes when I coach people,
I ask them, I'm like, hey, what makes you happy?
What's the end goal? What is the game we're actually
playing here? Because In entrepreneurship, we
do not index for happiness enough. That's not
talked about. It's all about money, and it's
up and to the right. And so you want to make
the chart go up and to the right. I think oftentimes
in entrepreneurship, we have to say, hey, what's
the game we're playing? What makes us happy?
And then what are you willing to sacrifice? Because
everything in life is a trade. What are their
limiting beliefs? you can talk about that are
holding people back in the green industry or
service business. You know, it's funny. Keith
Calpas is a good buddy of mine. And there's a
video we have on YouTube where he's in my like
penthouse high rise. And I'm like on there like
bragging about a forty thousand dollar month.
And like I look back at that now and I'm like,
Jesus, forty grand broke. What the hell is that?
Right. It's like it's so like. you know my new
my newest business partner Dan Martell he talks
about the the the old high has to be the new
low right the old high has to be the new minimum
so like I still remember the first time I looked
at my bank account and there was a hundred grand
cash in there I was like holy shit right like
that was crazy that's been a goal for years well
that had to now become the new low right where
it's like hey we don't dip below 100. Now we're
trying to get to 250. And then you get to 250
and you're like, OK, we don't dip below 250.
Now we got to go to five. Right. I think the
the self -limiting beliefs we talked about this
earlier about selling with your own wallet is
like that is that is like I see that happen all
the time. Penny pinching. I call it pardon the
language. I call it broke bitch mentality. It's
where like you just operate like you're broke
all the time. And like, guess what? That's a
self -fulfilling prophecy. Like you're going
to be broke all the time. Like have a little
swagger. I used to sell so many apartment complex
managers on lawn care when I used to do the sales
inside the business because I would wear a jacket
and a button -up shirt and some slacks. Like
I would walk in, I'd be like, is the property
manager here? And they're like, yeah, let me
get her for you. They're like, I don't know.
There's like an attorney or something here for
you, right? Like the property manager comes out.
I'm like, hi, I'd like to give you a quote for
your 2026 lawn care and landscaping budget. They're
like, just like that, right? But it's perspective
and perception, right, of that customer. And,
you know, there will all be, go ahead, I'll have
a DM or a comment, like, no, no, no, man, I rub
a little dirt on my jeans. They know I'm a hard
worker. I come in. I'm like, yeah. And you also
smell like ass, and nobody wants to give you
time of the day. So it's like, take a shower,
put a collared shirt on, and go handle yourself
like a true professional. Because if you do that,
then you get to charge professional prices, right?
You have different conversations. back to like
what you were saying, customers versus clients.
I look at everyone as clients. I don't have customers
because the level of service that I deliver,
I only have clients, right? It is very much a
VIP level status service. But what happens is...
in small businesses oftentimes because the rents
due and the phone bill pay it needs to the phone
bill needs to be paid is like you just take anybody
and everybody into your business and that's okay
i'm not hating on that um but the faster you
can figure out who your ideal customer profile
is write that down icp the faster you can figure
that out and only index to that person the better
off you'll be like jordan Jordan Yocum, my best
friend since high school that does, he's the
top sales guy for Tom James who does custom tailored
suits. He does my suits for me. Like he's got
clients that will buy $25 ,000 worth of clothes
from him in one setting. I still this day, I
still buy $2 ,000 suits from him, but I think
that's fucking crazy, right? That's a self -limiting
belief. And so oftentimes I try to catch myself
anytime I say that's crazy, right? If I ever,
if that, if those words come out of my mouth,
do it, is it really crazy? Or am I just not holding
myself to that standard, right? Or am I not playing
it at that level? It's just crazy for me today,
right? Because there was a point in time where
I never flew first class. And I was like, that's
crazy to spend $1 ,000 on an airline ticket.
Now I only fly first class, right? I used to
think it's crazy for somebody to have a billionaire
that's a client. Now I have three billionaires
that are clients, right? Self -limiting beliefs
will hold you back, I think, probably more than
anything, right? And then the old, the age -old
ones are like, well, this president we got, oh,
this economy, oh, you saw those inflation numbers,
right? It's like you're giving away power. You're
giving your power away to external circumstances
and external things. What you need to do is look
in the mirror and ask yourself, who is the person
that I need to become in order to deserve the
next level of success. Boy, that is good. Thanks,
man. Let's talk about marketing. Where should
a lawn care business or service industry business,
where do you feel is the best place for them
to market themselves? Yeah, so unfortunately,
I didn't know this when I had my lawn care business.
