Ezra McCarthy
Welcome back to another episode of the lawn care success blueprint. today we’re diving into something that a lot of you are probably interested in getting into the fertilization and weed control side of the green industry. today our guest is probably no stranger to you, jason creel, very well known in the industry, seasoned lawn care expert and founder of alabama lawn care pros. jason has built a thriving fertilization weed control business there and today we’re going to pick his brain and hopefully give you some knowledge.
if you’re looking to get into it. jason, glad you’re here today.
Jason Creel
Forward to the conversation.
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, thanks, jason. so i’ve heard a little bit of your story, but maybe for those, perhaps there’s someone listening in who hasn’t heard of you. would you tell us how you got started? i believe you started in lawn mowing and then kind of why you transitioned into, believe, your full-time fertilization of weed control today. yeah.
Jason Creel
This is my 18th year in lawn care. and I sometimes count that up, but I’ve been telling customers that. at some point when you’re real early in the business, I think it’s almost a disadvantage to tell them, it’s my second year. I’ve been doing this 18 years. I go give a quote, I tell them, this is my 18th year. I don’t know if that makes them excited or feel sorry for me. I’m not sure.
I started mowing grass. I went to college and graduated and all that and had a lot of jobs—pretty much all bad—and didn’t really have an interest in pursuing what I studied in school. really just didn’t have a whole lot of motivation or know what to do. maybe that’s because I had an entrepreneurial spirit and just didn’t know it at the time. I was like, well, what can I do?
I started cutting grass for people and I didn’t have any real experience in that either. I remember going to look to buy my first zero-turn mower and it was from a friend of mine. he got on the thing, drove it down the curb there, whipped around the mailbox and I thought, man, I want to do that. so I just got started. and there’s people that do it. it didn’t take that long to get the hang of it.
Fortunately, that first year I landed some pretty good accounts, including one neighborhood entranceway where they paid me $1,025 a month to do it. it was very small. then they were building all these houses—little homes—and the builder hadn’t sold them yet. so he got me to start cutting all the empty houses and their lawns.
He didn’t even want me to edge them or anything. he’s like, just basic, as cheap as you can go. point is, I was making more one day of the week by lunch than I was getting in my normal paycheck. I’m not saying it was a lot. I’m just saying I had some really… I literally was working for minimum wage for a while there. I guess I got hooked. I thought, well, this is more money than I’ve ever made.
And I enjoyed… I wasn’t lazy. I just didn’t know exactly what to do. so I found some satisfaction in that. and the next year I bought a guy’s mowers. he was getting out of the business. he gave me some of his customers and so it started from there.
Five years in I sold that business. somebody approached me about buying it. I tried to start a coupon book fundraising company, which was a failure. I didn’t lose tons of money but I spent a year just treading water basically. I was still mowing two days a week with a small area that I kept when I sold the business. I sold that two years later because we moved away.
When I relocated, that’s when I started weed control and fertilization. I think it was just something… I wanted to do something different. I guess I wanted a new challenge. but when I got into it, I was still mowing and spraying. and after two years or so, I just gave up the mowing altogether.
And it was a big part of us—at least for us in the South—it sort of solved the winter income issue once and for all. not that you can’t make money in the winter, it’s just a little bit tricky. and for us in the South, it’s literally just year-round with the weed control. and I found it to be more profitable. so that’s sort of how I switched over to that side of the business.
Ezra McCarthy
I hear a lot of people talk about they’re interested in getting in. how did you get yours? cause I presume you need certification there. did you have courses? did you go to training? how do you transition from that lawn care into the fert side?
Jason Creel
Yeah, people ask me a lot, how do I get doing what you’re doing? and I say, well, you gotta get licensed. they go, how do you do that? I said, well, it’s all up to your state. so I’m in the great state of Alabama. we basically take a test and push you to pass and it’s not an easy test. I’ll tell you, I passed by two points and I was glad to have it. but I passed first time. not everybody does that, I know, but there are prep courses to help you pass that test.
