Ezra McCarthy
Hello and welcome back to the lawn care blueprint. We got an exciting episode for you this morning. Today we have none other than Jose Yepez. He runs a thriving lawn care business back in my old neck of the woods right there in Greenville, Texas. And he’s actually been working with Green Frog here for about two years. In just a few years, he’s grown his business from right around $30,000 to this year he’s projected to do approximately 500K in annual revenue.
And, this is taking just a lot of hard work and consistency and his journey is really an example of what you can do if you put your mind to it and sure glad to have you here today, Jose.
Jose Yepez
What’s up, man? Excited too.
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, so for those of you who don’t know Jose, which is probably all of us here, when I first met Jose, I’m trying to remember, I think you were 16, was that right?
Jose Yepez
I was a sophomore in high school, so maybe around 15.
Ezra McCarthy
Six fifteen sixteen. Okay and so today for the audience ⁓ tell them how old are you now?
Jose Yepez
I’m 18 now. I’m 18. Yeah, I just graduated.
Ezra McCarthy
Yes, the big 18. So let’s dive into it. This is a pretty neat story. You know, I talk to people sometimes. I’ll call people at the beginning of the year and ask them, hey, how’s your business doing? Some of my customers and they’ll tell me, hey, we’re at 200. We want to be at 250 this year. And then I call them next year. And for some reason, they tell me the same number. So nothing changes. But you’re a great example of someone who actually has put in the work and has grown. So let’s go back to the very beginning. Jose, do you want to tell the audience what inspired you to start your lawn care business? And what did business look like before that really at the beginning?
Jose Yepez
Yeah. So coming from a low-income family, you know, don’t get much opportunities to, you know, have money at your hands and disposable income. So me wanting to make a change for it, I really wanted to, you know, make it out and go to college. And I had to find a way to pay that tuition. So what better way than go mow lawns for some cash in summer? So that’s how I started it. I used my dad’s push mower, walked around my neighbors, and started mowing it. And I actually started that push mower, a weed eater and a broom to sweep off the clippings off the sidewalk. So you can tell what I built from just those three things.
Ezra McCarthy
And then what year was that?
Jose Yepez
It had to be around 2021.
Ezra McCarthy
Walk us through your first season. How did that first season go? How many customers? And if I remember correctly, was it your family friend you actually started it with in the very beginning and then later you ended up buying him out. But what would that first season look like?
Jose Yepez
So after I mowed a few lawns, you I spoke to my neighbor and I was like, which is our family friend, he’s our neighbor, talked it over and I was like, you know, man, if you just want to, can mow a few lawns on the weekend, just split the money. He was like, all right, let’s get it done. He was looking more so to help me out, to get me down the right path and, you know, avoid the conflicts of life with bad influences so that helped out. We probably only did about maybe, I want to say five, five, lawns every Saturday. I actually had, I was in the band in high school so every Friday night we had a game and then we’d be home around 12, 1 in the morning and I’d be right back up at 7 just to go mow lawns.
Ezra McCarthy
So, walk us through the progression there. You started, you said five to 10 lawns there 2021 or 2020 you were thinking. So what kind of that progression year over year? Obviously something changed here. What did that progression look like?
Jose Yepez
The first year, I want to say maybe like 2021 or 2022, somewhere around there. We might have kept up, grew a little bit, you know, went from five to ten lawns, maybe to 20. We started getting a little busy, so we started mowing Saturday and Sunday, which is a little hectic at that point.
From there, I just saw a vision that I could make more money. could grow this into a legitimate breadwinner. So we really transitioned from just mowing lawns to doing smaller landscape projects, bringing in larger amounts of money each week. But it stayed relatively small. I believe that first year was maybe only like 30,000 after all the jobs that we did. But yeah.
Ezra McCarthy
What transition from this point, you’re 2022, 2023, you’re doing $30,000. And obviously at this point, you’re still in high school. So how do you go from $30,000 to ramping up to at this point, doing almost half a million dollars?
