Transforming Your Lawn Care Business

This was one of the most iconic Green Industry Podcast episodes of all times. This episode features many guest such as main guest Tony Rudolph and some guest appearances from Naylor Taliaferro, Caleb Auman, Jonathan Pototschnik and Mark Bradley. All those guest jam packed into a great episode that was recorded at the Equip Expo. Enjoy!! 🎟️ Equip Expo 👉 Save 50% off Equip Expo Ticket w/ Promo Code PAUL: Register Here https://go.equipexposition.com/promocode-paul 📚 Level Up Your Money (New Release) 👉 Get Your Paperback Copy! https://pauljamison.org/book 🎧 Level Up Your Money (Audiobook) 👉 Listen on Audible https://pauljamison.org/audiobook 📲 Connect with Paul - Visit Official Website https://www.thepauljamison.com/ 🛠️ Paul's Recommended Tools & Professionals Try the CRM Jobber - Click Here https://pauljamison.org/Jobber 📞 CallRail – Track where your leads are coming from: callrail.com https://partners.callrail.com/cc4gs529efdp 📚 The Landscaping Bookkeeper – Know your numbers, stress less: thelandscapingbookkeeper.com https://thelandscapingbookkeeper.com/ The Lawn Care Bootcamp - Click Here https://pauljamison.org/bootcamp 📈 Lawn Care Launch: Click Here https://thelandscapingbookkeeper.com/lawn-care-launch (new program for business owners) 🌐 Footbridge Media – Get a pro lawn care website: footbridgemedia.com https://www.footbridgemedia.com/paul-jamison?ref=pauljamison 📦 Business-Building Resources by Paul Price Increase Letter Template https://www.thepauljamison.com/resource_redirect/landing_pages/2150230978 Contract Templates https://www.thepauljamison.com/resource_redirect/landing_pages/2150230978 📚 Paul's Most Popular Business Books How to Build a Thriving Lawn Care Business: Buy on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4K835L4 Cut That Grass and Make That Cash: Buy on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08SP7MQ13

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Motive. Growing a landscaping company means more trucks, more trailers and more equipment and more revenue doesn't always mean more profit. Motive gives you one platform to see where your vehicles and equipment are, cut idle time and fuel waste, and protect your crews with AI dash cams. Motive customers report 20% annual savings on maintenance and fuel. See what it could do for your business at gomotive.com. Again, that's gomotive.com.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome to the Green Industry Podcast, your go-to guide for building a more profitable and thriving lawn care and landscaping business. Your host, Paul Jameson, is the author of five bestselling books, including Cut That Grass and Make That Cash, and his latest, Level Up Your Money, all available on Amazon and Audible. Now get ready for more expert insights and practical strategies to boost your business and level up your life. Here's Paul Jameson.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  Welcome back to the show. I am Paul Jameson down here in sunny Florida, and you're listening to the Green Industry Podcast. We are a show to help you take your lawn care business, your landscaping business to that next level where you start making some real good profit money, baby. And business is fun when your customers are happy and there's big money in the bank account and life is good that way. So that wasn't always my story. When I started out my business, woo wee, I was broke busted and disgusted, underpricing my services, driving all around Atlanta, offering every service you could imagine. I was cleaning gutters. I was pressure washing, breaking windows pressure washing.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  I was mowing, edge and trimming, blowing sod, flowers, anything you could imagine I was doing. And eventually I found this community on the internet of other lawn care and landscaping guys. And I started watching their videos and I started learning. I started watching Stanley Dirt Monkey Genetic and I started learning about how to be a real contractor, how to really charge my customers, you know, market rate pricing. And I basically progressed from being a chuck in the truck, even though I was like a hack in a Honda. I started off in a Honda Accord. I didn't even have it. I couldn't even afford a truck when I started

• 2:31Speaker 00

  my business. I remember when I bought my first truck and it was a Ford F-150. I think it was $1,200. And you're like, $1,200 truck, Paul? It wasn't anything special, but my friend let me pay, make them payments like $100 a month or so, and eventually got that sucker paid off and got the title for it. And eventually my friend painted it. It was like a Department of Transportation yellow truck. It looked hideous. And anyway, I paid my buddy 400 bucks and he painted it red. And, you know, then eventually I got another truck and I got a Chevy Silverado, then another Ford. Anyway, I started getting nicer and nicer trucks. But anyway, I say all of that to say, the lawn care community really helped