That test, in my opinion, that’s going to help you get licensed. it’s not necessarily going to teach you how to be successful in business. now I know other states, the requirements are far more difficult. like, you may have to have—I think even in Florida and Mississippi here in the South—you have to have three years experience working under someone else, or maybe it’s like three years of college credits in that field. it’s really a strict barrier to entry.
Now the positive side of that, the companies that are able to get past that barrier to entry, they don’t have near as much competition. where in Alabama, it’s a little bit easier to get licensed. and we do have to keep up continuing education every year. we have a point system, so we have to get so many points to keep our license current and things of that nature.
So once you get that, that’s maybe the easy part. the more challenging part is, well, now I’ve got my license. what do I actually do to the lawn? what do you do? you just don’t go to the big box store and start spraying stuff.
Fortunately for me, a guy that I knew before I moved—he had a large weed control and fertilization company he managed—I would send him my weed control business. well, their company had sold out and he had started working for a company called Harrell’s, which is the supplier I use. they sell fertilizer and weed control products. he had just started being the sales rep for Alabama. he’d moved to a new city. I’d moved to a new city.
I kind of lost touch with him for a while. I called him up and said, hey, I’m starting a weed control business. can you help me? and he’d been doing it for like 30 years and just so happened to be selling the stuff I needed. so he really took me under his wing and taught me a lot about the business. having that mentorship made a huge difference getting me off the ground.
Ezra McCarthy
A lot of people, I’ve heard them—and you probably do too—they think it’s kind of just an easy way to make a lot of money. what do you see are some of the common mistakes? maybe someone has a lawn care business, they’re looking to add a fertilization and weed control business, or maybe they don’t have any and they’re trying to get started. what are some mistakes you see? maybe that they underestimate complexity, or what are those things you see them doing wrong?
Jason Creel
Yeah, that’s a good question. a guy emailed me yesterday—or messaged me somehow—and he said, hey, I’m thinking about starting in weed control on the side. he was young and said, I’m gonna go to y’all, I wanna do this on the side and then maybe go full time. should I do that?
Well, it’s a hard question to answer because I don’t know this guy. I have no idea. you may be the greatest person ever or terrible. I mean, you may fail or succeed depending on you, not because it’s a bad idea or a good idea. but I just said, well, I personally wouldn’t just dabble in it on the side, in my opinion.
And the reason is, where mowing grass maybe is a great side gig for a lot of people—I see you got a fire department shirt on, that’s like the ultimate fire department side job is mowing grass. better not to quote me, but a lot of them do that—it’s a situation where you’ve got to get licensed, and then there’s a lot to learn.
And the other thing is, like, let’s say I’ve got 50 customers. well, that’s like two days’ worth of work for me—maybe three. and if I’m only going seven times a year—some people up Northeast go five times a year, some people down here might go eight or nine—but you get the point. like, if I’ve got 50 customers and I work two days, and then I don’t show back up for six weeks, and I work two more days…
You’ve got to have a lot of customers. I mean, yeah, it was great for those two days, but then you didn’t make any money for six weeks.
To me, it’s a lot to learn, a lot to keep up with the license. and to just dabble in it… you’re not going to make that much money with 50 customers, to me. so you’ve got to have hundreds of customers before you ever make any real money.
So unless you’re just wanting it almost like a side hobby—where you make a little bit of money and you just like it—then okay. but for like a real business, I think you’ve got to actually have a desire to grow it to hundreds of accounts. because like I said, it’s profitable, but you’ve got to have a lot of customers.
Ezra McCarthy
Introduces some complexity then. if you need—of course, it sounds like 50—you can zip through those in a day. we’ve all seen those, the people that spend 10 minutes at a property and then are out. so obviously that introduces some complexity of management. and then maybe you’re introducing this to your lawn care business. how can you get those? it sounds like hundreds of customers you need to get a profitable division, even for one or two guys.
Jason Creel
Yeah. and I wouldn’t even pretend to be a marketing expert. I mean, we can talk marketing. there’s a lot of things that go into that.