But you should spend all of your outbound time
working on partnerships because partnerships
are slow until they're not. OK, what do I mean
by that realtors? Great example, right? Who knows
people that have houses? Realtors, right? Here's
a cool thing. Why don't you go to your local
realtors in town and say, hey, instead of giving
out those bullshit wine and cheese baskets that
nobody even likes or really wants or the custom
engraved, you know, cutting board that they're
going to be like, gee, thanks. put it in the
back of the cabinet and never look at it again,
right? Because it has, like, you know, choice
one realty real big on it. Like, nobody cares.
U .S. bank sent me a clock the other day. I'm
like, I literally have hundreds of thousands
of dollars with you guys. And you send me this
wooden clock that has a giant U .S. bank logo
on the side of it. I threw it straight in the
trash. I'm going to put this out in my house,
right? And so what I would tell you is, like,
go to real estate agents and say, hey, listen,
oftentimes when people move into a property,
The first thing they need is like the outside.
They start spending money making the place look
good, right? They spend tons of money improving
the house, even if the house is in great shape.
So what I want to offer to you, because I'd love
for you to be a partner with me in my business,
is that I will give you a drastic discount on
our services that you can give as a thank you.
to your clients when they go to close. So instead
of giving them that cheese and wine basket or
that cutting board, you say, hey, by the way,
don't worry your landscaping services for the
next six months. I'm taking care of that because
DJ and his crew are like the top notch in town
and they're the best ones to be trusted with
your property. I've got you taken care of. And
so now you like you hook the realtor up, you
do it at a discount or maybe even, you know,
you don't make much money at all on the deal.
And so now. Guess what? You're in front of that
customer for six months. Now you got an opportunity
to build rapport with them, build a relationship
so that then they convert to a paying customer.
On the other side of it, you can build relationships
with clients and say, hey, listen, 80 % of people
decide if they want to stop and look at a house
or not is curb appeal. And so what I do is I
have a program for sellers that says, hey, we'll
spiff up the outside and the landscaping. and
you just pay me when the house closes. Now, you
got to have a little cheddar to be able to do
this, but you could go in and do a $2 ,000 cleanup
and actually charge them $3 ,500 for it because
you're holding that paper until they actually
close on the property, right? You can put clauses
in there that say after so many days, you got
to pay this, right? That way you're not in trouble
if they don't ever go close the property. But
those partnerships, man, like sell the relationship
that will then sell one relationship that will
then bring you 10 deals, right? Same situation
for apartment complexes. I did do this is that
I would move up channel. So I used to sell like
the maintenance guys because like, oh, the maintenance
guys are on the property. That's who I need to
talk to. They have no buying power whatsoever.
So then I was like, oh, let's go talk to the
general the property manager. Well, the property
manager just collects all the bids and then gives
them to the regional manager. So then what did
I do? I started holding quarterly lunches, invite
only at a really nice high end restaurant. No
sales pitch, no nothing. I was just there to
be in the room. Right. And I would invite the
regional managers to come to that because I knew
that's the decision makers. One regional manager
hooked me up with over six figures worth of one
landscape contracts for like five of their properties.
Right. So like, again, that's where to me, if
you're going to do that, if you're going to spend
time, effort, money, spend it there. If you're
trying to get residential customers, Facebook
is still a barn on the best place to advertise.
If you can even spend five hundred bucks a month,
a thousand bucks a month, which again, people
go, that's a lot of money. That's my mortgage.
It's like, yeah, but. What's it going to get
you right? Like, what's that investment going
to get you? And if it gets you one customer at
five grand, like that's a five X return like.
you're going to tell me if I had a if I had a
casino game we could go play that if you put
a thousand dollars in it pay you five thousand
back like you wouldn't want to play that game
right and so that kind of goes back into those
self -limiting beliefs as well let's do a rapid
fire here all right best marketing channel right
now your current email list one sales habit every
business owner should develop. Follow up Friday,
call every open estimate that you have in your
book and call them every single Friday until
they either buy or they tell you to kick rocks.
Book or mentor that changed how you view sales.
Sales, that would be my first coach. Chuck Bauer
who's retired now, but book would be the ultimate
Jim Rohn library on audible. You can buy it for
one audible credit and it's like a $90 audio
pack, but it's like a little hack in the system.
It's like 80 hours of Jim Rohn. Probably won't
teach you to sell better, but he'll improve you
as a person. And so you'll sell better as a consequence
to that one tool that you couldn't live without
higher alley .com. We installed Alley onto our
phone systems in March of this year. We haven't
missed a phone call all year. And a third of
all phone calls we have realized now after analyzing
the data, a third of all phone calls that come
into our system are spam or bot. So it's massive
time wasters. All of that's eliminated. One piece
of advice, you would give some struggling to
close deals. role play more with chat GPT on
voice mode. If you're not closing deals, it's
probably because you're not getting enough shots
on goal, which means you're not getting the reps
to actually get better. So just open up chat
GPT voice mode and say, hey, I'm a landscaper.
