Why You Should Be Charging $100+ Per Man-Hour with John Pajak

Financial expert John Pajak joins Paul Jamison to break down the real math behind profitable lawn care pricing, explaining why owners must charge higher man-hour rates and factor future equipment replacement costs into today's invoices. 🎟️ 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 Jamison.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Have you ever wondered what should you be charging for your lawn mowing services or your landscaping services? Well, today on the program, we're going to get into the nitty gritty with John Pajak, talk what folks are charging out there per man hour, what the going rate is and should you be the going rate? Should you be higher than the going rate? I literally have my calculator out and I'm ready to crunch some numbers with the expert, John Pajak. This is part two. We had John on the previous episode where we previewed what he's going to be talking about as he's a guest speaker at the LCR Summit coming up October 20th, 21st year 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky. And John's also going to be a guest on my podcast out there at the Equip Expo for the morning show where we'll talk about knowing your numbers.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  But today I want to be specific with John because he works with so many different fertilization and weed control businesses, landscaping businesses, lawn mowing businesses, and he sees a lot of numbers. So I want to actually hear from the horse's mouth, not that all horses talk, but the Point is, I want John to explain to us what other guys are out there and gals are charging for their services and why and how to come up with our pricing so that we are ultimately profitable. So without further ado, this is part two of my conversation with financial expert and friend, John Paycheck.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  I'm curious about the averages because you have your, your eyes and nose in so many numbers of so many different businesses. If you could kind of give us an average per man hour rate for, for a fair market profitable business. I'm not talking about chucking the truck or standing in the van. I'm talking about real businesses that are making a real profit. What are they charging per man hour for lawn mowing? I don't know if fertilizing, weed control does it by man hour, but like just kind of what, what for somebody who's like, I don't even know what the average man hour rate is right now in the industry. What, what are you kind of seeing for a profitable business? We'll use lawn mowing as an example.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  We'll use lawn mowing. Uh, mowing, okay, is a zone animal.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Generally the guys freak out when I tell them that per man hour, they should be trying to achieve, you know, uh, close to a hundred or over a hundred.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Woo, wait.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  I gotta update, cut that grass and make that cash second edition because I put $85 per man hour. It's 2026 going rate from per man hour, but.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Now, now 85 is probably closer to what most people are, and that may be what is supporting. But you gotta look at the thing that the reason why I say, you know, you should be trying to achieve that. You're not just cutting one lawn in a, in a, if you are cutting one lawn in an hour, well, yeah, you should be charging at least a hundred dollars to do that one lawn. Um, you know, when I had my mowing division, we would get because of our, how our density of how close our.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Lawns were to one other, were to one another and the size of them and the equipment that we had, we were getting about three done per hour on average with a two man crew. And of course, that was like, we weren't driving anywhere, really. We were staying in the neighborhood, bouncing, basically, the furthest was going across the street from one another or going to the next door. This is a highly populated area. This is high, you know, this is suburbs. So like, those were my production numbers, and I don't expect everybody to have that. But at that time, you know, our minimum, I think the last year I was in, I locked, I was locked in at like $52 per cut. And that was for a relatively small lawn. And then they, you know,

• 4:53Speaker 02

  I had, I had some that were 85 a week, 100 a week, and they were, you know, just bigger lawns, but they required more time. And our average, you know, if we're getting three at 50, that was like 150. If, just to do math real quick, I don't want to lose everybody. But if we're getting three done in an hour, and we're charging the $52, we'll just knock it down to 50 to make it simple. That was $150 of revenue coming in. Now, between two people, that was like $75 per man hour. So that is more relatable to, you know, the 85 that you're talking about. Okay?