For me, what I did when I moved here—desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess you’d say—I went door knocking on Saturdays. I didn’t do that very long. I didn’t do it very often. it does work. and of course you need to make sure it’s legal where you’re doing it. so I did that. just simply letting everybody know, I’m starting a business.
You know how awkward that can be sometimes because you’ve got family and friends. and some of them want to help you but they’re not sure if you know what you’re doing, especially when you’re spraying chemicals. some of them never do use you—even 18 years in—and that’s fine. I try not to take it personal. and then some do, and I appreciate them giving me a chance, especially helping when I’m getting started.
Another thing I started doing—of course I had a social media following and I guess it helped to some degree—but I started going on Facebook in these local community groups. some of them will let you post once a week or whatever for your business.
But what I did, I started going on there and searching, trying to find all the lawn care people I could find. I’d go in the group and just type the word “lawn,” and it would come up: miss smith needs somebody to mow her lawn. and then all these comments on Facebook where everybody that ever mowed lawns is being recommended, and a lot of them don’t even have a website or anything.
So I just started calling those guys. I was like, I’m Jason, I own Alabama Lawn Pros. just didn’t know who you currently send your customers to for weed control and fertilization. because I had been on the other side of it—I knew they were getting asked who they recommend.
And through that, I was being aggressive—I probably still am—but I was able to develop some good relationships, made some friendships. one guy I even worked with one or two days a week. I was his weed eater, running his string trimmer for him, because my business was growing, but I needed just money, basically. so I did that, connected, and started getting referrals.
And then I did have a website. and even to this day, I tell people: referrals and the internet. most of my leads still come through online. I tried a little bit of direct mail—I’m not saying it doesn’t work. of course, some companies have success with it. but a lot of what I hear is you need to do it multiple times, and it can be expensive for somebody starting out. it’s discouraging when the rate of return is not good.
It wasn’t overnight success. like I said, I was mowing grass, I was working part-time for this other guy, and I was spraying yards—just doing what I needed to do. I was doing YouTube, but that wasn’t necessarily bringing home fortunes then.
Just doing what I had to do to make it. that first year I think I got 100 customers. the next year I think I got 100 more. the third year, I got 100 more. and so at that point I quit mowing and I was full-time weed control. I certainly wasn’t working for the other guy anymore, for whatever he paid.
It all worked out. I had some pressure on me. I think that was in one sense a good thing because I was highly motivated. I had three kids and a fourth one on the way. and I’d screwed up my coupon book business, so the money I made selling my first business—I basically lost all that. I had moved to a new town and bought the cheapest four-bedroom house I could find. highly motivated. so that definitely helped.
Ezra McCarthy
That’s so good. I just did a podcast a couple of weeks ago with Jason McLeod—hi, if you’re listening. he talked about just the hustle. he told this story about getting out of prison and then literally the day he got a job, he got out and started hustling, and he found some success. I think that’s a good point—just getting out and hustling if that’s where you are.
I’m just curious, Jason, have you ever bought a fertilization and weed control route?
Jason Creel
No, but I do think it’s a good idea. I’m not aggressively trying to grow my business. I’ve actually downsized a couple of times. I’ve sold customers. and a friend of mine who bought them—he’s bought other people out and tried to grow that way—I think it’s one of the best ways to grow.
It’s got some headaches involved, for sure. because you don’t know how many are going to stay with you. what was the pricing like? did his applications—the person you bought—was it the same as what you’re doing? people don’t like change, so you’re probably going to lose some of them.
You’ve got to work all that out and negotiate. but I’ve sold some, and the beauty of it is, yeah, you’ve got to pay a little bit. but you might get a cluster of customers that are all in the same area. that takes years to do organically. it’s just like—overnight—I’ve now got a huge clump here, and it cost some money. but that’s what big companies do all the time. so I think it makes a lot of sense.