I need you to be a world level sales coach and
role play with me so that I can test overcoming
different objections. If someone only had one
marketing activity, what should they focus on
and why? If you're brand new in business, I'd
say cold calling because you can go hunt for
whales. If you're an established business, it's
emailing your current customers. Because someone
that's already a customer with you will spend
way more money with you than a cold prospect.
But if you're brand new to the business, I literally,
still to this day, the three biggest projects
we've ever done, all of them over six figures,
all came from cold calling. One more. How do
you track whether your marketing activity is
actually working? With a scorecard? operate based
on a scorecard and and then UTM parameters if
you want to get super nerdy with it you can track
each link channel directly with UTM parameters
but you also have to know the strategy right
like some stuff is just top of mind awareness
like if I donate to the school and do a coat
drive I don't expect people to call me and like
get a quote because of that they just like it's
it's good nature goodwill in the local community
but then I can run a hard call to action ad,
right? Like mulch is half off in March, right?
We used to call it March mulch mania, right?
It's half off mulch prices. It's like, you know,
I like Alex Hermosy saying, he said, you know,
fraternities never struggle to find a reason
to have a party, right? It's like Toga Tuesday,
just because, right? It's like fine, fine promotions.
A lot of you guys just have boring fucking marketing
or you put out content that's boring. And so
people scroll right past it. There's no there's
no theme around it. It's not fun. and don't be
afraid to look bigger than you actually are man
like I used to like the highest compliment I
used to get is like is this a franchise and I
was like hell yeah that meant my truck looked
good my uniform was clean and all my all my what
I call sales propaganda right my sales sheets
my estimates my forms everything all of that
looks so good that they thought I was a franchise
and that's like the highest compliment you can
get if you're not actually a franchise I hired
a guy a couple years ago I show up at his house
to pick him up. It was on the way to the shop.
He come out with some black silky shorts on,
with big smiley faces all over him. And he got
in the truck. I said, what are you doing? He
said, I'm going to work. I said, not dressed
like that. You're not. He needed to get in the
house and put some pants on. I said, I've worked
too hard to build my brand for you to destroy
it in one day. So you're not going to show up
with them black silky shorts on. You can put
on some nice khaki pants, nice pair of jeans,
your uniform shirt, your uniform hat. Because
when you're working, you're representing me.
And I've worked too hard in this business. Yeah,
it's called having standards as well, man. Like
you want to take your business to the next level.
Just raise your standards and hold everybody
accountable to him. That'll do. That'll do worlds
of magic. Well, tell us where can we follow you?
Where can we? Yeah, hashtag coach Carol or go
to coach carol .com. Everything's linked there
carol to ours to else if you just Google coach
Carol. Pete Carroll I thought was retired the
the Seahawks ex -coach, but he fucking came back
again So now he's like still online Lincoln traffic
eventually that guy will be done done and then
like I'll just say just go Google coach Carroll
and I'll be fine but You go the biggest thing
man. Just go pick up the book the hunter head
game. There is there is so much stuff in here
If you hired me and paid me 10 grand to come
do consulting work, everything that I teach you
is inside of this book for 40 bucks. Um, and
then you get access to the custom AI model that
we built as well. So like you can just, it's
basically, you can like Q and a and chat with
me, uh, in real time, which is pretty cool. And
it's all sourced back to the text, but that's
at the hunter head game .com. And then if you,
uh, if you want more leads in your business,
man, go check out higher alley .com. You can
use, um, let me double check. I'll give you guys
the code. Cause I don't want to mess this up.
I believe it was, hold please. It was CC 50.
and you'll get 50 % off your first month. So
I'll give you guys a cool little promo code for
that. But yeah, man, I can't can't say the same
how much I appreciate you bringing me on and
let me pour in my audience. Guys, if you're listening
to this and you haven't subscribed to the podcast,
downloaded his podcast, gave him a review, go
do it. It'll help him get in front of more people
so you can help more people in the lawn care
industry. And as always, say my mantra man hustle.
It's worth it because you'll hustle for a reason
for a season and then it'll all be worth it.
I appreciate that. and let me remind you my book
rooted in the long haul how to retain customers
in the green industry will be available after
christmas so you can check that out follow us
on facebook instagram tiktok and subscribe to
our youtube channel if you haven't already leave
us a five star rating and a nice review it helps
tremendously. I appreciate it. Thank you for
joining the Lawn Hustle until we talk again.
Remember to keep hustling, keep growing, and
take your business to the next level.