• 3:16Speaker 00

  me because as I watched other people's videos, I learned how they were doing pricing, how they were doing route density, how they were getting their trailer set up, what kind of equipment they were using and why they chose that equipment. And I, and I eventually became friends with some of these folks. And one of those guys is Tony Rudolph. He lives down in Georgia, where I used to live, or I guess that's up now because I'm, I'm south, I'm in Florida. Tony's in Georgia. But anyway, I was at a truck or a car wash one day. You ever get the sense that somebody's like nearby? So I was at this, you know, ghetto

• 3:54Speaker 00

  car wash, cleaning my truck. And I think I had my GIE rally shirt on. But nevertheless, I was just, I had, I think I had earplugs in and, you know, earphone things in and I was just vacuuming my truck, which is super important to me, to make a presentation, even though it was not a brand new truck in the neighborhood I worked in, which is really nice. I wanted to present myself as a professional. So I always made sure my truck was clean, inside, outside. And I had a customer comment to me one time how my truck's always clean, which, you know, meant a lot. And that was probably why, one of the reasons why I was, you know, taking care of his million dollar house. Anyway, I'm vacuuming and I can just sense somebody's near me. And then there's good old Tony Rudolph. Hey, Paul. I'm like,

• 4:38Speaker 00

  hey, Tony, what are you doing here? And he's like, I'm just buying a truck in cash. And he just randomly was buying a new truck or new to him truck in cash. They randomly planned. And he just looked across the street and there I was cleaning my truck. And he lived like two, you know, two hours away or hour and a half away from where, where I was. But he came into town, good old Duluth, Georgia, actually, to buy that truck. So anyway, Tony and I have been friends for a while. The reason I bring that up is he was my guest at the morning show a couple of years back. And I want to play a segment of that today. I'm all hyped up about the morning show because we had our big meeting yesterday with the powers to be at the Equip Expo, just going over all the details for

• 5:21Speaker 00

  the morning show this year, which is the podcast episode that we do once a year in person. We combine forces, Naylor Taliaferro, Caleb Auman, and myself. And we all do our podcast. Caleb's going to be interviewing his wife, Brittany. And this year, the Equip Expo, Naylor's going to be interviewing Eric Triplet, who's a pond construction contractor. He builds fancy ponds, koi ponds, and nice outdoor spaces in Southern California. And then I'm going to be interviewing John Payjack, who is obviously an expert on budgets, break

• 6:01Speaker 00

  evens, bottom lines, knowing your numbers. And John has helped me tremendously to get dialed in on my numbers. And I can happily say now I'm debt free. And, you know, it wasn't always that way. I used to be essentially paycheck to paycheck. Like, you know, I need to get my, I can't wait till my customer pays me because I need to get that. I need to get that payment so I can put the money in the bank so I can make this payment. And they're just juggling Robin Peter to pay Paul. And many people helped me in those difficult days, get my act together. But John was one of them. And he showed me my true break even in my business after looking at all my expenditures that were non-negotiable,

• 6:46Speaker 00

  like you need string trimmer for your string weed eater, you know, you need a lawn mower, you need a vehicle to haul your trailer that holds your lawn mower, you need gas or batteries for your equipment, whichever route you go, and on and on and on and on. And then in my business, laborers, you need to pay them. And anyway, John crunched all the numbers. And then looking ahead, he's like, well, looking into the future, you're going to probably need a new backpack blower a year or two from now, right? Yep. Okay. Well, let's start budgeting. So he gets all these numbers and he's like, yeah, you should be charging this per man hour. And I was like, you're kidding me. I'm not charging anywhere near that for man hours. So anyway, the good thing was I was tracking my time. So I knew what I was

• 7:29Speaker 00

  earning per man hour. Most lawn care business owners don't even track their time, which is just crazy. That was the jobber. Get, get jobber, clock in when you get to a customer's house, clock out when you leave. And you know, okay, we were here for one hour. It was just me, all by myself today. I should be charging, let's say you're charging $100 per hour for man hour, and you're only charging a sweet Sue 60. And it took you 60 minutes to mow a lawn, you're, you're way behind schedule. Well, anyway, I'll let John explain that at the morning show. So all that to say, we had our meeting yesterday about the morning show and I'm excited for this year. It's going to be Thursday, the week of Equip

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Expo, year 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky, room B103. We're going to be doing a giveaway. We got a bunch of upgrades this year with the stage and the lightings and all the production. We got a upgrade on all of that. I was, the production team was on the meeting yesterday and showing us, you know, the mockup of what everything's going to look like. It looks really nice. And of course, because Relco's sponsoring this podcast collaboration, they provide us donuts and bananas and hot coffee and water and all of that. So it starts at 8:00 AM on Thursday of the Equip Expo morning, room B103. It has been standing room only