Ezra McCarthy
For someone interested, from a seller perspective—you don’t have to give us the numbers if you’re not comfortable—but what type of multiple if someone’s looking to buy or maybe even sell? because sometimes I think people have the wrong perception. there’s a lawn care forum called LawnSite, and I was on there today, and this guy—he had like 40 lawns, and it didn’t even sell—a lot of them were bi-weekly. and he’s trying to get four—and these are lawn mowing—and he’s trying to get four to seven grand. and I’m like, okay, this fellow…
And that’s no equipment. this fellow has no idea. that’s hardly worth anything. but maybe for someone interested, could you give them some ballparks?
Jason Creel
Yeah, I’m no expert on this either, but I have sold probably at least four times—different amounts of stuff. and sometimes I got more money than other times. it depended on how motivated I was.
Like, for instance, when I was moving an hour and 45 minutes away, I literally had like 20 customers left from my other business and some equipment. and I sold it basically for the value of the equipment. I might’ve gotten a dollar for the customers. it wasn’t worth it.
And then when I quit mowing here and just went full-time weed control, I had like 20 or 25 customers. I just gave them to a guy who was starting out, in exchange for him to cut my grass for a year. I just said, hey, if you’ll cut my grass for the rest of the year, you can have these customers. because I didn’t care, and he was starting out. he’s still mowing today, so I was thinking, help him out, help me out. I sold my lawn mower, and for about a year there I didn’t have one.
Of course, the old saying is true—it’s worth what somebody’s willing to pay for it. that’s definitely true. and markets vary. maybe I can just give some principles.
Like the first time I was approached by somebody, he had compared my business with another business he was looking at. he was wanting to come in, grow, do all the things. so he made me a significant offer that was great. and I don’t want to say he overpaid… I guess he probably did.
But there were some things that went wrong on both our ends, and I don’t think it worked out for either of us. it was kind of a sad ending for him, a sad ending for me. we probably both learned a lot from it. but I got a fairly high amount for what I was selling.
I think a general idea—for instance, five years ago—I sold like 200 customers, let’s just say, weed control and fertilization. and we came up with a value on that. but again, you can structure it all different ways.
For him, he wanted the cash flow, so we financed it. I only did this because he was somebody I knew. and it worked out. we did it over five or six years because he didn’t want to put money up front. he just wanted to grow his business as quickly as possible to get the cash flow. so he was willing to pay me a higher value if I would do it per month. and it worked out. two or three years into it, he just paid me a lump sum and paid it off.
So I think it worked for both of us. he got the growth he was looking for—he really needed to go from one truck to two trucks. now he has four or five trucks. and I was looking to downsize from two trucks back to one to give me some more flexibility with my time.
I will just give an actual number here on another one. a year or two later, I had some more customers—I was just trying to downsize and really tighten my route. I think I sold them for like $200 per customer. I didn’t get into multiple this or multiple that. I just said it’s 200 bucks. some of them were $35 yards, some were $150 yards. it’s 200 bucks.
And for them, it was a good deal. cheap acquisition cost. and for me, I was getting rid of some customers I didn’t necessarily want anymore because of what I was trying to do.
Another general principle—my understanding—is the bigger your business is, of course, the higher multiple you can get. like, my business now, I work by myself. I have 300 and some customers. reality is, it’s not worth a whole lot. because if a big company bought it out, it’s worth something, but it’s not… I don’t think I’m getting some crazy multiple off my business.
Cause if somebody else came in and had to hire an employee to do what I do, it would be profitable, but not enough to be worth a whole lot. so you really got to get up—my understanding—to like a million dollars a year revenue to where you can start to command a little bit higher return on what you’re doing.
So because of that, I’ve had to sort of compare myself with my friend who’s going for the big business that he could sell one day. for me, I’ve had to do it a slightly different way. it’s like, I’m gonna try to be profitable, make a lot of money, and take the returns and invest it in other things to build an exit strategy. because I know there’s no big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for my business the way it’s structured.
Ezra McCarthy
That ties into a question. on this podcast, we talk with a lot of bigger businesses. just recently we had—or will be releasing soon—a couple of episodes: one with Corey Ballard, one with Jim Penman. he’s actually the largest franchisor in Australia—over 5,000, I think he said 500 franchises.