Jose Yepez
Going to 2022 and 2023, I was going into my junior year. So it was that summer. Earlier that year, I had already bought it out for my family friend because he wanted to just keep doing it as a side hobby. And I was like, you I could build this into something bigger. So his name was Miguel Saavedra. He’s an amazing guy. Still talk to him. He’s still running his own rig. We’re on the old path. Yeah. So that summer I looked into Google SEOs and I actually built my first campaign and I realized how difficult that was and I did not want to go back to it.
So I went to that advertising, put in a couple hundred dollars each month and I bought my first truck after that. It was a little 05 Cateye. I bought that and had a small five by eight trailer with one hustler mower and I just started pumping out ads. Got a friend of mine from high school to work the summer with me and we literally went from thirty thousand to two hundred thousand in revenue just from that and the turning point wasn’t just mowing lawns. It was this one landscaping project that I did at 16 years old.
I had a, it was this guy named John Addix out in Celeste, Texas that gave us a job. It was about $50,000. And I tell you what, I did not know what I was doing. We figured it out, but it was a nightmare of a week getting that project completed. But that was a turning point where I realized that it’s not just mowing that would make me money, but the landscaping was really going to take me to the next level.
Ezra McCarthy
And I believe it was, wasn’t your family friend, didn’t he know how to do that masonry stuff? Cause I’ve seen some of the work you guys did with that natural stone. Looks really sharp. Was it him or a different friend who had, you would learn the masonry side from.
Jose Yepez
So it’s a different friend actually. The one that we’re talking about, his name’s Alex. And yeah, we actually use him for all the masonry work that we do. So I don’t get my hands dirty with it. I go out, him and I go out, he tells me what it’s gonna cost me and we implement it to the final bid. So he’s really been a godsend with being able to take care of that portion of the business.
Ezra McCarthy
One thing I’d like to highlight as well as I remember, I think I met you was it? Yeah, it was early 2023 and you had a little bit of a Google business profile going, but not much. You didn’t have any website yet. So what would you say? I remember when I meet random people that I meet random people that I know they’re business owners. I’ll start asking them about, do you have a Google business profile? Do you get reviews? And most people look at me like I’m crazy, but there’s a few people that actually take my advice and you are one of them. So, how would you say that has changed your business getting that Google business profile set up right, gathering reviews from your customers and then having a professional website done? How has that changed your business? And what would you tell someone who doesn’t have that done?
Jose Yepez
It actually ties back into a job we did about two weeks ago. So we did a beautiful masonry bed for a client. We installed and designed a flower bed as well and some sod. And that project was quite expensive for him. It turned out to be around 20,000 and he was getting other bids and such. But he told me that once he saw that one of my reviews was one of his trusted friends. He was like, there’s nobody else you should go with other than the person that’s vouching for you.
So just from having that one review, I was able to lock in that job not have to worry about getting underbid or getting the job taken away from me. It’s really been helpful. I mean, it’s basically if you work hard to get that presence high up in Google, it’s just almost free advertising. They’re vouching for you and you get the client. Whoever provides the most value for the clients, one that wins the job ultimately. So I believe that’s what’s separated me from the competition.
Ezra McCarthy
So I want to hone in here. I’ve heard that before, but I want to really help the listener realize how important it is. Is this the only time you’ve heard someone talk about reviews or you got to remember those listening in literally one review sealed a $20,000 job. And so many times I hear people they’re, I don’t want to bother people. All this, all that. And they’ve got all these excuses and they don’t want to send it out. Send the invite. So have you found in other instances as well? that you’ve gotten jobs just because of those Google reviews.
Jose Yepez
Yeah, so a lot of the requests that I get go straight to my website. So we have a request form on our website. So just from that, I have multiple clients, a couple each week that text me, know, hey, we sent you a message. We’ve seen what your reviews are, so we want to go ahead and get a quote from you. Someone closed the job because of our ratings and such. Because ultimately, you want to trust the person that does the work for you. You don’t want just a random stranger that you don’t have any trust with, go service your property.