• 8:53Speaker 00

  the last several years. So I would recommend getting there early. But with that being said, we're going to go back in the archives to the time when Tony Rudolph was the guest and Mark Bradley and Jonathan Pototschnik, John Naylor and Caleb and Tony and I for a Q and A at the end of this episode as well. It kind of, kind of got wild up there. Lawn care juggernaut in the house. So anyway, sit back, relax and enjoy.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  I live in Florida now and I didn't bring a coat. It's cold here. It's great to see everybody. Thanks again, Naylor. I remember when Naylor would tell me these ideas he has and looking behold Naylor, a full room. Super cool. Give it up for our host Naylor Taliaferro.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  So Naylor said you can interview anybody you want. I said, I want to interview JP. Naylor's like, I got the first pick in the draft. So Naylor got to interview JP. So I want to interview my friend Tony and I'm going to tell you why. Tony Rudolph, everybody.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  How you doing?

• 9:58Speaker 00

  So Tony has been, he's been in the lawn business his whole life. His father had a lawn business and he'll share a little bit of his story in a moment. But what intrigues me about you is you're 100% debt free. So your mortgage, you don't have one. I've been to Tony's beautiful home in Lake Kacone and it's paid for. You got a nice Roth IRA.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  All your lawn care equipment's paid off.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  And you got peace in your heart.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  So, hey.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  So, so I thought Tony was a realistic example because Mark Bradley and JP, they're like, they're like superstars. And if you're just starting out, actually, let's do this. If you're between year one and three, I want you to stand up. If you're in year one and three, stand up if you're in year one and three. I got a gift for you. Well, I don't got a gift for you. Juggernaut, come on up here. Juggernaut's making that YouTube money. Come on up. What do you want to give away today? All right. So, uh, one of you guys between year one and three, I'm sorry, five of you guys, I'm going to go and give you a hundred bucks. I'm going to buy you a steak dinner. Congratulations on making it as far as you did. And I'm going to give away.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Pick him right there. Josh, come on up. Yeah, yeah, you pick him.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  Keep talking, it's a podcast.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  All right.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  My bad.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  All right. So I got another thousand bucks to give away. I'm going to be at the twirl booth between two to four. I'm going to give a thousand bucks to somebody. So make sure you show up. All right. Thank you, Juggernaut. Now let's see the money. JP don't carry cash, but Juggernaut does. Those are hundred dollar bills.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  I collected this over the last five weeks.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Amen. All right. Let's give it up, give them a round of applause. New entrepreneur.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  Don't spend that at a casino, Josh. All right. Rick, everyone give it up for Rick.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Brett, congratulations. What's your name? Ian, congratulations. And what's your name? Michael. All right. Hundred dollars. Thank you. Thank you, Juggernaut.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  All righty. I had, I was going to give you guys not cash, but I was going to bring my books, but we had Hurricane Milton. And so that didn't happen, but I'll be giving away an audio book for free at the end. If you guys want to listen to my audio book for free, narrated by Mr. Producer. You want to pull that up? Thank you. You can scan the QR code there. When I get back to the sunshine state, I'll email you a code where you can get the free audio book on, listen on Audible for free. Again, I wanted to give you the paperback, but because of Hurricane Milton, the Amazon guys weren't working. We didn't have gas. So there you go. Did I cover all the opening ceremony there, rookie?

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Oh yeah. Thank you to Relco, which is formerly known as Kohler. Is Jamie in the back there? It's her birthday on Saturday. Let's sing her happy birthday really quick. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Birthday, dear Jamie. Happy birthday to you. Awesome. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you, Craig. I forget our friend from Italy, but he looks super cool and stylish.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  Thank you to Evan and the team in the back with equip. Thank you very much. Awesome. Awesome show here.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  All right. We're going to get to your questions in just a moment because Caleb skipped you. You didn't ask one question. It's interactive Q and A. Don't worry. We'll, I'll ask you, I'll let Payjack get one queued up. But Tony, go ahead and share your story of how you started a lawn business and paid off your home. You know, invest, you're investing in your Roth IRA. You have a beautiful wife here, two kids, Willow and River. Tell us the story.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I was born in 91. My dad started in 86. Mowed our front lawn with his Toro 44 Pro line. That was, I was eight years old and just any kind of pattern, any kind of way. And starting as a kid, me and my brother, we, I remember one time, one summer, we had watered plant material for my dad's landscape projects at our house for the whole summer. And then at the end of the summer, we spent all that money on TY Beanie Babies. That was my first financial mistake, you know, right there. So.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  And, you know, didn't, didn't really like the business as a kid growing up, but somewhere around teenager age, working with my dad's crew, I really started like, to like the business, especially the maintenance part of it. Learned how to edge with the trimmer and doing these things. I really enjoyed it. And so that's when I really started to enjoy the business. And then when I started my company, 2012, that's when I started to learn about the lawn care community, just like all of us here, when I started digging online. And so that, that opened up my whole mind and my whole mindset. You know, I thought, I always thought as a kid that