• 5:37Speaker 02

  The only reason that I threw out the 100 is mainly because if you look at the prices of trucks and equipment, all the things that we do, they're not getting any cheaper, man. And it's like, we all use them. And then you got guys who are like, yeah, I, I, I charge 40 bucks. And, you know, I get like, one done a, an hour.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Okay, well, after all of your expenses and everything accumulate, let's say you're just a single solo operator out there. You're charging forty dollars or four, let's just even go fifty, okay? You're, let's just say you're charging fifty dollars for that lawn. It takes you an hour as a solo operator to do it. Yeah, you could get by, but you're doing a lot of work for a little return. Because, again, the other thing is too, it's not just we buy the equipment and it's there forever. There's operating, the equipment, operating expenses we have to look at. We look at the fuel, we look at the, all the things that could go wrong with it, the maintenance,

• 6:45Speaker 02

  you know, we've got belts and blades and we have spindles and grease points and all that stuff, it adds up. And for, you know, you say you're still buying the machine, you know, say you did one of those, you bought it and you got four years for zero percent financing or whatever, and you gotta, you know, you're paying the dealer like three hundred bucks a month, you know? Well, it's not just that three hundred dollars a month that you have to cover, it's all the op, the, the fuel, the oil, everything that goes with it. And guess what? That thing's depreciating as well.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  The way that I try to do that is essentially, I plan for that piece of equipment to only, I want to get my ROI out of it in a certain amount of time, a short amount of time. You know, instead of, you know, a four-year ROI, I'm, a lot of times with certain pieces of equipment, I want a three-year ROI. A truck, maybe five years, depending on if I bought it flat out or if, you know, but it's like every five years, I'm, I'm definitely, I want to have my money back from that. Stick equipment, pieces of equipment that are like string trimmers and blowers and back fact bores, all those things, I want that back in one year. You know, because unfortunately, I mean, I have

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Employees that especially when we were mowing,

• 8:15Speaker 02

  they were hard on equipment. I still have pieces of equipment that I had since like 2015, but then, and they run just fine. But there's also times when I think it was like 2017 or something when I, or 2018, I had a bad run of guys that were just beating on my stuff. I'd buy a brand new piece of equipment. Three months later, I had to replace it because they, they abused it, you know, put the wrong gas in it or ran it over with the truck or whatever, you know? So it's like pieces like that. I want that. I want that ROI back in one year.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  You were gonna say something?

• 8:56Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say the, again, with

• 9:02Speaker 02

  planning your man hour for mowing, it's not like it used to be, you know, especially with the way fuel is, the way everything with inflation has kind of increased things. You know, the $85, hey, I actually kind of like that number.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  I'm trying to encourage people that are trying, when, especially when they're trying to grow, they're trying to achieve a higher man hour rate for their mowing services.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm helping a 16 year old kid here in Tampa and just getting started and trying to explain this. So like, we'll use $85 as a man hour. Like, it's just hard to get into a 16 year old's mind. Okay, if it takes you one hour, you go and you, you take your little string trimmer and you edge along the garden bed and the driveway, maybe use a stick edger along the driveway, and then you mow the grass and it ain't that big of a yard, but all in all, with you being, you know, working the whole time you're there, it takes you one hour.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  At minimum, you need to charge $85 for that property. It's like, what? 85? Like, my other friends that are working at McDonald's are making, you know, not $85 an hour, but I was like, yeah, but you, and I just explained everything that you just talked about, all those expenditures.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  And a thing too, like I'll even throw myself under the bus, you know, Johnny Boy Longcare way back in the day, you know, failed mainly because I was working for a lawn, a landscape company. I was making like 10 bucks an hour. And I thought, well, I could do this work and I was charging based off of like what I thought I needed. Wasn't looking at equipment costs, looking at what it, you know, like what it costs to rent anything or have an actual business, the insurance and all the other things, right? I, I, I put myself out of business that, you know, very quickly because I was just thinking as an employee going, well,

• 10:59Speaker 02

  I'm making 10 bucks an hour here. If I could just make, you know, 20 bucks an hour home, man, I'm, I'm home free. And that's not, that's not how it works.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Right. Um, where you go ahead?

