Episode 46

Ezra McCarthy

Hello and welcome back to the lawn care blueprint today. We’ve got another episode coming at you hot and, well, depends where you are. It’s still pretty cold here, but this lawn care season, landscaping season at this point, we’ll be dropping this at the beginning of August and pretty soon it’s going to be starting to wind down as far as the busy season. So we’re going to be talking about it today. Like what does that mean for your business? And I know in our business, most of the time we really do have an off season.

So, how can we prepare for that and how can we use the slower seasons to not only help our business grow, but to stay profitable? So today we have Wena with me here and we’re going to be going over some ways that the fall and winter season can be a benefit to your business.

Wena

Hi Ezra glad to be here. So let’s start off with planning. How far in advance can a business start planning for the fall and winter seasons and why is early preparation critical to avoid cash flow crunch?

Ezra McCarthy

This is so important Wena. In all reality, we should be planning for fall and winter in the spring because, you know, it’s easy. Springtime comes, we’ve got work coming out our ears, we can hardly call everyone back, people are ringing the phone. And the question is, are we going to prepare when we have an abundance for when there’s going to be a lack? And so strategizing and saying, okay, while we have the cash flow now, we’re going to plan for the slower season.

And then conversely as well, how can we take this slower season, repair, market, and maybe add in a service that doesn’t make sense any other time of the year and help our business be profitable, especially with team members? I hear all the time, I can get work, but I can’t find team members. And one of the main keys to unlock keeping good employees is making sure that they have work all year round.

Wena

So what to do when summer winds down? What operational changes can business owners implement, like adjusting schedules or services to smoothly transition into fall cleanups and landscaping?

Ezra McCarthy

At this time, the start of September, the lawn care is really winding down. You might have a little bit of landscaping left, depending on what part of the country you’re in, but we’ve got snow removal up north. We’ve got landscaping that we can still do. We can do Christmas lights. That’s something I’d love to touch on. Christmas lights are really, there are businesses that do it as their main business. So it is something that can be a highly profitable service, but are we marketing effectively?

Leaf removal, if we have the equipment set up right for it. Now, I’ve done this the hard way and there’s a hard way to do it that’s terrible and we don’t want to do that. But if we have the equipment set up, if we’re planned and priced accordingly, then that could be a very profitable service for us. Maybe that’s tree trimming, doing arborist work. Some of these things you may not want to be in that business, but it helps smooth over the fall and winter slow time. So it can be profitable, or even things like gutter cleaning. All of these things can be so beneficial.

Wena

As you’ve mentioned those services, how do you get the word out and what are the ways you can do effective advertising and market your autumn service to ensure you have a lot of work?

Ezra McCarthy

That’s a great question, Wena. So the best way is first, start with your existing customers. So many people, I say they have a gold mine in their CRM, which stands for customer relationship manager, whether that be Jobber, LLMN, you can name all the ones. Start with the ones you have. First, start out with text. The average text message is opened in under 10 seconds. Insanity, and probably on your phone too. So start with text messages, text all of your customers. Make a personalized text, include their names, say, hey, we’re coming up on leaf season.

We’d love to serve you with that and say, hey, if you want a quote, we can give it to you next time we’re there. Do this for Christmas lights. Do this if you’re up north for snow removal. If you’re down south, maybe there’s some services there that you could do. Start by texting, then follow up with email. And I recommend at least a three-sequence campaign—so text, email, email—because people are busy. Maybe they see their text, but they forget. So first email and text all of your customers. If not, you’re wasting money.

Then I’d make sure on your website, I like to call it a living website. If you’re in leaf removal season, we need to have a beautiful picture of you and your team doing leaf removal at that time of year. For snow season, you should not have on your homepage, the first thing people see, a cut lawn. We want them to see you working and clearing a property. Whatever season you’re in, you should be utilizing your website effectively to target those customers. Then your Google business profile. Are you consistently posting photos and updates so that your customer knows, hey, this is winter season?

We know that you’re not needing your lawn done, but it’s leaf season, it’s snow removal season, aeration season. Maybe fall aeration is a big service for you. Are you reminding your customers? I remember talking to someone and they said they went to a customer’s property and core aeration—you’ll see those little plugs of dirt all over the yard. He saw it had just been aerated and he was kind of offended. He’s like, hey, didn’t you know we offered it? And the customer’s like, oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you offered that. And I’ve had that before too.

And this is to my shame where a customer’s like, I didn’t know you offered that. So sometimes we feel like, okay, am I being annoying by telling the customer, but we can’t serve them if they don’t know we offer that. So does your customer know the services that you offer in every season? And as we’re coming out at this point of the summer busy season, we need to make sure to let our customers know because if they don’t know, then we can’t serve them.

Wena

You mentioned snow services earlier, so when it comes to snow services, how should you price it? What pricing model works for snow removal?

Ezra McCarthy

That is definitely an interesting thing. So there’s per season and per push. And I was just talking to different people about this. I think a mix of those would be good, but in all reality, it’s going to depend on where you are. If you’re in Ontario, Canada, you may want to do it differently than if you’re in Ohio, where you’re kind of on the cusp of getting bad winters. And where I went to college in Illinois, it was so fickle. I went to college in the Quad Cities there in Illinois. Some winters actually did snow as well and it was brutal.

And then some winters literally it’s hardly anything. So for pricing specifically, I’d recommend finding someone that’s in your same geographical area, maybe not your competitor, and just talking to them and saying, hey, what’s working for you with snow? And begin to reach out. And then if that’s something you want to do, remind all your customers, get your pricing in place, and start thinking about it. Especially for commercial, you need to be thinking about it in September, October, beginning to advertise, reaching out to current clients, and getting the word out that you offer this and lining up those contracts.