• 15:19Speaker 02

  we're a weird landscaping family and like, so I would kind of keep that on the DL that we had a lawn care in landscape business, you know? But then, but I didn't know like all this, you know, existed. You know what I'm saying? And so what an amazing thing to, to start learning about the online community and to come to a bit like this where 30,000 people, you know, were all going kind of in the same direction. That's amazing. Fast forward a few years, our church hosted a Financial Peace University, Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. I took that class and just when I seen all the numbers break down of what you could do

• 15:58Speaker 02

  with what you have and what you make on a daily basis and what that could turn into, my life was forever changed.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Just like all young couples, we start to build our credit, you know, to buy a house and, and I had little payments on trucks and mowers and things.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  But looking back, you know, I probably, I could have kept that walk behind mower a couple more years that I bought when I started. And so I would have done things a little different and always any of you guys out there, feel free to ask me questions, you know, even simple things or even questions that you think would be silly to ask me, you know, I'm cool with that. So anyway, so we take that course and just, we just started going on the journey, you know, step by step, you know, I'm not a super smart guy, but I just know how to follow a plan. And so that's all I've done. I just followed the plan, started investing, you know, as, you know, when it was in the right step to do so, and just started writing down our decks and working hard. And in the last couple of years, we, you know, kind of finished the final destination to have our home mortgage paid off.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  And so that, that was a huge blessing. And so, you know, last year and this year is really fun to come to the expo because I mean, I have no, no real bills or obligations. I mean, obviously I have, I have obligations, but I mean, I guess like you're saying in my heart, I don't feel like, oh, I don't know what's going to happen, you know, next month or that kind of thing, you know, like financially. And so that, that is a huge, huge blessing. Go ahead. I can tell you had a question.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, it's more of a statement and we're not going to do a raise of hands as Naylor says, this is a safe place. But I think if we, you know, we're honest across some room, there's a lot of people who are stressed out about money. And you're not because you, I mean, you don't have a mortgage. You don't, all you got to worry about is, you know, maybe taking your wife out to dinner Friday night, but you have the money to do that. So share that story because I know you as a friend, you are very intentional with, we're going to live frugal. We're going to take the money we're earning in our lawn business and you just start chunking it at the mortgage until now you, you know, you're 100% debt free. So share a little bit about the sacrifice that it took to become debt free.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it's, it's not going to magically happen, you know, it took a lot of sacrifice. It took changing my mindset, you know, of how I seen things. And even just my day to day life, like. Am I packing a lunch with me? Am I stopping to get lunch? Well, certainly during that, you know, during that time, I'm not, you know, not going to get lunch. I really don't like to waste time and stop getting lunch anyway. But anyway, little sacrifices like that, they really, really compound over time. You know, if you think about a few dollars a day, well, if you add that up months and years, like it just little things like that really make a huge difference, you know? And, you know, we're at a Equip Expo and this is, this whole thing is kind of about shiny equipment. And I want all of us to have shiny equipment,

• 18:50Speaker 02

  and I think we should. I think our business each year, we need to figure out how can we make it a little bit better each year. And so, as, as we go through, I just, I just want us to buy it from a place of a firm foundation. And so, I want, so that way, it's a, it's a blessing, you know, the, the mowers they have, the truck they have, the business they have is a blessing, you know, there's no, there's no bad part, you know, tied to it at all, you know? And so, but the sacrifice was big. It was big, especially for a couple of years. And it just kind of depends on how hardcore do you want to go? Just the more you sacrifice, obviously, the quicker you can do it, right? So, we chose to do