• 11:11Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say, you know, 20, even back then, you know, if I was charging, uh, you know, there were some loans we were doing 15 or $20 back, you know, 26, 27 years, late 90s, early 2000s, you know, that was terrible, you know, because it couldn't, it could sustain me as a person, but it couldn't sustain a business by trying to make that.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  One thing you helped me with, John, is instead of only looking in my rearview mirror, which you can print out all your bank statements and if, you know, you keep your business income and expenditures in a separate business banks and accounts than your personal, you can kind of see, okay, well, here's what we spent on, fill in the blank of every expenditure. But what you helped me to realize is actually also look ahead at, okay, you're gonna buy a new string trimmer, blade edger, backpack blower, shouts to Crest Commercial, by the way, you're gonna buy all that stuff in the future and a new vehicle, or maybe not new, like the new, you know, year new, but like a new to you vehicle. So you have to bake

• 12:15Speaker 00

  into your pricing, the future per, you know, purchases of, you know, all the things that you have to buy down the road. Like you need to be charging your customers now for that used truck you're gonna buy in a few years than that new mower you're gonna buy two years from now. And that new, like if you're planning next year, we're gonna update all the power equipment. Like you need to have that baked into your prices now. And I was like, I mean, it's common sense because I never even thought ahead. I was just thinking, well, here's how much my storage unit is every month. Here's how much, you know, this, that and the other is. And you, you got me really thinking two, three years ahead and planning out those big purchases for the vehicles, trailers, equipment, such, stuff like that.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. And, you know, for me, that's the, that is the, if I could go back to the Johnny Boy days, that's what I would, I would have grabbed myself by the collar. I would have shook, I would like, listen, you are, you're, you're cutting your own throat. You don't know what you're doing. You know, I unfortunately had to, I had to learn from the blood, sweat, tears and years of, of struggling and failing over and over again. And that's not a bad thing, but at the same time, I'm trying to help others avoid all of that, mainly because it's not the failure

• 13:40Speaker 02

  part. What I'm really trying to do is condense time. Because out of all the things that we have available to us, I could always make more money. I could, I could replace equipment. I could, unfortunately, you know, people come and go. I could, I could get new employees and things like that. The thing I cannot get, and I have to basically just leverage is time. Again, going back to, you know, what we first started talking about, you know, if you're, if you're in a mess right now, and you're afraid, or you feel ashamed that you, you know, like, ah, I gotta fix this myself before I let anybody else see the numbers. Get over it. It's going to cost you time. Time

• 14:22Speaker 02

  is invaluable. There's, you know, people say time is money. It's not, that's nonsense. Time, money and time have no, somebody duped us into thinking that those two are connected. I cannot go back and get 10 years of my life back.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  There's times I pray for it. I'm like, oh, man, that'd been so good if I could, if I could have just gone back and I would have had such an easier time or I wouldn't have had to go through all those struggles. It's like, yeah, they formed me into what I am today. If I would have had a mentor or someone to just talk to and they again would shook me by the collar and just, you're doing this wrong. Don't do that. You know, it would have saved me so much. I, I can only imagine where I'd be now. But again, that's the time is.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  When people start trying to compare time and money, I'm like, there's, they, they make money all the time. They print it off. It's not even funny anymore. They just, it's just not, it doesn't, there's nothing behind it anymore. You know, we used to be on a gold standard. Now we're not. They just make more money. Okay, that's great. It's basically worthless. I look at it. It's only a tool to get the things I need. It, it makes things easier to get, but it's not the whole purpose, you know? For me, honestly, anytime I can, if I have to spend money to save time, I, I, I consider it. Not everything is worth it, but sometimes there's, there's things that come along

• 15:59Speaker 02

  and you're like, yeah, this is definitely going to be worth whatever monetary value I have to put towards it, or maybe it is a little bit of time to get even more time, you know?

• 16:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  That's a whole discussion we could have.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. My cleaning company came yesterday and I hired a cleaning company. They come once a week. Now, my friend Myron, they come three times a week because that's like my goal, but right now, budget wise, I can afford once a week, but they came and they cleaned my whole place. So yesterday I was able, I started working about 8:00 AM, went to about 9:00 PM. Yesterday was a focus day for me. I worked all day long. I took a break to go on a walk and I took a break to eat lunch, but I worked all day yesterday, but I saved myself time. I didn't have to clean. Like I went to bed and my bed was made and like my whole place is clean and, and I worked on, Myron calls them MMA, making money activities. So yesterday I just worked all day on making money activities and I was

