Episode 16

Ezra McCarthy

Hello and welcome back to the lawn care success blueprint. Today I’m sitting down with someone who’s become a voice in the lawn care industry, Naylor Taliaferro, a seasoned lawn care business owner and the host of the LCR media podcast where he’s interviewed everyone from solo operators to multimillion dollar landscape business owners. Whether you’re around the 100K or chasing your first million dollars in revenue, this episode is for you. Naylor, glad you’re here.

Naylor Taliaferro

Hey, how’s it going? Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here as well.

Ezra McCarthy

Yeah, before we kind of get into a little bit, will you tell us who are you and what was your goal when you first started in our, the lawn care industry?

Naylor Taliaferro

Yeah, well, I am an avid ⁓ homeowner that turned, you know, ⁓ professional contractor. I’m just a guy, but I’m a husband, a father, and I kind of always had the entrepreneur spirit in me from way back in the day. I was in retail management for 15 years, and during that timeframe, I thought to myself, what am I actually going to do? Is this what my life is going to be working in retail? Like, I never really pictured myself working in retail forever, so.

I kind of thought of different entrepreneurial ideas. Like I wanted to be a personal trainer at one point, which is not entrepreneurship. But as I was training to be a personal trainer, because I just love fitness and working out in the gym, I thought, maybe I can actually open up my own gym. You know, like, and I was like looking at like there’s a random building. I was like, that’d be a cool spot. And so I just I kind of always had that creative mindset. Plus, I also went to school for for I was good in art and I went to college for major in fine arts. So I have a very creative brain to begin with, you know, but I really just needed a way out of retail and kind of restart my life because I just wasn’t really happy with anything that was going on in my life. You know, my life was going one way retail and just the economy and business was going a totally different way, trying to keep up with the Amazon being a huge, starting to become a huge thing.

All the physical stores struggling. So there was a lot of pressure there and my life just wasn’t going the way that I wanted to. But I was a homeowner towards those last years and I became, I kind of developed a green thumb just dabbling in my own lawn trying to figure out how to grow nice grass and weed free and stripe and all these things. And there wasn’t really a whole lot of stuff on the internet. There was books at like your big box stores and things and reading the backs, the backs of bags of fertilizer and seed and just.

you know, being a homeowner that kind of like self educated and became like that guy in the neighborhood. And then I just kind of leaned into that from a professional standpoint and was like, you know, maybe I can try this different little things here and there happen along the way that kind of really helped me help that all come together. Like, you know, I didn’t just randomly out of nowhere say, oh maybe I’ll just be a lawn care service provider. Like, here’s a whole another long, you know, detailed story that I talk about several times on my podcast, too. But in the effort of saving time, ultimately

I just wanted to lean into what I knew and loved, which was lawn care. And I just leaned into that and started my lawn care business. And it was really great timing because it was becoming more of a trend 11 years ago, lot of folks were starting out their lawn care businesses. And it’s just grown obviously ever since then.

Ezra McCarthy

You were into fitness for a while. Is that a big part of your life or are you still into that?

Naylor Taliaferro

Yeah, yeah, mean, it is. I mean, you know, in the interim there, like there was a midpoint where like I just kind of gave up on the whole personal trainer format and just kept being, you know, totally overwhelmed with retail management and not having a quality of life. And then kind of rebounding from that and then getting into lawn care. I just would go to the gym every now and again here and there, but it wasn’t really serious until three years ago when my son wanted to kind of, he was starting to go through puberty and all that. was, you know, freshman in high school, wasn’t really happy with his body. And I’m like, and he wanted to be in a marching band because he’s a music major and he’s a percussionist. 

So he wanted to be in a marching band and he wanted to carry the big drums that all the, like, you know, the quads, the five drums out in front of you, the big heavy ones, one of the biggest heavy ones you can, other than the huge bass drum. And I’m like, you’re going to need to, you know get strong dude, like you need to go to the gym like he would come to the gym every once in a blue moon too at that time but I’m like you need to really you know bulk up a little bit and get stronger. 

So that in and of itself helped give me more purpose of being consistent for him and you know, so like we kind of helped each other in a sense, right? Like I didn’t want to let him down and and you know, in order for him to go I had to go so it’s just like an accountability partner like he didn’t really like help me go like it’s like come on dad. Let’s go. I had to like, that was my driving force to go. And I told him, this is your time because your testosterone’s flowing through your body. My gains are like this, microscopic at my age compared to you. It’s like, boom, you can literally shape your body the way you want it. And he started going with me and he started seeing results and he was hooked. And now he’s like a, he’s this super buff dude in marching band in college and everything and he’s killing it. 