• 19:31Speaker 02

  for a couple of years, some big sacrifices and just work weekends. And, you know, I kind of, you know, I wish I had started the journey even years earlier, but I'm like, well, we can do it. We can do it now, you know, if we buckle down and if we, if we take the necessary steps, we could make this work. And so, over the last, you know, this was just in the last two or three years, really hammered down like, hey, we can do this. And then, and I just decided I wasn't going to borrow money anymore. And

• 19:57Speaker 00

  That's huge.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, so if you take that option off the table, then you just have to work with what's left after that. And having our, you know, our financial investor that's tied, what Dave Ramsey just did, just like he, he says, and he was a, he's, he's also 100% debt-free, has no mortgage paying or anything like that. So, the advice that he would give me was extremely solid advice. And so many other people, I, it's not hard to find people that, you know, live this lifestyle, just like Andy Mulder, like so many people have done it this way. So, it's becoming more and more common because the freedom is so good. I, I think it's just kind of, it's spreading, you know?

• 20:34Speaker 00

  I absolutely love it. All right. Pay Jack, let's queue up the first question. And I have some slides up here. In, in the new book that I wanted to give you, again, I live in Florida, and we had a hurricane, but how to build a thriving lawn care business, I walked through the three stages. When you start off, you're in this survival mode, you're just doing everything. And then, secondly, you go into this growth mode, call it growth mode Greg. And then the third mode is when you're thriving, when you have profit, when you have margin, when you have, Tony's not just successful in a lawn care business, his wife likes him. His wife's there. Right? Wave everyone. They're, they're happily married. I've been to their home. Their home has peace in it. They have two children. You're, you

• 21:16Speaker 00

  play the drums at your church. Like Tony's got a successful life. And so, all of the areas of our life should be prosperous, including our business, so that the other areas can be successful. JP, can you come up here too? Please? This is my show, Nayla. I want, I want all the, all hands on deck. All right. You can ask any of us a question. Go ahead, Pay Jack. We're going to do Q and A. What about Mark? Oh, Mark, I didn't see, uh, come on up, Mark. I didn't see him there. I thought he left. Please, come on up. We'll get all cozy. Yeah. Because Caleb didn't do Q and A. Get up here, Mark. Okay, Mark, come on up. All right. Pay Jack, first question. Apologize, Mark. I didn't see you.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  That's your one o'clock over here.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  All right. Go ahead.

• 21:55Speaker 05

  Good morning. I'm Cliff from Alabama. Paul, I'm a fan. My question is to any of the guys, what would you tell your younger self?

• 22:07Speaker 00

  And what we'll do is we'll do rapid fire. So, I'll, I'll start and then we'll just, we'll just work down. I would tell my younger self, I, I didn't start honoring the Lord with my life until I was older in life. So, I would have, I would have started making decisions that honored God, you know, earlier in life. So, that's

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Just be patient and ask good advice come to events like this. What Mark said, what Mark's, okay, what Mark said about people, like earlier on, just hardcore, invest in people, find the people, train the people, work through people. So much of what we do early on, we take it on ourselves. And really, the whole game of business is about building people, and then they build the company. So, everything he said, just kind of take that to heart and go with it.

• 22:59Speaker 06

  Mentorship would, would be the other. So, two things, be the most coachable person in the room, in every room you walk into. That's really important. And then seek mentorship and never stop. To this day, I invest more than my annual salary in personal development. I do not stop working on myself. And the only way to do that is to take advice from people who have been and succeeded where it is that I want to go next. And so, always seeking mentorship. I think that is the, the best piece of advice that I could give anybody.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  Rookie? I would just like to say that being born means that you are enough. Remember that. Life is a miracle. Don't take it for granted. You are enough.

• 23:57Speaker 06

  And again, if you had to tell your younger self something, uh, listen to your dad's financial advice. That would have been mine. I listened to everything else with dad, but not, I was too smart to listen to him.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  Is Nick Bartolo in the room, the wealth advisor? He said he was coming. I don't see him. He, he was on my podcast yesterday. He said that the eighth wonder of the world, or maybe he said Albert Einstein said the eighth wonder of the world is compound interest. So, you know, going back to your story, Tony, what's it been like to, you know, put that $7,000 in your Roth IRA? It's starting to just compound.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Uh, it's, it's kind of, especially when I was first getting started, it's hard to, you know, like for me and my wife, it's hard to, to put that money, that chunk of money in there every, every month. And you, like, you're not going to see results from this for the next lot of years. You know, you're 55 and a half, you know, before you pull it out. So, um, and obviously, all these things kind of change slightly. But, yeah, so it is hard at first. But for me, uh, what we've done is we just, we have it set up on automatic draft. And so, it just does it. Not that that makes it easier, but, um, I think all this kind of comes together, you know, if you have all kinds of payments and money flying out everywhere, well, then it's going to be hard to have your investment