• 16:54Speaker 00

  able to do so and I didn't have to like clean or anything. Everything was cleaned for me. So yeah, if you, but it saved me time by, by paying the cleaning lady, um, you know, their company, it saved me time.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  And you know, Paul, you make a great point. And maybe people aren't thinking of it this way. They may go, oh, man, Paul's bougie because he gets a maid come out and clean his house. I don't, I don't look at it like that. I also, if you look at that inside your own business, okay? If you're doing something and you could pay somebody 15 bucks an hour to do it, is it really worth your time to do it? Because I'm just saying like, I'm not trying to sound like I am some high-power CEO of a lawn care company because I'm not, I'm, you know, I'm,

• 17:45Speaker 02

  I've got a great business that takes care of me, my family, the people that work with me. Things are great. But I don't necessarily want to go around and pass out the, like the flyers and the door hangers anymore. You know, that, don't get me wrong, I'm the guy that I would rather pay somebody. And I do this, I, you know, I got, I got little, you know, nephew, well, they're little. They're grown folks now. But you know, there's times with my nieces and stuff that, that, that have cars, they could go and drive around. I will pay them, you know,

• 18:26Speaker 02

  a set amount of money to go pass out these door hangers. My time is not, is better spent creating the ideas for those door hangers or for promotional ads or things like that, you know? I could, you know, there's a few place, a few softwares that I use to actually deliver postcards to the houses I want.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  It's not like a, you know, the US Postal Service where they, you, you buy a route and it, it covers like all of these homes. I've done that before and it's kind of a waste because sometimes it goes to multifamily homes, like apartment buildings, or it goes to businesses that I'm not targeting, or it goes to like an abandoned house. You know, just because it's in the route. I, I'd rather spend a little bit of money and pick out exactly which homes I want it delivered to. And I pay for a service that does that so that I can go ahead and make some really killer postcards. Now, I could probably outsource that, too. But I kind of, besides doing the numbers thing, the marketing has actually turned into something that I find a lot of

• 19:39Speaker 02

  fun in because it lets me be creative. And it's like, oh, look at this, you know.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  But again, you know, if you, we always used to use the analogy of wearing like a bunch of hats, you know, like a lot of business owners wear like 30 hats on their head, right?

• 19:57Speaker 02

  We have to start thinking of how we could take each one off, put it on someone else, delegate that work, even if it's not a full-time employee. It could just be maybe a virtual desk, or maybe, like I said, you know, my nieces, I could just take a hat off and be like, hey, you're gonna canvas this area for me and I'm gonna give you money. And it'll be fair. And they're like, yeah, no problem. That's great. Okay. They love it because it's, you know, they know that if they could spend a day, they're gonna make, you know, 150 bucks just by walking around a neighborhood they're already in. So, anyway, trying to spend a little money sometimes just to free yourself up. It's not a bad thing.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  Crest Commercial is the only solution for commercial landscapers to convert to electric with the power of gas. No downtime with their eight-minute charging system and industry-disrupting warranties that offer six years or 3,000 full life cycles on the CyberPack batteries. There is no reason to not make the switch. To find out more about the free demos and how you can start saving up to $2,000 per year per crew, visit crest.com today to find your local dealer. Most jobs go to the first contractor that picks up the phone, but you can't answer the phone when you're on a lawnmower. So here's a solution. It's called Voice Assist by Call Rail. I'm going to show you how it works. I'm going to call a pest control company that uses Voice Assist.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  Take a listen.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Hi, thanks for calling the pest patrol. I'm Betty, a virtual assistant. What's bugging you?

• 21:36Speaker 00

  Hey Betty, I wanted to see if you could schedule somebody to come out, take a look at my property and give me a quote for pest control. I was looking for yearly service.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Sure, I can help with that. Do you have any questions about our services before we get started collecting some details?

• 21:50Speaker 00

  What would it cost to come once a quarter?

• 21:52Speaker 03

  We offer a quarterly service plan with four treatments per year. The cost typically ranges from $350 to $480 annually. Keep in mind, final pricing depends on an in-person evaluation.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's get one scheduled.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  Can I have your first and last name, please?

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Paul Jamison.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  I've got several openings. For example, on Thursday, March 19th, we have 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11 a.m., and more throughout the afternoon. Would any of those work for you?

• 22:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, 10 a.m. works.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  Your appointment is confirmed for Thursday, March 19th at 10 a.m. and a confirmation email has been sent. Could you share the address of the location where you'd like the service?

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Sure, it's 1234 Main Street.