So as long as you have those reviews and genuine people giving you five stars and those types of things, it’s going to make a world of a difference when gaining the trust of the client and getting ultimately the job.
Ezra McCarthy
This is so good. And you know, I was just talking to some the other day and it’s so interesting the attitudes that people have. I was talking to this person and they’re basically, ⁓ they really were just complaining. They’re just like, well, I can’t get work. I can’t, I can’t this, I can’t that. And you know, Jose, you’re a really good example. You can have a lot of excuses. You could say, I’m, well, at the time you started 16, 17, no one’s ever going to pay me. If you haven’t guessed by his name, he’s Mexican. So you could have the excuse, people don’t want to hire me. I’m Mexican. But that’s not true. You’ve done the hard work. You do what you say and people are willing to hire you and you’re doing the advertising.
So, for people out there now Greenville is right outside of Dallas there. But Greenville’s what is it 30 40 thousand people. I’m trying to remember the exact numbers. It’s not very big. So it can be done. Now for those listening to think that maybe you’re just handing this off or you didn’t really work to get here. Maybe explain a little bit.
What have you done for advertising? Because I see a little bit of the back end and I talk to you. So would you tell them what are all the things that you have done to get the work that you’ve got?
Jose Yepez
The biggest thing that we do, advertising to Google SEO. So of course you manage it through Green Frog. So that’s the biggest thing. We spend a few thousand dollars each month on that by itself. Other than that.
Ezra McCarthy
And for Google ads.
Jose Yepez
Yeah, exactly. So other than that, we have a lot of branding. So we have a few of our trucks decaled. So that’s just a walk in billboard right there with every project that we do. We have all our, we have a company shirt. So we have everything embroidered so people know exactly who’s coming around. I mean, just these little things of having your name out there.
Wherever you’re going is you might not see it you might see it as an expensive investment but ultimately you’re just a walking advertisement. A few yard signs go around and word of mouth. Word of mouth I’d say honestly doesn’t work in the beginning because you’re just nobody’s gonna have your job or your trust but when you start building a client a clientele and ⁓ get into know these people, you start getting more calls from their neighbors, from their friends, from their family members that are looking for the same type of work and rather go with someone that’s already proven themselves to them. So the word of mouth ultimately comes in later, but pushing out Google advertisements and all these pictures, videos, and just engaging with their client bases is really what sells the job.
Ezra McCarthy
You know, I see a lot of people structuring their business and they start making a little bit of money instead of hiring in team members and other people to come on. They just end up bringing it all home and then they don’t hire someone. So would you tell the listener what your team structure looks like and why, why did you begin to hire on people rather than trying to do it all yourself and potentially feeling like you’re making more with that money?
Jose Yepez
I’ve always heard and I’m sure it’s true like the more you grow the less ⁓ the tighter your profit margin become and I’ve seen that happen but with us how we’re currently working it’s five of us so it’s three on the mowing crew it was six but one of them is unfortunately got an ACL tear playing soccer about two days ago so we we’re gonna have we’re gonna take care of them see what we do.
But right now, it’s three of us on the mowing crew, two of us landscaping and it’s my dad and I do the landscaping. If we need any extra help we hire them out of course the masonry and all that gets taken care of apart so I don’t count them towards it. But yeah, that’s our kind of structure. We work about five days a week yeah so hiring it out, me, being a full-time student and only getting the summers to work.
I had to have somebody work for me while I’m out there studying so that yeah your profit margins take a hit but like ultimately if you can still make some type of money and see your business grow later on you’re gonna you’re gonna bear the fruits of what it makes so it’s gonna I don’t really mind it having lower profit margins as long as I see my business growing and ultimately reaching my goal later on you know five ten years.