And I’m stronger physically, like I feel stronger and look stronger than I ever have in my entire life. And that’s because I’ve been going to the gym multiple days a week for three years non-stop whether I’m traveling or not, I find a hotel gym. Whatever doesn’t matter I might have skipped like one week here and there and that’s it but nothing more than than one week. And and that’s what consistency brings for both of us for him and I like he couldn’t do a single pull-up when we started. Now he can just do him like it’s nothing like multiple sets like whatever. It’s just lightweight for him. So

That’s a testament. Put in the work and you get the results. Yeah.

Ezra McCarthy

I love running and so I’m just curious when I hear about other people that are into stuff. 

Naylor Taliaferro

Yeah, I’m also a mountain biker too. I love mountain biking.

So, but I do that less than the gym. It’s a lot easier to just go to the gym because you don’t have to worry about what the weather is or anything, you know, or any time of the day. Like you don’t need daylight and a nice day. So mountain biking is a little more fickle like that. But so yeah, I don’t do that as much as I would like, but I definitely love me some mountain biking. I’ve been doing that for a couple of decades off and on as well.

Ezra McCarthy

That’s interesting. Back more on the lawn care sphere going back there, but that was a good tangent. When you started, you’ve been in it a while now. Can you take me back to some moments where just kind of the weight of the business came down and you thought about, or were there any moments that you seriously thought about quitting? And then if so, what kept you in the game?

Naylor Taliaferro

Yeah, so for me, for lawn care was my way out. So I never thought about quitting lawn care. I quit retail management to get in and lawn care was my way out. So honestly, lawn care, I have never looked back since I am so grateful for the decision that I made and the connections that I’ve made over the over all these years. And of course, there’s ups and downs like it’s not like it’s been all sunshine and rainbows or anything like that. But I never thought that it was that bad or it never got that bad where I would think that. 

I mean, I know that’s a thing for a lot of other folks, but those are probably folks that, you know, maybe didn’t have as much of a background as I did, right? Like the younger guys that maybe they did some odd on some random jobs here and there and then decide to get into lawn care or landscaping. I know a lot of young guys in their early 20s, fresh out of high school, and they’re like, I’m going to make this a thing. I’ve been doing it in the neighborhood. I’m going to make it a thing or whatever. Or I don’t like these other random jobs. I’m going to make this a thing. 

And that can definitely get you to a point where you’re like, oh, man, especially if you don’t know what you don’t know, you don’t get around the right people, you don’t go places to learn, like events and so on.

You can feel all alone and it can be very stressful. You see guys rolling through all the time with all their big rigs and you’re still in your little truck and you know you can really get self-defeating for sure. But for me because I came from literally below the bottom like I was at my lowest point of my life. Like I was really bad like I was literally self-sabotaging a lot of things in my life, my marriage, my kids. Everything was just being destroyed before I finally had to press the hard reset button in my life and quit retail, like literally just put my two weeks notice in and just went all in on lawn care. Like, okay, I got a few months, because it was the winter time, it was right before the holidays. So I’m like, all right, I’ve got a few months before the grass starts growing, I got to make this work. 

So, like the fear of failure made me succeed. And I’ve never looked back. so I would just say to the people that get in those situations. Remember why you started the business and have some goals written down. Like I always had a five year, like I have goals and then there are always like a five year plan to achieve those goals. You know, like my first five years, I wanted to make sure I wanted to be ready to have employees and I had employees in my fourth year. And you know, like, so like I just break, break it down into different bite sized pieces so that you can refer to that when things get a little squirrely, you can look back at your plans, you know, and you’re what your goals are and all that. And that, that can change and pivot.

But it’s about having some sort of direction and not just being lost in the chaos and potentially going down those dark paths where you’re like, man, this is, I don’t know about this. And at the end of the day, sometimes it isn’t for everyone, right? So at the end of the day, don’t literally deplete yourself of life thinking that this is your only way is to have a long care landscaping business. It is a great industry and a great business to have. And right now is the best time for any service industry to be running or to start one, but I mean sometimes it’s not for everyone, right? Sometimes you’re a better, you’re a better intrapreneur than entrepreneur, which means you maybe wanna work for someone else. 