• 22:33Speaker 03

  Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

• 22:35Speaker 00

  Oh, that's it. Thank you so much, Betty.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  Thank you for your call.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Well, did you hear that? That's Call Rail's Voice Assist. It's so good, it speaks for itself. You can qualify more leads, book more jobs, and stop losing opportunities to businesses down the street. Try it for free at voiceassist.com. Again, that's voiceassist.com.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  Lawn care and landscaping pros, listen up. If you're tired of guessing your way through pricing, marketing, hiring, and sales, this is your wake-up call.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  The LCR Summit hits downtown Louisville, October 19th and 20th at the Galt House. The same week is equipped and it's going to change the way you run your business forever. This is not another sit and listen event. It's two full days of hands-on workshops from leaders who've actually built what you're trying to build. Naylor Talia Farrow shows you how to generate better leads through smarter marketing. Paul Jamison teaches content that converts. John Pajak breaks down your numbers so you'll stop working for cheap. Eric Triplet, the pond digger, reveals how he built a multimillion dollar business making more money with less work. Plus, you'll have a surprise guest speaker.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Add in live Q and A panels, powerful networking, and an exclusive VIP dinner with all the speakers when you purchase at the platinum level. Grab tickets and info at LCRSummit.com or just tap the link in the podcast description. That's LCRSummit.com. Stop guessing. Start growing. Build the business you've always imagined at the LCR Summit.

• 24:12Speaker 00

  What are your thoughts about Crest Commercial? And financially, how would you compare and contrast gas-powered equipment versus, you know, high-quality battery-powered equipment like Crest?

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm just gonna say I love it. I was very skeptical at first. I'm a gearhead by nature. I love machines. You know, I love tearing them apart. I love rebuilding them. The thing is, as a business owner, you know, I got tired of, you know, people, I had, like, again, I had guys that wouldn't mix the fuel properly. We'd have, we'd have separate tanks just for mixed fuel. And either they wouldn't, they'd forget to put the oil in, or they didn't put enough in. It's like, I got to the point where I was just like, just take this two-ounce bottle

• 25:06Speaker 02

  and dump it in here and it will be enough. Because before, for economic reasons, I was buying the big jugs and you had to measure it all out and everything. Even though that's way more economical, guys are blowing up machines. So I said, we went back to the single-serve bottles in the, in the gas. Well, we had problems with that. We had problems with people complaining about noise and everything.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  I started looking at it from a financial point, not this, okay, Crest was the only one that I've looked at that delivered the power and longevity from their batteries that made me go, well, this could be viable. When I, of course, I'm a nerd and I've got to start looking at how much money it costs to operate these things. It was, Paul is crazy. I know you've seen me in action on the whiteboard going nuts on this, right? But it turned out that I started seeing how much savings that the Crest power equipment can provide

• 26:12Speaker 02

  for a business. Because not only, and here are the two key things. One, they cover all of their stick equipment, their tremors, their edgers, their blowers, the equipment, the tool itself is basically almost the same price as the gas counterpart. And, but they have a three-year warranty on it. Whereas if you're using anybody else, any, any gas powered equipment for commercial use, you only get a one-year warranty on it. And again, this is why I put a one-year ROI on a lot of the pieces, those pieces of equipment,

• 26:55Speaker 02

  because the warranty runs out after a year if you're using it commercially. If you're using it as a residential unit, you get a two-year warranty. Okay. What, you know, if you got a dealer, maybe they could help you out. I don't know. But that's step one. Now, a lot of guys see the batteries and they get sticker shock. The thing is, though, Crest warranties and guarantees those batteries for six years. So instead of like taking that into one season.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  You're looking at, I break it down into six years for that piece of, for that, for those batteries. When you start looking at that and you start getting into the mindset that you're actually purchasing your fuel upfront for the next six years, that changes the whole dynamic. Because I don't know about you, but you know, there's times when I drive by the, the, the gas station. And I'm like, oh man, this is going to hurt when the guys come and fill up, you know? Because, you know, we've seen, you know, $5 gas, you know? And then the next day it's 450 and then the next day it's 49 and then it, it, it like, it's a roller coaster.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  You know, I'm, I'm literally gambling when I'm trying to figure out like my budget for fuel. And now I have ways of doing it. It's been tracking it for a very long time. I just know how much fuel each piece of equipment takes. So I could get an average and I know, okay, when they go fill up, it's going to sting, but you know, this is going to be a $500 day when they fill up, you know? But when it comes to Crest and their battery, not only do they have fantastic batteries that are not like anybody else's, they don't, they have a whole line of lithium powered batteries, but that's not the commercial. The commercial batteries are a completely different blend.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  They have so much time, power built into it that really you could, you could almost just have two batteries per piece of equipment and get through a full day of mowing. Just because you could switch back and forth, um, because they recharge so fast and everything. But anyway, getting back to it, when you look at what it costs to actually recharge the batteries. We're talking like 15, like this is pretty close to nationwide. But I remember when I did the, uh, the break, the cost breakdown, it was like 15 cents per kilowatt, right? It would like to recharge the batteries overnight or you don't even have to with with