Ezra McCarthy
This is really helpful. Now someone may hear that and think, he’s still in school. This must be a C or D student, but could you tell us, have you failed your classes or have you actually been able to keep up on it?
Jose Yepez
That’s actually pretty interesting because being doing all this work, you don’t get much time off. I mean, your business becomes your life at this point and also being entangled with school and all extracurriculars because I’m a big music fan. I was in the high school band. I was also in the band. I played the clarinet and the trumpet so we did a lot of marching band and concert band as well. So that took a big portion of my time away. Also, I was in our local FFA chapter, which really helped me elevate my business.
Ezra McCarthy
What did you play?
Jose Yepez
It helps more so with the agriculture aspect and entrepreneurship. Apart from that, I kept my grades up, you I finished out the top 10 % of my class out of 400 students. I was accepted to my dream college, so I went to the McCombs School of Business, the number six ranked business school in the nation, and I’m going on a full ride, so I’m blessed to be able to do all this and be able to reap the rewards of what I worked hard for. It doesn’t come easy. Definitely a lot of late nights, a lot of weekends working, and a lot of heat under me, man, because it’s hot out in Texas.
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, Texas is crazy. I remember like literally a real temperature of 104 out there mowing thinking.
Jose Yepez
Yeah, you definitely think twice about what you’re doing.
Ezra McCarthy
So what are some daily or weekly habits that help you keep your business running smoothly, especially while you’re literally in school most of the work day?
Jose Yepez
Yeah, so I’ve been blessed to have good team members that are able to see the same vision and work towards the same goals as me. So our typical week, or at least what I do, every Sunday and Saturday, I sit down on my laptop, build our schedule for the week, get invoicing done. And Jabber has been a great help. It definitely saves you so many hours of your life. So we use that to invoice, bill, quote, and just structure our schedule overall. So usually, know, build our schedule on Sunday, have a talk with the team members.
They do their part, their mowing. I go out to do the landscape projects. Typically, you know, from seven to three, seven to five, depending on how backed up we are. Then in the evenings, if I have some jobs to go look at, I go quote them, try to eat some dinner and get some quotes sent out to clients by then and try to get some sleep.
Ezra McCarthy
So at this point, you’ve just been killing it for two, three years here. It’s really trying to work. So how do you handle all these things without just getting worn out from all these responsibilities?
Jose Yepez
So I’m feeling it right now, I’m not gonna lie. I just came back from the FFA state convention for the Texas FFA state convention. That was a three day departure from the business out in Fort Worth. And the week before that I was in Austin for orientation at college for another three days. Luckily the business still ran smoothly because I was able to put the systems in for the schedules that keep going. But it takes a toll on you when you have so many things booked up and you still have jobs to complete. So I mean, I definitely have been burned out before, but I see that winter, December, January, it’s usually a little calm.
So, I get to relax and really take in the free time that I get. But yeah, other than that, you just gotta keep pushing through.
Ezra McCarthy
So did you ever, or I’m sure you have, do you have some customer stories, maybe with someone that the job went wrong or maybe you just had a Karen and how did that end up and how did you fix it?
Jose Yepez
Yeah, yeah, so one time one of my guys, had the zero turn, was servicing the lawn and this was a good client, him and his neighbor, they were great clients. He accidentally nicked the corner of his mailbox and keep in mind, this mailbox was like, I don’t even know, probably 60 years old, run down. The thing tipped over and broke off. From there, this client absolutely bombarded me about it. I did right though, I brought it up on Ace and Alex, I paid for the repair and he wanted the mailbox to be made at.
I had all the bricks reused. He didn’t want any new bricks done. I replaced his actual mailbox housing. So he wanted it all redone with the original materials. I mean, it came out a little skinny. Yeah. So we had to come out, break up every single one, clean out the mortar. And we had some broken bricks, of course, so we couldn’t use those. But no, his mailbox came out a little skinnier than it was before. But I may still look pristine. After that, we still lost the client. He was still mad about it.