But here, we have a different perspective on business. so you’ve chosen to remain solo. you mentioned at one point you had two trucks. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer, but why have you chosen to go this route? and maybe someone’s at a crossroad, they’re waffling between the two. what would you tell them? what are the benefits, and maybe what are the downsides?
Jason Creel
Yeah, well, I like talking about that because I wasn’t sure either. I dabbled with the idea of going bigger—and I think I could. to me, it has a lot to do with the personality of the owner.
I would describe myself as somebody who likes being out in the field. I like having something to do. I think it played a little bit different into my equation that I did have a social media following—and that’s sort of a separate business that required time as well. and I felt like it was a pretty good opportunity there. so when I downsized, I was able to focus some on that.
So today, in the real world, I’m basically 50/50. I’m 50% of the time in the field, and 50% of the time I have time to pursue these other online ventures. and I like that. I don’t want to be a full-time YouTuber, and I don’t necessarily want to spray yards five to six days a week all year round either. it gives me a lot of flexibility with my family.
It’s just personality. like, I know obviously there’s risk involved both ways. if I’m a solo person, there’s risk—if I get hurt or die, the business is going to struggle pretty severely. I understand that. so I’m trying to diversify and do other things.
And I think you just have to have a plan. you can’t do what I’m doing and just spend all your money on the bass boat and hobbies, and have no plan. because there’s no retirement unless you make one yourself. and you’re not gonna sell it for a whole lot of money.
On the other side of the coin, if you have that personality—that real business entrepreneurial mindset—and maybe don’t care anything about being out in the field, and you have the skills to manage people, you don’t mind the stress of it… there’s risk there too. I mean, employees are risky. something happens and you certainly don’t have as much control over it.
I manage every aspect of every lawn that I deal with. so I have a lot of control. maybe that’s part of my personality. I’m a little bit of a micromanager. but I’d say just know who you are. are you comfortable with that?
And know that either way you go, there’s risk. and you’ve got to plan accordingly. if you’re going to grow big, you’ve got all that money—you can keep reinvesting it back in the business. like, I’m going to reinvest in marketing, I’m going to grow. I’m going to buy out some small people because my exit plan is… and I think you’ve got to have an exit plan, unless you’re just going to work till you die.
Your exit plan could be: I’m going to sell it for millions of dollars one day. and that’s realistic—especially in weed control. even in mowing too, but you’ve got to really get some things right.
I get offers to buy my business all the time, but I just quit even responding. I was so insulted by the pitiful offers. I was like, let me understand—so you’re asking me to take a pay cut and come work for you. are we getting this right here?
If I was to cut my salary in half, I can come report to your office every day at 8 a.m. I was like, yeah, where do I sign? so I just… I can’t even talk to them people.
Ezra McCarthy
That’s funny. how do you manage? because obviously in business there’s those down days, the unexpected challenges, mowers may break down, personal emergencies, when you’re operating solo.
Jason Creel
If I had employees, I mean, my schedule is flexible because I can, I said, I got 300 or something yards. could probably, a lot of those are small. so I could probably do 500 yards by myself. so I’ve got a lot of margin. if it rains all next week, it’s fine for me. and I feel bad for guys out there mowing grass. but I think what I would recommend to somebody is, and I think one of my most respected competitors, I believe what they do is basically schedule four-day workweeks and now their guys are hustling for four days.
I mean, I think he even structures the pay where it’s, I don’t know if it’s like pay for, what do you call it? pay for—yeah, performance pay. they kind of like, I don’t know that they’re necessarily hourly employees. now if they are, he’s got some of the best hourly employees I ever see because they sure do work hard. so anyway, I think I would structure it that way where like, hey, these guys are motivated and if they need to work four 10-hour days or even four 12-hour days or whatever they got to do.
Ezra McCarthy
Pay for performance.
Jason Creel
And they really love having a three-day weekend on a dry week. but on a rainy week, obviously it gives you a little more flexibility. and there may be times where they have to work six days a week, but you got to of course structure the pay where it’s motivating for the employee. and that’s one thing I do like about the weed control game. and again, I’m not anti-mowing. I just know if your margins are better and one person can go out there—in our area, one person can go out there and get like $1,200 to $1,500 in revenue a day.
and of course, you’ve got chemical costs and all that. but point is, you can pay somebody a pretty decent wage that can keep somebody year-round and get, in my opinion, a better quality employee. so that helps as well.