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Crest, you don't necessarily have to do it overnight. They charge within, they have a very fast recharge time. If you have the Cyber Tank, you could charge them in eight minutes. I mean, think about that. That's just ridiculous. From zero to 108 minutes, it's nuts. Even if you don't have the Cyber Tank and you just recharge them with a different charger that they have, it's still a very short amount of time to get that power. But when you look at it and you start looking at like, okay, this is what it costs for my fuel, the electricity to power those batteries out, it literally outweighs over the, over that six year time period. You are saving so much money. You basically are

• 30:16Speaker 02

  know exactly what it's going to cost you. Instead of like gambling at the gas pump and trying to figure out like, man, am I going to, do I have enough money in our fuel account right now to cover filling up? It's like, no, we, we've got this equipment here and it just dollars and cents, it makes so much sense. So again, I take a lot of flack for this because they're like, oh, you're so, you know, you went gravel back mechanic went electric and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, well, I didn't go completely electric. The only ones that I consider are Crests. And it's because of the fact that after I've ran the numbers on it, it just makes, it makes dollars and it makes sense.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  And you're pro Crests from a financial perspective, but just from common sense, like it's so annoying to hear a gas powered blower. Like I'll be out creating content with, you know, for like Instagram reels and everything and I'll go to film a video and then like I hear a gas powered blower. And now I'm like, that's so annoying. And I have to like, wait until he's done. And then I start talking and then it's just, it's so loud. But what Larry was telling me from, you know, Mike and Larry from, from good old New Jersey, like his team members, you know, these are.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  Buff, strong, manly guys like their guests. And then he first brought the Crest on scene and they're like, get that bleep bleep bleep out of here. What the is that nonsense, right? And now they're like, hey, we only, we only want to work on the crew that has the Crest because it's so much more quiet. Like you can literally use their backpack blower and talk to somebody and carry out like you and I could have a conversation together. Why I have the backpack blower on full, you know, full go. So I think even from a market perspective, more and more people, especially that work at home, they don't want to hear the loud engines going while their kids taking a nap, while they're on a, you know, Zoom call or

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Microsoft Teams or Google Meet or whatever they use. They don't, they don't want the noise outside of the house. And there's actually a way you can serve the customer with that by still providing a powerful, you know, you're not losing strength in the actual string trimmer, blower, et cetera, because Crest Commercial does provide that. Now, a lot of the other battery powered equipment is underwhelming and I wouldn't recommend it, but.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  I agree with you, Paul. It's not, not to, you know, blast any other company or anything, but you know, you're going to be, you're going to need a whole wall of batteries just to get through the day. But, you know, you bring up another point, the, the, the sound of it. Again, times are changing. There's, you know, ever since 2020, more and more people, even though most people kind of went back to work in, you know, at work, there's still a lot of people that are at home now and they're conducting their, their business from home. So, you know, as podcasters, you know, if we have somebody that's outside running equipment, it's like, okay, now I get where some people would complain about the noise of this thing,

• 33:29Speaker 02

  but it's kind of like a necessary, it's necessary, you know, to get the job done effectively. But, you know, I, I know you talk about the, the backpack blower. I fell in love with their handheld. They had their handheld blower is the equivalent of some backpack blowers. Now, I'm not talking about the absolute top tier, but I'm talking like, you know, at least the, like the 600 level, it, you know, those handhelds can. Match that power and for most of us, until you start getting into like cleanups and things like that, that's when you would want the backpack blower. But for quick cleanups, if you're just blowing