I’ll give you an example, someone that I’m good friends with, he’s really become a knack at  hiring his subcontractors to work for him. So like a subcontractor that does, pools or construction or some division that he doesn’t have in his current business. And there he sees they’re getting burned out and they just can’t hack it anymore. They’re tired of employing. You they’re, they’re at that point where they’re like not big enough and they’re, and they’re not small enough to like in the in-between spot where they need a certain amount of employees and it’s just killing them to keep going through all the employee situation. And you know, they’re maybe not making as much. They don’t, they just don’t like the whole business. They don’t like having to do all the things, right? 

But they’re really good at the craft, at the customers, like things like that. And then he just hires, hey, like, hey, why don’t you just close up shop and work for me? And then you can run that division within my business. And that’s been very successful for him. And that’s what they do. Like they’re burned out running their own business. They shut it all down. They take a bunch of their clients with them to this new company. And now they open up that division in there. But at the end of the day, it’s better for them because they don’t have the stress of the entire company on their shoulders, right? Just a division. They’re just running their division and they’re a part of the team.

So that’s something for folks that might be at that point or get to that point at some point, like where they’re just like, oh man, I don’t know if this is for me. Maybe it isn’t for you to be the one that’s running the whole show. Maybe there’s a bigger company. That’s why networking is always key that you could potentially work with, work for, be an intrapreneur, not an entrepreneur. So not everyone’s built for that.

Ezra McCarthy

It’s so good you mentioned Naylor that fear was what kind of drove you then or that’s what I understood you to say. What would you say now? Is it fear that drives you still or what’s what kind of pushing you on in business today?

Naylor Taliaferro

Yep.

Well, I would say definitely I wouldn’t necessarily say fear. I don’t know what the right word to recalibrate that for, but I definitely still want to be successful because I still have like. The responsibility hasn’t changed, right? Like I still have. I’m still a husband and a father, right? You know, and that’s only that responsibility actually grows. You know, the more your life grows like, you know, like.

At the time when I start into lawn care, we were renting a townhouse. Since then, we’ve bought a house, so we have a house. So there’s a lot more responsibility and commitment to having a house and renting a townhouse, bigger bills to pay and things to fix. And you can’t just contact your landlord and have them take care of it. Property to maintain, kids get older and things transition throughout their life. More and more things pop up that are not as easy when they’re five. There’s not really a whole lot of problems. When they’re 15, it’s a…

could be a whole nother set of problems. And it’s more expensive when they’re 15 versus five. know, they’re doing all these school activities, whatever, you know. So all of those, so your responsibilities, you know, grow. And so I’m still accountable for myself and my actions, but I wouldn’t say that I’m afraid because I know how to be successful and I have been successful and I’ve just built up so much. So many different, there’s so many different. 

I don’t know what the right word is, but there’s just different avenues. Like I’ve got lawn care, I’ve got my social media business. There’s just different avenues and different things. My wife has a full-time job. It’s not like it’s just all dependent on me. And it’s not like one wrong move is gonna make my lawn care business come crashing down and then we’re broke. You know what I mean? there’s just a lot of, things are built in such a way that it takes more than one bad thing to make everything fall apart. 

So there’s definitely been ups and downs, but it’s never been like, okay, we’re done, it’s type deal. So I think ultimately what drives me now is how impactful I have been in everyone else’s life that I’ve come in contact with, not just my family but my extended family as I call it, everyone in this community within this industry, know, like through social media, I’ve connected with so many folks, all my events that I do and events that I go to. And I’ve just connected with so many people and I’ve heard so many stories about how impactful an event that they went to that I was in charge of or connected them with someone or something actually I said that helped them in some way. 

All of those things. Every year, you know, just keeps motivating me like, wow, this is more than just me. It’s more than just cutting grass. It’s deeper than grass. Like a friend of the community, Lamont Harrison, says a lot, you know, it’s deeper than grass. Like it’s just more than business, more than cutting grass. Like we’re all very similar, like minded folks in this industry and community. And we’re all helping each other grow and going through tough times and helping each other get through it and celebrating successes.

So that’s really what motivates me the most. mean, obviously my family’s number one. They’ve been taken care of all this time. I’m gonna continue to take care of them. So there’s still that responsibility, right? Like I can’t just let things fall apart, but it’s not necessarily fear anymore because I’ve had some time under my belt and I figured some things out. At this point, it’s just all about growth. I just keep finding new ways to grow myself, to grow my family and to grow the community, the industry through the community.