• 25:17Speaker 02

  on your automatic draft, right? But so it's, and I do the same even with my tithing and all kinds of things with like sponsor children, we have the whole thing. So, um, so I think, yes, it was hard. And but, but you will get used to it. It's just hard just for a little bit. Um, as, as you see the account grow, it's like, oh, this is great. I want to put more in there. You know what I mean? Because money that I spent on a, a truck or whatever else, that's sort of wasted. It's going backwards, you know? But this money's going forward every day. And so, these, you know, Roth IRAs, it doesn't help you like any tax wise, like beforehand, but when you pull it out, when you're not old, but when you're eligible age, you know, it's, it's tax free at that point. So that, yeah, so it's hard at first,

• 26:02Speaker 02

  but you will get used to it. Just, uh, contact people that are already doing it, and they'll help you to feel more comfortable with it.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Amen. Brittany Omen, I know you got the Roth IRA. Have you ever felt like you're drowning in scattered quotes, schedules, and chasing payments that never come easy? I've been there with you. I used to be a chuck in the truck, completely disorganized and constantly chasing payments. But then I started using Jobber back in 2019, and it was a complete game changer for my business. I'm still using it today. I love it and recommend it to all my coaching clients. Now, Jobber is an all-in-one business app slash software where you can store customer information, send quotes and invoices, schedule your appointments, and even collect payments. Best of all, you know

• 26:50Speaker 00

  I talk about this a lot on the podcast, you can save a credit card on file for automatic and hassle-free payments. No more awkward follow-ups or lost money. You ready to simplify your business operations? Check the link in the show notes and use my special Jobber link and try it for free. You won't look back.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Here's Megan Cobrely from The Landscaping Bookkeeper.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  The Landscaping Bookkeeper is a company for lawn care businesses under 300K. We like to onboard you under 300K so that we can educate you on your finances. Many bookkeepers love numbers, but we love the education behind the numbers. So, each month, we want to organize behind the scenes, but then we want to meet with you monthly to deliver your statement of cash flows, your profit and loss, called the income statement, and your balance sheet. And our real goal is to help you to understand how each of those work together, so that you can see the health of your business and not just crunch numbers. It's about actually putting them inside a framework, so you know when to purchase and what to do with each of those facets of business.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Schedule your free 15-minute call today at thelandscapingbookkeeper.com.

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  Stop wasting time responding to website inquiries that are not in profitable service areas. Let My Service Area filter those inquiries for you, so you know every inquiry will be in one or more of your profitable areas. My Service Area is a secretary for your website that will only allow good leads and inquiries through your website. This means no more looking up addresses and responding to people that you cannot service. Using My Service Area will allow you to focus on certain areas which help build dense routes. Daily miles traveled matter more than ever today. So, knowing your numbers and how far you can

• 28:41Speaker 00

  travel mean everything to your success. Start saving time and become more efficient today with My Service Area. You can learn more at myservicearea.com/paul. Again, that's myservicearea.com/paul. Pay Jack, uh, queue up the next question. And I've been at the John Deere booth, um, all show. I'm going to continue to be there the rest of the show. I interviewed a wealth advisor yesterday. That episode's going to come out next week. It's absolutely fire. Next question.

• 29:11Speaker 05

  Hey, I'm Josh from Peculiar, Missouri. And I wanted to ask you guys, what's your favorite thing about the lawn care industry? And I also wanted to ask tips to grow a YouTube channel?

• 29:26Speaker 00

  We might have to call on Juggernaut for that. All right, we'll do what you love about the lawn care industry and tips to grow the YouTube channel. That's two different questions, but I'll just, we'll do rapid fire again, real quick. What I love about this industry is the people. So, some of my best friends are in this room, many of my best friends are in this room. This industry has hard work in, people with integrity, people with character. I love the people and I'm not, I don't have a big enough YouTube channel to mention on that, so I'll pass on that.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I almost have the same answer as him, you know, like, I feel like the people, the men and women in our industry are just amazing in general, like even locally, obviously here and online and stuff like that, but even locally, like if I see another lawn guy, he'll just come up and talk to me, "Hey, man, blah, blah, blah." Some of the coolest people I've ever met in my life, you know, are lawn and landscape people. I mean, that's just my experience, it's just what I've experienced, you know? And I've been around lots and lots of different kind of people. And yeah, talk to Juggernaut about growth tips.