• 34:12Speaker 02

  grass off of a sidewalk in the driveway, or like in my business, we're doing granular fertilizer, we got to blow those that off the street and off the, all the hard surfaces, that handheld is awesome. And it's small, like it's just ergonomically balanced with the battery on it. It feels good. It's got tons of power, you know, I mean, what else can you say? It's super quiet, too. Like you said, we could have a conversation. You hear it. It's not like, it's not silent, but it's definitely, you could still, I don't have to yell if, you know,

• 34:49Speaker 00

  It's a win-win for the operator, the actual human being using it. I mean, long-term, it's going to save their ear. And I would still recommend having ear protection, like in general, like protect your ears. You don't need it with the Crest commercial, but I'm saying most guys, like I'll see somebody out there with a, you know, a steel or a Echo backpack blower, and they're not even wearing ear protection. And I'm thinking, bro, you're, you know, your, your hearing is going to suffer from that. But with Crest Commercial, you got the operator, it's better for them. And it's way better for the consumer because they don't, they don't have the noise on their property. So just from that perspective, I'm not talking the dollars and cents

• 35:31Speaker 00

  like you talked about, I'm just talking practically speaking, there is a growing market. Our friend, Greg Chisholm says, the trend is your friend. And the trend is more and more customers want their service provider to offer quieter equipment. And I think you can charge more when you sell your services to say, hey, we, we use battery powered equipment. So we're not going to be making all this noise while we're servicing your property. And that, and that's part of why we charge premium pricing.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you could spin it into, again, like you said, spin that into an advantage because it is an advantage. You know,

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Some of our services, you know, we have these tanks that are in the back of our truck. We're skid sprayers and the motor is out there and it's like a little Honda engine that powers that unit. And most people, even it's far enough away from the street or from the house, so they don't really hear it. They hear something, but they can't quite figure out what it is.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  I was talking to Crest, I'm like, what if we did, could you guys like have like an electric power unit that could power pumps like that? That way we could put them inside our vans or inside the trailer. We don't have fumes and everything. And they're like, oh, you know, they're, they're, they'll develop it eventually. But, you know, all that electric stuff, it's like sometimes the, the customer doesn't even know we're there. The only reason they know that we're there is because they see the sign in the, in the, in the yard. They got the tag on their door saying we were there and, you know, an email notification saying that, you know, you're, they're like, where were you? It's like, well, if you look, you could see, you can see your lawn's already looking better.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  You can see our footsteps or the tire tracks from, from our equipment. But anyway, going electric, I'm not saying that that is the, it's going to be the best solution for everybody, but that's definitely, if you're looking, look at Crest when it comes to the electric powered equipment, because in my opinion, they have the best lineup and the cost savings is ridiculous. Just, you just gotta get past that sticker shock of the initial purchase, but once you do, that equipment's gonna, because the thing is, if the battery goes bad before that six years, they'll give you a brand new battery.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  They just stand behind everything. If you break a piece of equipment, they'll get you a new, new tool. So it, it, it really does make a lot of sense.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Well, I appreciate your time today, John. If you're just tuning in, I've been talking with financial expert John Pajak. He helps businesses fix their numbers, fix their finances, understand their numbers better. And he's going to be speaking at this year's LCR Summit in Louisville, Kentucky, happening October 19th through 20th. And he's also going to be my guest at the morning show on Thursday, October 22nd in room B103 at the Kentucky Exposition Center. And we'll be having a casual conversation up there, but we're going to theme it around helping a lawn care business owner know your numbers. That's, that's John's wheelhouse. And that's what we're going to serve the room with that valuable information.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  So you can join us in person at the LCR Summit Louisville. If you're listening on Apple and Spotify, Mr. Producer will put the link in the show notes to get your LCR Summit tickets. And then the morning show is free, you know, assuming you have your equipped expo ticket, because some of the add-ons you have to pay extra for, not the morning show. Thankfully, we have a sponsor who, someone's got to pay for it because there's a bunch of food, donuts, bananas, coffee we have for you. Pardon me, Relco picked up the tab on that. So shout outs to our friends at Relco. They sponsored the morning show. So you guys can enjoy free donuts

• 39:32Speaker 00

  and all of that. So, but that's, that's happening Thursday, October 22nd in room B103. Mallard Island Lawn Service, our friend David from Arkansas in the house. He says, so are you going to be coming to the LCR Summit again?