Ezra McCarthy

It’s really interesting. So looking back on your experience, is there a mistake or failure that you’ve looking back, you saying, well, obviously that was a hard time, but you think it changed your business for the better.

Naylor Taliaferro

Yeah, I mean there’s been several things that I’ve become really known for that I have just kind of figured out by default my business, like, you know, again, having the gift and the curse of dealing with the what happened from retail management in my life just kind of falling apart, you know, that’s where all the failures were, I mean, me not being able to figure out like how to navigate that and realizing I just need to get out like I’m just not built for retail management for the rest of my life I never intended to be anyway. It was just kind of something I was doing and it just turned into a mini career until I got married and had kids and said, okay, I need more than this. I need to be able to spend time with them. 

So that made me like do a lot of hard, you know. hard stops for things. Like I drew the line in the sand for various things. Like immediately, like starting my lawn care business, I’m like, I’m not working weekends. Of course, there were some weekends that I have worked in the last 10 years, right? You know, there’s things that happen, you know, the weather, we’re on vacation, whatever. You know, there’s time, but like, I’m not scheduling stuff on the weekends, like just because I want to get all the work I can, like no, like the work will be there if it’s meant to be there, you know, on Monday, you know, whatever.

I had to work almost every weekend in retail management for 15 years and you get like one weekend off a month. Like it depends on the company, but they’re all essentially the same. You had to work a lot of weekends. So, and nights, right? Nights and weekends. That’s a thing in retail because everything’s open at night and on weekends. So I wanted to like completely detox from that. So I didn’t want to work any nights, not that you really can in this business anyway, but like I didn’t want to work past six, right? Even if it’s doesn’t get dark till eight.

Like I’m not starting anything at six and working past dark. Like I’m making sure I’m starting my last thing of the day so that I’m done before six. I mean, now it’s like, my goal is to get done by 4 or 4:30. But when I first started, like I had some hard, you know, like I said, I drew lines in the sand, like, okay, I’m not working past six. I’m not working on the weekends, things like that. And then I also quickly realized.

You know, I was driving all over town, taking every call and email and message that I could because, you know, I’m trying to grow, just trying to get, have a business and get as much work as I can. like I’m sure everyone, but I realized like, it’s really hard to get enough work done and get home by six and not work on the weekends if I’m driving all over town. So that’s where route density became a thing before I even knew that was a thing. Like, I didn’t even know that term existed. 

I just knew in my head that I want to be home for dinner. I want to spend time with my family. need to get my life back, repair the damage and make it, for the lost time, not work on weekends. Well, that means I can’t be driving all over the city of Richmond. You know, I can’t be driving 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there, 20 minutes here. I spend more than half of my time driving around town. That means I can only make so much money. I’m not going to be able to achieve my goals. I’m not going to be able to get as much work done. 

You know, things like that along the way I discovered quickly because I was, I was just trying to regain control of my life. And I think a lot of folks that don’t come from the environment that I came from, they just don’t know what they don’t know, right? And they don’t have that kind of determination, I guess, prerequisite as I did to implement those things. So that’s why it’s kind of interesting to me that no one else thinks this way about route density until they hear me talk about it. Or maybe I’m the first one that they heard that phrase, or maybe not, but they still don’t really get it.

And then I just talk about all the time, all the time. So there’s been different things like that where I’m like, okay, I need to fix that. I need to fix that. And then I’m very quick to react to it because the whole point of me starting my lawn care business was to get my life back, to gain control of my life. And I’ve gone on more field trips with my kids than I ever had in their whole life before, you know, lawn care. I used to get sick all the time, like colds and stuff. And then in retail, and it turned into bronchitis or laryngitis or strep throat or ear infections.

All this mess, I got the flu one time, got pneumonia another time, and I’m still working like a crazy person. It was nuts though, right? Multiple times a year. Now I never get sick. Everybody got COVID and I technically tested positive, but I’m taking care of my whole family because they’re practically dying and I’m just like, all right, let me blow my nose real quick and I’ll help you out. So I think a lot of that had to do with the stress that I was under in retail versus now, like now I’m doing things. Yes, there’s stress, but it’s a different kind of stress. It’s not as much, it’s not the same kind. I also get to work outside all the time. I’m physically active. I’m not around all those people all the time indoors. So a lot of factors there, but this has been healing for me working in lawn care. 