• 30:23Speaker 06

  I'm gonna sound like I'm just repeating you guys. I've been in lots of different circles in life and I do not like fake and I do not like showy. And in this industry, there's a lot of people that every day wake up and do the work and work really hard. And I love people that put their head down and go and build things and work really hard. Kind of, I think it was like salt of the earth. That's how we built this country and that's what you find inside this industry and I love it. They're my people.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  What'd you learn building Lawn Care Millionaire YouTube back in the day? Five for 50 now.

• 30:54Speaker 06

  I didn't learn the lessons I needed to learn because it was just this little bitty thing I did and I did it at a time that YouTube was easy. So, now I have this thing called Five for 50, I'm about to learn a lot of lessons. I'm trying to figure it out, so I don't think I'm the guy to give advice right now. My strategy right now is just give exceptionally honest quality feed, information that actually works and that's not good enough these days to build social media, but that is to me foundational, that's where I start. Now I need to learn all the stuff to go actually turn this into something, so.

• 31:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, you know, more of the same probably here, just people. I think everybody likes a comeback story and I think this industry is chock full of them. I think most of us start with pretty humble beginnings. My first few months in business, I remember rolling pennies to buy Christmas gifts. And I have seen that play out many, many times over the years with my employees and with the customers that I serve today at LMN. I hear these stories every day and that fuels me.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  I think just hearing people, hearing people's stories about growth as individuals and turning their lives around in different ways has just always motivated me. And what I do today with speaking and traveling around, working with contractors is, I say this to every contractor I speak to, it's not about you, it's not about your employees, it's actually about the kids of those employees. And I think, you know, last year, I think we managed 300,000 employees on the LMN platform. That's a lot of kids.

• 32:46Speaker 00

  And if we can help other people, help themselves and create a better life, that's awfully exciting. So many people in this industry have done that for me and with me. That's what fuels me, that's what I enjoy about the industry and that's why I'll never leave this industry. Love it. Naylor, what have you, what do you like about the industry and what have you learned about content? Thank you, Paul, for the refresher. So, what?

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Excellence in broadcasting, Ricky.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  There you go. What I love about this industry is 10 years ago, when I started this industry, I didn't know this industry existed. I was a homeowner that just loved lawn care and kind of figured that out, but I came, I discovered this industry at the worst time of my life in hopes to have a plan to better my life. And now because of all of you, this is the best time of my life. So, I just want to thank you all. And as far as YouTube, I'll give you one of the best pieces of advice that Kevin will give you that all of our friends, peers and mentors have given all of us over the years, not that I'm the juggernaut or anything, but consistency, right Kevin? Consistency, you have to put out consistent content in order for you to be found and grow.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  So, consistency, like don't get caught up in the weeds of all the different things that you can do with YouTube, like, you know, start putting the content out first and figure it out as you go along and you'll start to know what's getting views, comments, likes, all that on any platform. It's all about consistency, I mean, in life in general, let's be honest, so.

• 34:18Speaker 05

  I don't know anything about YouTube even though we have a channel, so the one thing I know about that would be to say, to grow YouTube channel, if you're on stage with a microphone in front of a bunch of people, you would say, "Go like and subscribe at Almond Landscape YouTube, @AlmondLandscape on YouTube." That's the best I got for you, so you better hoist a mic here. So, other than that, I don't know. Consistency is what I've always heard, but I have no clue what the algorithm's doing. What I love about the green industry and what always drew it to me at first was I wanted to be in landscape contracting, landscape, landscape construction. And it was my chance to have my own construction business and, and you know, you get out in the dirt and you got your machines out, you're digging, you're building functional landscapes and things that are cool and retaining walls and the horticultural aspect of it and how the, the crazy amount of skills we have to have as professionals in this industry, we've

• 35:03Speaker 05

  got to know a little bit about plumbing, a little bit about, you know, soils and base, you know, base compaction. And equipment, we gotta be freaking mechanics, we gotta be, we gotta understand, you know, once we get past the point of being a, an accountant, we gotta then become a business person to know, "Okay, I don't know this, we need to hire other people out." So, I'm in love with the dirt, I love building stuff and that's what I always have loved about this industry. And then now I love building the business around it, so that's what I love about the green industry.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Awesome. We got time for one more question. And Payjack, as you get, this is the final question, Payjack. So, real quick, what I'll say I love about this industry too is, I've been to Tony's house, I've been to JP's house, Mark, I haven't been to your house yet, but I hope one day. Naylor, I've been to your house, Caleb, I've been to your house, like these guys are my friends, they've invited me into their homes, other Mark, but. That's my, yeah. But, but what I'm saying is, these relationships are real, like these are my friends, I love this industry. Last question, rapid fire answers.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Good morning, gentlemen, thank you for everything that you guys do. My name is Ricky Rodriguez, I'm stationed out in central Florida. And my question is, and it's sort of a loaded question, I think there's probably.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  We gotta make it quick, Ricky.