• 39:48Speaker 00

  I think he'll be there. Well, anyways, is there anything, I know we covered a lot of ground here, John, and I appreciate your time with your travels recently and everything. I'm very thankful to you, you know, giving us some of your time today. Is there anything we're leaving out here that needs addressed?

• 40:05Speaker 02

  I could go on forever, but I think we're, I think we're pretty good here. You know, we talked about the summit, we talked about equip and the morning show at equip and some extra bonus stuff. I think, I think we're good here.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Cool. Well, thank you so much for your time, John, and time's been flying by this year. So a blink of an eye, we're going to be in good old Lord Willen in Louisville, Kentucky for the LCR summit and the equip expo. I'm really looking forward to it. So.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Me too. I can't wait. So, uh, yeah, it just, do you mind if I throw a little something out there?

• 40:42Speaker 00

  Yep, throw it out there.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  People are interested, you know, profits with pay jack is available on all of every single podcast library, just like Paul's. But if you're interested in hearing more things dedicated to this type of topic, making more profits with your business, come and check us out. Profits with pay jack.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And if I can shout out real quick, I'm, I'm, I'm working on this new book, cut that grass and make that cash, the second edition. And I give John pay jack. I was talking with Mr. Producer about this because he's editing it and he's like, you know, you're giving John a lot of love in the book. And that's because in the book, I'm providing the fundamentals to everything about knowing your numbers. But I'm like, it's such a personalized thing because none of our numbers are the same. And like you, you even, oh, like you even shared, like you, it starts at home. Like what is your renter mortgage? What is your, you know, I know your daughter Claire, she's in like karate and all of that, like, and I don't have any kids. So you have, and I don't know what all those expenditures are for your daughter, but I don't have any kids yet. So I

• 41:44Speaker 00

  don't even have, you know, I'm not buying diapers. And I was talking to my friend last night, he has four kids and he's like a two-year-old, a five-year-old, an eight-year-old. He was telling me all this, like, you know, he's like, because I was like, man, I want to be like you, you know, have four kids and a wife. He's like, well, I want to be like you golfing every day. And we're like, wow, like the grass is always greener on the other side and, and, you know, but my point is it's all like personalized numbers. So that's why in the book, I'm like, reach out to John pay jack and, and help, you know, get, get a look at your specific life circumstances. So your numbers can line up with like your real life, you know?

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah, your business should support your life, not, not the other way around.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  So good. All right. And David's in the comments as well from Arkansas. So

• 42:27Speaker 02

  VIP dinner. Yeah, he knows.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  He already got his ticket to the VIP dinner happening. That'll be Monday night, October 19th, offsite. Lots of laughs. I was in tears laughing last year. Actually, David spurred the, the laughter with his,

• 42:41Speaker 02

  right.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  With his jokes about his, um, we can't even say it on here, John.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, just.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  He made me cry laughing with his stories.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  David's a great character. He, uh, he's a lot of life experience and a lot of fun stuff.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. So he was telling us stories and, and I, I could not contain my laughter. I laughed so hard. I, I was some good times. So.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  See, that's why you need to be at the VIP dinner. You know, it's stuff we can't talk about in real life because it's just, where, where do we fit that in? You know, we, you just need to be there to experience.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  It was a fun night. All righty, John, I gotta get, I gotta get, um, rolling. But again, he's John Pajak. Check out his podcast, Profits with Pajak and come hang out with us in person at the LCR Summit in Louisville, Kentucky, October 19th and 20th. Peace.

• 43:31Speaker 00

  All righty, that ends the live stream right there. And let me end the podcast. Again, friend, show notes will have your ticket information for LCR Summit Louisville. If you can grab that VIP ticket for the dinner Monday night with all of us, grab one. If they're sold out, I apologize. And then, um, you know, if you haven't already gotten your equip expo ticket, you can grab that there as well. And we'll see you soon in Louisville, Kentucky.

• 44:11Speaker 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.