Ezra McCarthy

You know Nayler, I figured out why you stumbled on a round density.

Naylor Taliaferro

Why’s that?

Ezra McCarthy

because all the rich men are north of Richmond. I couldn’t resist.  Yeah, sir, I couldn’t resist that you said. I said, man, I got one for this. 

Naylor Taliaferro

Wow, you came up with that all on your own. Wow, that’s great on the fly. There you go. There you go. Yeah, that’s good. That’s clever. I like that.

Ezra McCarthy

Well, Nailer, what is something that you believe for years that as you’ve been in business has just completely been flipped on its head?

Naylor Taliaferro

Say that one more time so I can really wrap my head around that.

Ezra McCarthy

What is the business belief or something that you’ve thought but business has completely flipped it around on its head?

Naylor Taliaferro

That’s a good one. would probably say…

Knowing that it’s your, like whatever you say goes, you’re in control of your own business. And I think a lot of times, or most of the time, we are our own worst enemies. Like we come up with all these, like, oh, that’s not gonna work, or they’re gonna be, like we’ve come up with all these storylines of why not to raise our prices, or why not to implement credit card on file, or why not to implement 12 month billing, or why to say no to this service or the timing of a service. 

All the things that I implemented in my business are things that I stopped wanting to deal with. I just wanted to continue relieving headaches in my business because the whole point of this business is to work for me, not me work for it. So as I started doing these things, like, I’m gonna implement a credit card on file and guess what? you know, everyone was like, okay with it. Then, you know, there might’ve been one person maybe that was like, yeah, I don’t like that. I’m like, all right, cool, whatever. And that was just one person. I wasn’t really sad to see them go anyway, cause they weren’t, you know, the best person in the first place. 

Go figure, you know, raise prices, you know, every now and again, someone’s like, yeah, not, I’m going to go look for someone else. And then they still come back to me or, or they don’t, they find someone five bucks cheaper and that’s really all they wanted apparently. And so, okay, well you weren’t for me. So like, instead of,

Like in the very beginning, I didn’t know any of that stuff and I was really nervous and trying to figure it all out. But as I gained more confidence and gained more route density on honestly, like as I got more and more clients in the same neighborhoods, I started to become in demand, you know, and I just started like, releasing all of these false beliefs that I was giving myself and. I can’t charge this much. I can’t have a credit card on file. I can’t tell clients what to do. Even though it’s my own business, I can’t tell them how to run my business. I have to let them run my business for me. No, I tell people I don’t do mulch in the summer. I only do mulch in the spring. They all know that. All my clients are conditioned to be my ideal clients. They all know the deal. They know the credit card’s on file. 

And if they’re brand new, that’s all spelled out for them in the beginning with their quote. These are some guidelines. You know, put a credit card on a file, we bill monthly, you know, so on and so forth. And this way they know right out the gate what they’re signing up for. And I don’t have to deal with random on-demand services, people calling me for miscellaneous things. Like my clients never call me for any of that stuff because they know the deal. They know it’s on a schedule. We do mulch in the spring. We trim bushes a couple times throughout the year. We do aeration and seeding in the fall.

You know, it’s not just whenever you feel like it, you know, it’s according to our schedule. But the people that call me, they don’t know me, obviously they’re calling like in the middle of summer, can you do, can you clean up my mulch beds, trim my bushes and put some fresh mulch down? I need a quote. And I’m like, yeah, I’m sorry. I only do that for my yearly clients. And we do that according to our schedule, unless you just moved into a house and you sign up for our yearly program and then you need your house to get cleaned up. I get it. We’ll do that. And then we can maintain it.

That’s the point. That’s the goal. So this way we have recurring revenue. We’re not doing these one time cleanups. That’s not scalable for me. So you know, all the things that I just said are all false beliefs. I have experienced so many other contractors that are afraid to do the things I just said. Like they think that that’s going to tank their business. They’re going to lose customers. I’ve lost one customer for each of those things that I’ve said, you know, and the people that call me and they’re not happy with that. They just find Chuck somewhere, you know.

Or they find one of you guys listening that unfortunately thinks it’s okay to work on the weekends when you had plans on the weekend, someone calls you on a Friday and they realized, hey, they need to get work done on Saturday because they’re having company over their house going on the on the market. And now that’s your emergency because they lack a sense of urgency? Like just because they lack a sense of urgency does not mean that’s now also, and that’s your emergency.