Ezra McCarthy
Think that is something that’s really true because I had a customer we were working with and he was showing me the revenue per truck compared to lawn care and landscaping. and I’m gonna butcher it, but he did the calculations—and you would know better than me—but it was something like 250 or 300 for a one-man truck is possible to infer a year. and then lawn care, basically a two-man crew, more equipment, is like half or something crazy like that.
Jason Creel
Yeah, I think you’re right on the chemical stuff. yeah, I don’t think those are unrealistic numbers—250,000, 300,000. of course, if you got small yards, you might have less revenue but higher margins. you got big yards, you got more revenue and less margins. so there’s some play in that. I do a lot of small yards and I love that. some people are like, I would never do a yard for $38 on my map.
My favorite yards are $38. and I mean, I’m there for like two minutes. I mean, if two minutes is not worth $38, I don’t—attorneys can’t charge that much. I mean, it’s a pretty good rate. so, but again, I ain’t driving 30 minutes for $38. it’s gotta be like next door. I’m trying to saturate the entire neighborhood.
Ezra McCarthy
So that’s interesting. so do you have customers give you pushback? because obviously, you know, hopefully people are calculating their breakeven point, their man hour rate, but to the customer, they just see, hey, this guy jason, is he ripping me off? so how do you articulate the value to the customer so they’re not frustrated when they’re paying that and you’re there for two minutes?
Jason Creel
Yeah, funny you ask that because I feel like when people cancel, like when I get a call and they cancel from somebody else, they’ll say, I saw him on the on our door camera and he wasn’t there but for four minutes. and I was like, yeah. but I almost never have people ask me that personally. I don’t ghost people like the old deal where he’s like literally don’t even do their yard. hopefully people don’t do that ever. but with door cams, I think that’s harder to do anymore and I wouldn’t do that anyway.
But yeah, it’s like nobody hardly ever asks me that. now occasionally somebody will ask me like, did you do our backyard? you sure was fast. I’m like, yeah, I did your backyard. I fertilized your yard. I said, go look at your backyard. I’m not trying to be nice about it. I’m halfway insulted. asked me. I said, what do you mean, did I do your backyard? because I’ve been doing your yard for years.
Somebody asked me that recently, that’s why I said. I was like, yeah, I just spread fertilizer all over you. go look in the backyard. there are tire tracks where my machine ran through your yard and there are fertilizer pellets all over your backyard. and they weren’t being super accusatory. the point is that I rarely get asked that, but I do hear people complain about it.
But what I tell people is, if I was gonna have an imaginary conversation about that—or in my mind—like you’re paid for your… this is I think an important note. we’re not paid because we got access to the special chemicals that they can’t buy. most everything I use anybody can order online, with a few exceptions. it’s like a restricted-use pesticide that you have to be licensed for.
So it’s not like the secret product. they’re paying you for a service basically, like mowing grass. like, they can mow their own grass, but they don’t want to. I’m paying you for a service. like, I don’t want to mess with all that chemicals and stuff, so you do it for me.
Maybe even slightly more than that—and this is where it differentiates a little from the mowing—is they’re paying you for your knowledge. you’re gonna know what to do to my lawn and when to do it. and that day where they might have a lawn mower, they probably don’t have a big spray tank or a ride-on fertilizer spreader. they might be out there with a little backpack thing, spraying stuff or, yeah, they don’t know what they’re doing and it would take them a long time.
Again, some people, it’s like their passion. like, they want to know, they just love lawn care and they want to figure it out and they watch alan hayne, the lawn care nut. and I don’t—those people are fine with me. I don’t care. or they watch me sometimes. but most people are not like that. they just want somebody else to do it for them.