Ezra McCarthy
Oh my. That would have been an insane amount of work.
Jose Yepez
But mean, I did right by the, by the, he’s. Yeah, I guess I don’t, I don’t understand it.
Ezra McCarthy
He still canceled?
I think he must have just been looking for something, because that would have taken like all day, I would think, to chip out all the… ⁓
Jose Yepez
Yeah. So he got a free mailbox, of course he deserved it because we broke it. But I think the way he handled it was a little disingenuous by him. The way he was talking to me and my guys. I let him know what I was thinking about him too at that point. Oh no. We just went our own ways.
Ezra McCarthy
I think it’s over the top.
Maybe it’s best if you moved on.
Yeah, so how obviously at a certain point you’ve got to be hands off. So how do you keep your crew motivated and accountable, especially when the Texas heat’s a little crazy?
Jose Yepez
A few ways that I try to do that, cause we know it’s all really hot. Of course you gotta pay your guys well. So I definitely take care of them paying well. Every morning we always have these electric light packs that we give them. So they always have a full set of electrolytes, waters and drinks, whatever they want paid for. We have ⁓ business credit cards that they can use. And of course having the right equipment. I don’t let them, I don’t have my crew members go push mo. Nobody wants to push mowers in Texas. So they have also, they have the 34 inch stand on for the smaller properties and they have two 60 inches that they go and take care of the larger one. All the weeders they want and need some nice commercial blowers and just try to make it as efficient as possible and keep them off their feet as much as we can.
Ezra McCarthy
What are some of the big business expenses? Did you have any this year or last year? And would you say, it’s worth it?
Jose Yepez
I think a lot before I purchase something, so it might take me a few weeks to think about it thoroughly, which can be a bad thing and a good thing. But no. Last year buying two trucks, not it was one truck. The other one was bought pretty late into the year, but bought another truck, another trailer. I revamped my whole mowing setup with a new trailer, new equipment. And then this year I actually did one of my bigger purchases and bought me another truck, which is a 22 F350, because we needed it for landscaping.
Ezra McCarthy
But that was pricey.
Jose Yepez
That was pretty expensive for me and it took me about three months to think about if I really wanted it, if I really needed it as well. So we use it every day for work, which thankfully it worked out. It was an expensive item to purchase and really did hurt my pockets. But ultimately if I want to see the business grow, I got to invest into it back and I can’t hold my money in my bank account.
Ezra McCarthy
So, would you say now that it was worth it?
Jose Yepez
Yeah, for sure. I surely needed another truck and something like a dually, a diesel truck. Maybe it’s a little overkill this year. But here in about a year or two, I’m really gonna be needing it to haul heavy equipment.
Ezra McCarthy
That’s good. So we probably all heard it, especially there in Greenbomber when I started. You drive downtown. Yeah. Any time in the summer and there’s little lawn rigs everywhere. In most of the US, they call them chuck in the trucks. Just people that, well, really just like you and I, we both started with not much. But how would you say people say, well, there’s so much competition and you’ve probably felt that before, but obviously you’re making it work.
So what would you tell someone that’s coming to you and said, hey, Jose, I want to grow. I want to work hard, but there’s just so many people I just don’t know if I can do it. What would you tell them?
Jose Yepez
You gotta stand out. If you don’t stand out, you’re just one of the millions. So the way that I did that, ultimately, like you said when we first started collabing with the advertising, is nobody had an online presence in Greenville. So if you have a strong online presence, you’re already a few steps ahead. Get your reviews up, be top ranked, have good pictures. If you don’t have something to back up your words, you’re not gonna get the job. So you gotta have some pictures, maybe some videos, social media, something that’s gonna show your client what they should expect and the standard of your work.
Have good equipment. You gotta have good customer relations skills. If you don’t know how to talk to people, you’re probably not in the right business, because you talk to a lot of people every day. So being able to talk to people, having a strong online presence, and investing, investing in your business. You know, you can’t keep all the money you make. You gotta put it back into the business. You gotta get better equipment. You gotta have some type of outfit for your guys, something standard for them to wear and for your clients to expect for them to be.