If you’re already working on Saturday and you want to fit it in, right ahead. But I’m just saying I’ve been, I’ve misaligned, I’ve messed up my schedule so many times in the past to help people who had no sense of urgency or just had, you know, legitimately something, you know, happened at the last minute. And now all of sudden that has to become my emergency and they’re all freaking out and I have to go, you know, move everything around to get it done. And that’s just not, you know, again, exceptions still exist, but

It was more of a rule than an exception in the beginning years of my business. And now it’s an exception if not ever, you know, like I just, all of those things make my business easier and less stressed, but also more profitable and it attracts my ideal clients. So when you figure all that out, then you have a business that works for you and you not work for it.

Ezra McCarthy

So when you started the business, it sounded like you were driving very clearly for some time freedom. I’m sure some financial freedom was in there. Did you have a real clear vision on what you were driving for or you were just at the point where you said, hey, I’m trying to do something else?

Naylor Taliaferro

Well, mean, being in business for 15 years as a retail and retail management, I manage other businesses, different companies. I had a lot of business sense already, like going into my lawn care business. I practically tried to figure out a plan. I’m like, OK, well, I’ll start off by myself. I mean, that can’t be that hard. I was a younger guy 11 years ago. And I’m like, OK, this should be easy enough.

What I do already for my own yards, but, you know, multiplied by however many. But so I just try to really figure it out. Like how much money do I need to make, you know, based on how much money do I think I need to charge? What does that mean? How much lawns I need to mow or this work or that work? Like just trying to calculate it all. What does that look like sustainably? Like I don’t want to be solo forever. Like, you know, like it would make sense to grow my business to get to certain, you know, certain size so that it can be maintained, self-sustained, you know, and I don’t have to be in the truck all the time doing all of the work and just really figured all that out. 

And I came up with two to three crews, half a million dollars, just try to break some basic stuff down to give myself some goals and just go from there. And a lot of it was just kind of some, it was just whatever business sense I had from retail and all that and just trying to factor them. But then quickly as I discovered the community, the few people like the Lawn Care Millionaire, some of the OGs that were making YouTube content back in the day, I would just watch their stuff too and I would pick up some things here and there. Like, route density is a term. That’s what I’m already trying to do.

And I just started figuring these things out. Like credit card on file. I would have never known something like that was a thing. Because I didn’t invoice that kind of stuff I had to learn from scratch. Like I never invoiced a human being in my life working in retail management. I didn’t even know what that even meant. So there’s things like that that I had to pick up along the way relatively quickly that helped fill in some of those blanks. But ultimately, right out the gate, I had a goal. Like, well, I need to be able to supplement. 

I need to be able to, you know, get my income back, whatever I was making in retail, I need to hurry up and get that back as soon as possible. So how’s that going to look? How am I going to make that work? And just figured it out. Then that evolved over the years and filled in some of the blanks when I learned more things as well from trial and error or from peers and mentors.

Ezra McCarthy

Sure. To look back and sit down with your 22 year old self. What is one thing that you think they would be surprised to know that you’re doing now?

Naylor Taliaferro

Something I would tell myself?

Ezra McCarthy

Or yeah, tell yourself that you’ve learned lessons along the way.

Naylor Taliaferro

Um, I mean, ultimately I think I would tell myself to buckle up because it’s going to be a ride, but it’s going to be a ride for a reason and you’re going to enjoy it. And I’m not going to tell you anything because I don’t want you to mess anything up. I want you to do everything the way you are, have to do it and intended to do it to get to where I am right now so that we have something to show for it. We have the life that we currently have all the ups and downs in your past make you who you are. 

If I didn’t go through the struggles in retail management, I wouldn’t be where I am now. And there’s been different little pitfalls here and there over the last 11 years for various things that have made me stronger in other ways and made me pivot and all of, I discovered something else better. So I would honestly just, I’d probably be in awe at myself like, man.

I can’t believe I was doing that or not doing this or whatever back then. I can’t even remember what I was doing when I was 22. I actually, yeah, I was right after I met my wife. Yeah. So, you know, that was the beginnings of all of this. I was like young and hustling. I was, you know, I was in retail management, but I didn’t have a family yet. So I was still just like, you know, doing my thing. And yeah, so I would just be like, buckle up because it’s going to get worse before it gets better, my friend. But hang in there and keep getting after it.