Ezra McCarthy
I think that’s really good remembering because sometimes we can fall into that trap. worked for a guy and I did a job for him—and this is an old farmer. quoted him—this is back when I was in college—$13 an hour and he about jumped out of his seat. and then I did another job for him. I told him I was edging his garden. said that’s going to be—it was really cheap, it was 90 bucks. and he’s like, oh great. and it took me three hours. now if you would have sat down and done the math, but it’s something in our heads.
Jason Creel
Yeah.
Ezra McCarthy
That’s like I was helping someone recently. in their quote, they had broken down their dump costs, they had broken down several things. and I tried to encourage them and say like, hey, make sure you put that on the backend. but there’s a mindset shift if you just give someone a total price because then they don’t nitpick and say, I could do this, I can do that. and I’m sure with fertilization, you wouldn’t do that. but for those listening, it’s just a psychological thing even. remember, we’re providing a service and a value.
And how you present it does affect whether they take it or not.
Jason Creel
Yeah. I don’t even—I’m like, I know the hourly rate is high. it’s not even like… yeah, it’s high. I don’t even think about it for me. I know from mowing, they’re like, are you $70 or $80 or $90 an hour? I don’t think a lot like that because I work by myself, but I know it’s high. and I like to make the argument to people from a business standpoint. I did a video about this one time, but basically, efficiency is more important than price in my opinion.
Now of course I’m not saying price isn’t important. of course price is important. this goes back to like a small yard and taking over a neighborhood. like if I’ve got 25 yards in a neighborhood and I’ve got them at this margin… if I was trying to beat premium price and I’m way more scattered, then I’m less efficient. you got to take the whole picture of your overhead and everything.
Could I charge one more dollar? but the thing is, once you get saturated as a customer—if you go up one dollar, two dollars, five dollars—you’re probably not going to lose that, meaning once they trust you. and I don’t—I’m not saying like go in cheap price and do all that and then go up. I try to just price it right from the beginning. and of course there are price increases when that’s needed.
I don’t give special deals. I don’t do anything. but I just know like, I’m not trying to be the premium price guy. that’s more like, to me, if I was a landscaper and I’m the premium landscaper going after a $30,000 landscaping job in the richest part of town. this is more quantity. and I think even more so than mowing, the weed control—I think people understand—it is very much reputation based.
These people want the results. and if you’re mediocre at it, you’re gonna struggle. so you can charge more or do more apps if their yards look good. at least in my area, they will pay. and I would say I’m middle of the road on pricing. but it’s like we were talking about—the value. it’s like, what if it’s $400 for the year? let’s just say. they’re just like, well, it’s $400 a year and I got a nice lawn. I don’t think they’re thinking like, well, for the whole year he was only here 58 minutes and I was charged $400. I don’t think they look at it that way.
Ezra McCarthy
No, I think it’s really good. maybe someone’s just getting started. what advice would you give them looking to get started or add this to their business?
Jason Creel
Well, we hinted at this already. I think you gotta really think, do I wanna do this or not? it’s not a dabble-into-it thing to me. if I wanna do it—and not just one person—and I’m mowing grass, a lot of the people that mow grass have a hard time leaving the mowing behind. I don’t think they should leave it behind.
But if you love the mowing and mowing is your bread and butter, and you wanna offer this to 40 customers that you have… to me, I’d say don’t do it. it’s not worth it. just keep mowing. just get some more mowing customers.
But if you want to do it, I think you—I tell people—get licensed as quick as possible. even if you get five customers, even if you’re just spraying your own yard. there’s a learning curve. it’s almost like learning a foreign language.
I like to say, if you want to learn Spanish and you just moved to Mexico, you’re probably going to learn it pretty quick. so you gotta get in there and start mixing chemicals up and spraying your yard and understanding the calibration, how to spray, how to mix the chemicals, what chemical kills this weed.
And of course, there’s a lot of resources online. watch me on YouTube, I’ll teach you some of that stuff. I’m just saying you gotta find somebody that can help get you started. you gotta get out there and just do it.
And if you had 10 customers for a year—and of course you ain’t gonna make no money—if you had 10 customers a year, the amount that you would learn from those 10 customers over one year, you would be leaps and bounds beyond where you were from having no experience at all.