Wena

As you move closer to the winter season, how could you incorporate services like Christmas lights or other holiday decorations into your winter business plan?

Ezra McCarthy

This is something I actually found from my friend Andrew Martinez. I really enjoyed some of the things that he had on his podcast about it. And when I had my lawn care company, this was something I was looking into. But the problem is I waited too late. It was November, late October, and some of these custom Christmas lights—one, you need to take a little bit of training. I don’t think it’s crazy complex, but you need to get the training so you know how long it’s going to take.

And then you need to find a supplier for these custom Christmas lights because these are cut specifically to the home. And if you’re going to do the storing model where you store it in the off season, you need to get these things lined up. You can’t wait until the middle of November or the first of December—or you can, but it’s going to be a lot harder to learn, to find it, to be confident. Because your close ratio for some of these high-tech items like Christmas lights is a lot lower. So you’re going to need the confidence when you go into the sales process that you know what you’re doing, you know how to sell it, and to keep all of these things in place. So start early.

That’s why here at the beginning of August, I’m trying to remind you of these things and say, hey, are we planning? Because we want our best team members to stay around and we can’t do that as a growing small business if our employees leave. We talk a lot about churn and it’s important for our customers, but what about for our employees? How are we treating them? Do we have work all year round or, if not, as close as possible? But we want to do it while keeping the business profitable.

Wena

How about your existing customer base? How can you leverage your client base during the off season? For instance, by asking for referrals or reviews or offering a special deal with first customers for the following year, just to get more.

Ezra McCarthy

I think, as I mentioned, this is really important. An email campaign, text campaign. Then sometimes during the busy season, we’re busy, trying to knock out properties, trying to get all of these things taken care of, and we don’t necessarily have the capacity to slow down a little bit. If you have time to see someone out in their yard, talk to them, and then from your Google business profile, get that link and say, Mrs. Smith, thank you for the opportunity to serve you this year.

Can I text you this link? And you text them that link right there and say, hey, I’d be texting you a link, you’d be able to leave a rating or review. This helps other people find us. That small, simple thing added up can completely change your business as you consistently ask for that. So take, as you have a little extra time, consistently advertise to your current customers, ask your customers for reviews, and begin to look for ways in your community to respond if people are asking for things. Consistently market. I was talking to a business we’re helping with their pay-per-click and they’re like, oh, we’re too busy, we can’t advertise. Well, the problem is then it ends up like a roller coaster. You’ve got highs and then you say, oh, I’m going to quit advertising. Then it falls into the low and you’re like, oh, I’ve got to start advertising again. So you start putting more money into advertising.

Then you’re on high and you’re like, oh, I got all this work. And then it ends up being this roller coaster of work, no work, lots of work, no work, rather than just consistently marketing to your ideal likely client. And it’s going to take so much of the stress out. So some of these simple things can really be helpful, especially as we go into the slower season. Because the problem is now in the slower season, you may say, okay, now I’m ready to advertise, but you don’t realize every other lawn and landscape business in your area is thinking the same thing, and your marketing cost, customer acquisition cost, CAC, is going to be way higher.

Wena

This winter isn’t just for downtime. It can also be used as a strategy, right? But it’s a perfect time for business planning. How can you use the off season to review the past year’s performance and set your goals for the next season?

Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, this is something that I love to do. It’s probably one of my favorite times of year. I love to break out the goals and I’ve actually got them close to here, and I’m always reviewing them. But as we begin to look at what worked, what service was killing it, how did my marketing do, how’s my CRM doing? This is the perfect time as things begin to slow down to look at it and say, okay, do I want this one? Is there a better one out there that suits my needs? How is my website doing? How’s my marketing material? All of these things come together and you can say instead of just going and doing nothing, we can begin to work on our business and prep for next season. Because if we’re going to succeed this year and into next year, it’s going to take clear, consistent play.

Wena

What about your digital presence during this time? What improvements can you make to your marketing material?

Ezra McCarthy

This is so good. Something that’s important is keeping your brand on point. And what I mean by that is, do you have consistency? Are you using the same color, the same logo, are you using the same font? All of these things streamline because what we want for our customers is as soon as they see our logo, they think of us. So is that streamlined throughout? Are we using the same thing on all of our marketing material? And then how is our website doing? Hopefully for listeners, you have one. But if you don’t, in this day, you are losing out if you do not have a website.

People look people up and say, okay, are they reputable? And if they see some janky homemade one that looks rough, like your aunt Ethel made it in 1980, then they’re going to go with someone else. So how is our image presented to our customers? Because this is very vital.

Wena

You mentioned the image. So now what about your gear? What off season equipment or upgrades do you take care of?

Ezra McCarthy

This is a good time to start looking at your fleet and saying, okay, how are things doing? This is a good time to talk to your accountant and say, okay, is this the time to upgrade? How are my expenses doing? And obviously talk to your accountant for that. But this is really important to say, do I need maintenance? Maybe my overhead is too high. Maybe I have too many trucks. Maybe I have equipment sitting around that I don’t use. Could we sell that to better utilize it? All these things are so important to use what could be downtime to benefit the business.

So that’s a wrap for today’s episode. Thank you guys for listening in. If you’ve gotten value from today’s episode, be sure to hit that subscribe button and leave a rating and review, and we’ll catch you on the next one.