Ezra McCarthy

What are some lessons you learned from the retail management? I know you’ve talked a lot about networking and hiring people or something. How would you describe it? People is something that you really talk a lot about. What are some things from retail management that you brought into the lawn care space that’s helped you win?

Naylor Taliaferro

Yeah, I don’t, mean, I think I naturally am a people person. So like, I think that’s not something I learned from retail. It’s just something that I kind of practiced through retail. Like I was, you know, like I was friends with all the managers and I knew how to like, not like kiss butt, but like just legitimately provide value to the district managers and regional managers, you know, like all the big walkthroughs and all the fancy people would come in the store and everybody would freak out. 

And of course I’d be nervous, but I would stay calm and I’d be professional and treat them just like any other person and knew all the right things to say and kept my cool and just had that kind of rapport. I just have that natural ability, I guess, for that. And that’s just kind of grown through practice over the years. But I think ultimately just everything I know about business came from retail management. I managed multiple different stores and multiple different companies. So there was just a lot of people, a lot of managing people, a lot of hiring, training, firing, holding people accountable, dealing with customers. Customer service is something that a lot of people don’t have experience with. If you haven’t really had too many jobs and you start your business and you’re not used to interacting with people, that could be stressful. 

Was exposed to a lot of people, a lot of customer service, a lot of bad people, a of nice people, a lot of craziness, a lot of how to manage a business, the numbers, like I knew what a P&L was, like most people, or a lot of people that haven’t even heard of the term P&L, let alone know what it stands for and how to look at it, what’s on it, all that stuff. Like I just kind of had the foundation of a business, like reports, and you need to look at the reports, you need to know your numbers and this and that and you know, attention to detail for keeping things clean and organized and safe and pleasing the customers. Like all of that was just some of that is my natural personality. 

Like I said, as being a people person, like I’ve always had that. I know that people always gravitate to just coming up to me and talk to me even back in the day when I was a teenager and I’d be at some random event or something. I’d go somewhere with my mother or whatever and all the kids would come over and talk to me. And I’m like I just want to be left alone. That part is kind of natural and got developed, but all the business parts, all the business sense that I just talked about, that really helped me start my own business and kind of know these things right out the gate. 

Like, okay, I need to be professional. I need to be detailed. I need to have good customer service. I need to be organized. I need to have schedules. I need to know my numbers. I just had a lot of things, a lot of foundational business elements in place already that just kind of helped me. I just needed to learn the lawn care part of it. know, like, okay, well, what does this look like mowing lawns? You know, like, how does that work? And just figure that out.

Ezra McCarthy

You mentioned building rapport. If someone’s looking for steps and they’re trying to say, OK, how can I build rapport perhaps with my team members that are working with me or maybe even customers? What suggestions would you give them?

Naylor Taliaferro

I would say probably the biggest thing that most people, most business owners fail at is they make it everything about them and not about themselves, not about their employees, not about their team, not about their company. Think about a couple things to think about. One, when your staff pulls up into your, pulls up into the shop or parks, wherever they, whatever it is, you know, that they’re meeting you at storage or whatever. They’re meeting you at your house. They think that you’re rich and they’re poor. They think that they just work for you to get a paycheck. They think you’re making all the money and that’s it. They don’t think you care about them or anything. I’m just telling you, this is the default. Unless you discredit that, unless you change that belief.

And you change that belief by caring about them, by showing that you care about them, by talking to them, asking them about their day, asking them about their weekend, asking them about their plans for the business. All these, just care about them and invest yourself in them and make all of your decisions about them, not you, similar to your customers. So it’s all about serving others, not serving yourself. You give value as you give value.

You give value, receive value. if, of course, you want to make money, you want your business to be profitable, but that requires you not to just think of all the ways to make more money without factoring in how that’s going to affect your team. You think about, what is your team good at? What is it that you could be profitable at them doing for you and with you?

And how can you train that? How can you implement that? Maybe let’s have a conversation about it first. Have a team meeting. Hey guys, I’m thinking about starting this service. We’ve had a lot of questions, a lot of customers question, you know, demand for this particular service. What do you guys think? yeah, I’m really good at this. I had a guy that was like, ⁓ me personally, I had a guy that was working with me and one of our clients was asking about this huge section of grass that was dead, you know. He’s like, what do you think about sod or something? And I’m like, huh, yeah, I don’t know. We’re just talking or whatever. 