One year into it, you won’t be an expert. you’ll still screw some stuff up or not know—not screw up necessarily—but not know exactly what to do in that situation. but you’ll know a lot of the basics.
Ezra McCarthy
This is really good, jason. always like to get people’s perspective. so I’d love to ask you, what is one podcast outside of the green industry the listeners might find interesting?
Jason Creel
Oh man, well, I don’t watch a lot of YouTube. I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts. I basically don’t like Instagram. yeah, I’m probably not the greatest one at that.
Now, I do listen to audiobooks and podcasts when I’m working. that’s one thing I like about it. but I mean, I mostly listen to Christians, so I listen to sermons and theological stuff that maybe not everybody’s gonna be interested in.
But what I listen to more than anything is called Renewing Your Mind with a guy named RC Sproul. so I just listen to him and it gives me something to think about. and I do that when I’m working or if there’s a baseball game on, I have a baseball game playing in my ear.
But that’s me. I’m trying to think—I’ll give you one from a business standpoint. these are some local friends of mine but they’re very successful. it’s called Wealth Without Wall Street. now I haven’t jumped on their methodology. it’s nothing new—it’s the infinite banking thing where you use your whole life insurance and fund yourself and you’re basically trying to cash flow everything.
So they’re not putting all their money in the stock market. they’re saying we’re going to get cash flow, we’re going to invest in this and this. and they got so many things going on and it works for them. again, don’t think I could do it, but I love listening to those guys because they challenge somebody like me in the very traditional way of thinking.
And they’re just great guys and they live what they teach and they’re just entertaining to listen to.
Ezra McCarthy
You mentioned you like audiobooks. have you listened to one in the past couple months that you really enjoyed or would recommend?
Jason Creel
I like biographies mostly. I just listened to—you may have heard—the movie Chariots of Fire is about Eric Liddell. the biography is not Chariots of Fire, that was the movie.
Stuff like that. dietrich bonhoeffer, martin luther. these are kind of like Christian history kind of biographies is what I was into. the Unbroken guy, the movie Unbroken—what was that? louis zamperini.
Ezra McCarthy
Laura hildenbrand wrote a book about that. that’s a really good book.
Jason Creel
Yeah, that one. those kind of stuff. I just like living—I guess in some ways I’m like, I’m out here spraying yards, which I like doing. you know, I’m kind of living through them a little bit. they sure were doing some exciting things. so I’m not discontent with what I’m doing, but I do like listening to other people. so like biography, history, civil war, I listen to stuff like that.
Ezra
Well, it’s been fun, jason. if someone’s interested in learning more about you, what’s the best place to connect with you?
Jason
Yeah, I’m mostly on YouTube. that’s where I’ve been since 2011. it’s not like if I seem to have a large following, it’s more a study in perseverance than anything. I’ve stuck with it a long time.
But yeah, I teach a lot of content. mostly, I’ve shifted a lot toward weed control on my channel. so it’s called Lawn Care Life. and then I have a website, lawncarelife.com. and I tell people all the time, I don’t want to take people’s money if it’s not something that’s going to help them.
Like, if you’re in the south and you’re dealing with warm-season grasses—basically from Oklahoma down to Florida—and you want to get into weed control, then I do sell courses and stuff for that.
But I have people ask me regularly, I’m in Idaho or Ohio—I say, don’t buy it. I don’t think it’s for you. so, but that’s lawncarelife.com.
Ezra McCarthy
Well, that’s a wrap on today’s episode. hope you’re feeling inspired. if you’re interested in fertilization and weed control, hop in if it’s right for you. if you’re looking to grow, remember that it takes perseverance—as jason just mentioned.
If you found today’s episode interesting, be sure to subscribe. make sure to leave a rating and review and share it with a fellow lawn care pro. if you’ve got questions or ideas for a future episode, check out our website—speed of which, our new website—lawncaresuccessblueprint.com or shoot us an email.
Until next time, keep working and we’ll see you on the next one.