You gotta set a certain standard that the clients are gonna be willing to pay for. We’re certainly not the cheapest in our area and I lost quite a few clients because of that. I mean, I have a family to feed to and ⁓ I’m sure many of my clients understand that the way that we run our business, they appreciate it.
Ezra McCarthy
What would you say in your local area you want your business to be known for?
Jose Yepez
Landscaping. I really enjoy it. I love seeing large projects being completed. Sod, stone, everything transforming the property. I’d really want to get that, but I also want to be able to do a full outdoor service business. So anything that you need done outside landscaping, hardscaping, mowing, maintenance, fertilization. I’m really pushing towards that. But landscaping is my, the key.
Ezra McCarthy
So what would you say success looks like in your business and where are you trying to take it?
Jose Yepez
I’d say when I get to stay, keep my butt in the office chair. I think that’ll be a success. When I don’t have to go out there, I do the manual work myself. Probably somewhere surpassing a million dollars in revenue every year would be somewhat successful to me.
Ezra McCarthy
If someone took over your business tomorrow, what’s one thing you’d want them to never change?
Jose Yepez
Probably how genuine we are. So me being so young, I just run it the way that I like it. I’m out here taking care of my clients. We’re genuine with the way that we rerun this. So I make friends out of my clients and I don’t want to change that one bit. So you got to be genuine towards your clients. You got to take care of them and you got to put them first.
Ezra McCarthy
That’s good. Jose, what’s one book that you’ve read that you’d recommend to people listening in and one podcast?
Jose Yepez
What’s it? This is a finance book called something about Babylon. I don’t know if you read it.
Ezra McCarthy
All the Richest Man in Babylon, by
Jose Yepez
Yep, The Richest Man in Babylon. I love that book and I first read it like two or three years ago and I read it like two times. It was pretty wise the words I said. So that was a good book. I’ve listened to that Mown and Lawn Star podcast.
Ezra McCarthy
I’ve seen it, I haven’t read it.
Oh, Mown and Lawn Star Lawn Talk by Andrew Martinez. Yeah. Yeah, I know him. Yeah, he’s right there in Mansfield.
Jose Yepez
Yep, I listened to that quite a bit.
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, definitely a good one. Last question here, but one piece of advice to someone listening in and what would you tell them? Maybe they’re feeling struggling to grow, feeling like there’s no hope. What would you tell them?
Jose Yepez
One thing I tell them and I use this as my senior quote right when we’re graduating. Put it on my cap and I put it on my senior quote. So one thing I always remember and I go by is Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote is it goes something like, the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. So of course me, first gen Mexican American and from a low income family, you don’t come into this world with much to get or much to receive. So as long as you put your mind to something that you want to get, be ambitious with what you want and act upon it.
Ultimately, you gotta do it to receive it. As long as you act upon it, there’s gonna be some relative success to what you do. And I think I’m a walking example of that. Many people see it, they’re inspired by it, and I’m glad to be an inspiration to people. At 18 years old, I’ve been able to grow a business that’s made me half a million already in one year, in one fiscal year. Up to date, I’ve made over 800,000, and I’m closing in on a million. So being able to do that, being able to have my college paid for and go into a dream college like UT Austin, and…
The most important factor is being able to support my family. So my dad’s been able to have a steady job. My sister’s been able to get her college paid off thanks to the business. And ⁓ just bring in financial stability to a hard-working and struggling family.
Ezra McCarthy
It really is the American dream, that’s what it is. That’s pretty amazing. Well Jose, thank you for telling us your story where you’re definitely an example that steady effort and clear goals can take you from small beginnings to serious growth. And thanks to each one for listening to the podcast. If you got inspiration, be sure to share it with a friend. Don’t forget to subscribe and we’ll talk to you on the next one.