And then you know, until I get back to him and we get in the truck, you know, my guy’s like, hey, I know how to do sod. I can do that for you. I can help you. Like that’s super easy. I’ve done it before. And you just need to get this machine, cut it all up, roll it up, get some fresh side roll. You know, had the whole thing down pat and, know, that’s like I could have been the one that could have been like, oh, you know, we’re going to do sod. Yeah. And then just like, throw it on them like, hey, we’re going to do sod. We’re going to hey, we’re going we’re going to do, you know, French drains and, you know, it’s going to be back breaking, you know, where you just got a bunch of shovels. But hey, it is what it is like.

You could bring that to their attention first and they can be like, yeah, but you know what, there’s a place down the road that rents this particular machine that actually makes it super easy and you can just roll that into your pricing. It’s not that much and then it’ll make it a lot quicker. We can get more done. And you might not even known that. You might not even known that machine existed. You just think you’re just using shovels and all that stuff. So there’s just so many examples I could give, but it’s all about serving just like you’re supposed to serve your customers and your clients, if they become your clients.

You want to serve your employees as well. And then you benefit, right? Because then you get more business and you get referrals and you get a happy team that you don’t have to replace all the time. And it’s just all about serving them. There’s a lot of examples. I mean, there’s other traditional ones like people doing like parties and recognition for their team. And one of the guys locally put a basketball hoop in you know, at the shop so the guys can play after work and they have all kinds of cookouts together and do all kinds of team building things. 

Like just make it about them, not about you. Don’t just roll in there with the fancy truck or whatever and, you know, boss everybody around and just boom and just let them go on their way. Make it about them. That’s what I think is the biggest mistake that a lot of business owners make.

Ezra McCarthy

This is so good. And this reminds me of the book by Donald Miller called Story Brand. I don’t know if you’ve ever read it. And he talks about businesses, so often we come in and we act like the hero when instead of how he presents it is, we need to be the guide helping them to be the hero, whether that be the customer or the team member. 

And just that perspective shift, how Donald Miller describes it is really in a little bit different words, exactly what you’re saying, Nailor. And that’s so good because even when we’re selling, so many times, if we’re not careful, we come in telling, we’re giving you this great opportunity or to your team members, this is such a good opportunity. And instead of presenting it for them, we’re presenting it for us. if we flip that around, what you say was just so good there.

Naylor Taliaferro

Yeah, yeah, 100%. That’s a great way of saying it because you’re not really serving them. You think you’re serving them by telling them what they want, but you’re not serving them like if you help them figure out what they want. Then it’s their idea, they feel good about it. That’s actually serving them and you’re still getting the work anyway. So yeah, it’s definitely a mind shift for sure.

Ezra McCarthy

So good, Nailer. Just one last question here for you. When your business is said and done, what would you, and someone says, that guy Nayler, he stood for blank. How do you hope that they finish that sentence?

Naylor Taliaferro

That’s a good one. He stood for serving others.

Ezra McCarthy

Good. It’s well, it’s helpful now. This hopefully has been brought a lot of value to the listener. And if someone wants to find you, hear more about you, you’ve got a podcast, what is that called or where’s the best place to find you?

Naylor Taliaferro

Yeah, I have a podcast, the LCR media podcast. It’s not the, it’s just LCR media podcast, but proper English. I said the LCR media podcast. But essentially, if you just Googled LCR media, LCR, like lawn care rookie media, if you just Google that, you’ll find all the things like I’ve got YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, all these things that in the half of them I’m not even. 

You know,  active on as much as Instagram, I’m on all the time because it’s really engaging. I really love Instagram. YouTube, I try to be as frequent as I can on YouTube, but it’s a lot more work and effort to make and edit videos for YouTube. But I’ll put a lot of the short form stuff up on YouTube shorts, which is quicker and easier just to stay as relevant as possible and engage. But I really like Instagram. I’m active the most there.

And then I have my podcast twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, every week. So obviously active there as well. So, but yeah, you can find me pretty much on every platform. You just type in LCR media and you will find all kinds of stuff.

Ezra McCarthy

Thanks, Taylor. This has brought a lot of value. That’s a wrap for this episode. If you found great help from this, make sure to subscribe and leave a rating and review, and we’ll talk to you next time.