• 36:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sort of a loaded question, I think only one person might be able to answer and I would love to hear everybody's opinion on it, but where is your mindset growing right now as you're growing in your entrepreneurship, your entrepreneur journey, right? Because as I've been talking to a lot of people, I've noticed that there's been a lot of repetition and answers on growing in certain aspects, like the questions that I'm hearing here, right? But I know that sometimes there isn't time to share a certain thing in our mind that we're growing in, that's actually expanded our mind to newer and grander horizons. Mark, when you were speaking, that's what inspired my question, so I guess you can answer it.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  Where has your mind opened in your journey and entrepreneurship that you haven't been able to share, that people might be missing the mark, that is a whole nother level?

• 37:10Speaker 00

  I think Paul may have already touched on it and I didn't say it explicitly, they always say not to talk much about religion and politics, but I'll say this. As I've reached the financial success that I've reached, there becomes a different purpose in life. I think sometimes we chase money, but I've really come to realize that I am just one with God and it's my job to serve others and that's really where I focus. Well, hopefully you're planning on joining us this year in Louisville. We got two events going on, we got the Equip Expo, October 20th through 23rd, year 2026.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  That's the largest trade show in our industry, about 30,000 attendees, 1,000 exhibitors there, Toro's there, John Deere's there, Kubota's there, Crest Commercial's there, Echo's there, Steel's there, Husqvarna's there, Redmax there, all the competitors, all the best mowing brands, all the best power equipment brands, all your best softwares, Jobber's there showing you their CRM and Relco's there with their engines and their competitors and it's, Vermeer's there, so many awesome companies are there. And you can try the equipment indoors, they kind of have everything all shiny and on the display showroom floor for you to look at. And then outdoors, you can actually test drive and, and you know, demo a lot of the equipment on their 30 acres outside.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  So, a lot of fun at the Equip Expo and then my friend Naylor is doing an event on the Monday and Tuesday before Equip. So, I have booked my flight to fly in on Sunday and the 10 Naylor's event on Monday and Tuesday, I'll be speaking on how to take your social media, get engagement on social media and then turn that engagement into paid customers. So, I have customers who pay me because of social media and I'm going to share my playbook of how I've gotten that dialed in and figured out and serving people through the social media airwaves. So, I will be teaching that and Jason Creel will be there teaching how he's built a solo business, similar to Tony.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  Those guys are just, they just work by themselves, they don't have labors, they don't have multiple crews, they just go and serve their customers and then go home and be husbands and fathers, you know, and serve their family and the community and all of that. There'll be John Payjack speaking on knowing your numbers, Eric Triplet on sales and of course Naylor with multiple topics he'll be covering, we have a special guest coming. Should be a good time at this year's LCR Summit Louisville. Now, I can save you half off the Equip Expo and the LCR Summit, they both, as you register,

• 40:01Speaker 00

  have a little space there where it says promotional code, just type my name in, it's spelled P-A-U-L, Paul, and that will save you half off your ticket on both of those events. 50% off Equip Expo, 50% off LCR Summit with the promo code PAUL. So, hopefully you got your tickets already, you got your flight booked if you're flying, if you're driving, you know, you got, you got some new tires on your truck or what car, whatever you're taking for gas efficiency. And then the parking lot's always funny at Equip because there's so many trucks, it's pretty wild actually seen. And I'll do an episode as we get closer to the show of where to park and how to navigate

• 40:44Speaker 00

  Louisville and all of that, because I used to make mistakes at Equip and get stuck in traffic and all that and I've kind of learned some, some tricks and secrets that I'll share with you. So, if you are going, you'll make the most of your trip. But one thing I will tell you now is get your hotel booked, so I, I'm all set. And if you wait much longer than now, you're, you know, all the good hotels are booked up and you're looking at Red Roof Inn and you don't want to stay there, just leave it at that. Thanks for listening and hope to catch you on the next episode.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Marty, producer of the Green Industry Podcast. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services that you heard about during the episode. And thanks for listening.