Episode 2

Ezra
Welcome back to the Lawn Care Success Blueprint. Another episode today dropping. And today we’ve got Evan Lindman, my friend from up north, just met him at Equip and wanted to have him on to go over some, hopefully some questions that’ll help you guys grow and grow your business today. Evan, great to have you.

Evan Lindman
Ezra, it’s an honor to be on this show. This will be fun.

Ezra
Yeah, for sure. So we got about to, let’s see here, 13 questions we’re going to hop through, but as we get going, we can get sidetracked a little bit. So for those who may not have heard you, tell the listeners about the podcast that you have and about your lawn care business.

Evan Lindman
That’s a good lead off question there, Ezra. So to kind of back it up here, the podcast, it started about almost two and a half years ago. I mean, I’ve been cutting grass for 15 years. The lawn care business, it kind of started after high school in 2010, and then it kind of morphed into something big. Was with my buddy Eli. We were in a ComTech class. He had the lawns, I had the equipment. Next thing you know, we got together. We went into business together that first year. It was great. Then my dad kind of helped me take over the business the next year. We fired Eli and then my dad really pushed me. My dad helped me really hard for two years. But then since then, the last 13 years has just been all me and grew into a successful solo operator business. I did have a buddy who helped me for 10 years as an employee, but got rid of him during the whole pandemic craze when that went down. But then, which kind of leads into the podcast, though, in 2022.

Let’s just say that there’s a lot of lawn care podcasts out there and I like the guys in the business. They all give good advice, but I felt like our industry sometimes lacks authenticity. They just want to sell me on something. So I launched a podcast and did a couple of episodes with a different buddy, got rid of him because he wasn’t even in the lawn care business. He was a friend. And then I actually asked my uncle Greg, who we all know Greg. He’s got a, well, from my podcast, Your First Lawn Care Podcast, Greg.

He’s in his sixties and this is his sixth year in the lawn care business. He launched a lawn care business later in life. I said hey Greg, do you want to do the show with me? And he’s been my cohost ever since. It’s been a good run in the podcast. It’s just a lot of fun just to be quite frank and real with guys in the industry and be in the field and day to day and express those struggles with a hint of faith, too, throughout our episodes. We’re obviously not perfect. We don’t have the best advice, but we hope to give the guys who are just starting out a direction and guiding light and a way to go in the business.

Ezra
Yeah, so what year exactly was it that you started your, like, your business?

Evan Lindman
That was 2010, man. I’m feeling kind of young and kind of old at the same time. It was 15 years ago, and we started it senior year of high school. Then right after we graduated, we hit the ground running with that lawn care biz. Back in the day, we had push mowers. That was quite the journey.

Ezra
You just had only push mowers?

Evan Lindman
Yeah, we had push mowers and weed whips, and we had an old edger—push edger—back in the day. Hard edger with two handles, and those were a pain in the butt to change the blades on. You had to be accurate with them because if you’re edging the driveway and you missed, you could really edge the concrete and have sparks fly everywhere. But yeah, it was a Toro push mower. I think my buddy Eli had a Honda. Then I had a couple weed whips and blowers. We had hand blowers and we went around.

Passed out flyers. We were way too cheap. We were talking about undercharging on the pre-show. We were way too cheap. We were mowing lawns for twenty, twenty-five dollars. We got a good amount of business, but I mean, this is even fifteen years ago. That price was low then. But we learned a lot, and praise God we made any money, because we did not know what we were doing at all.

Ezra
No, I definitely understand that. In the beginning, did you find to get your foot in the door, you used kind of low pricing? Is that kind of what got your foot off the door? How did you get that first 50, 60, 70 clients?

Evan Lindman
That’s a good question. So when it really started that first year, I think Eli had like seven or eight lawns in his neighborhood. And then I had a couple lawns that were bigger. The bigger lawns we actually used my dad’s tractor on, which were in the neighborhood. I was living at my parents’ house at that time, so we used those. But where we kind of—what a lot of guys do—and I can kind of recommend it. It’s kind of like, I do as I… what’s the old saying? Don’t—

Ezra
As I say, not what I do.

Evan Lindman
I would say don’t go in and undercharge, but we undercharged because you want to get your foot in the door when you’re just breaking in the business. Sometimes you do have to undercharge a little bit. We were probably undercharging too much. So a typical lawn that you would probably charge—a postage stamp lawn in today’s world, a ranch house, postage stamp lawn—is probably 35, 40 dollars. Well, back in the day, we were charging like… my house, I cut my lawn in five minutes—18 dollars. That’s too cheap.

So I guess it’s fine if you lowball a little bit getting in, but really when you want to start, you’ve got to value yourself and be that boutique lawn care guy. But some guys don’t really value themselves and they’re kind of—
I mean, there’s the “Chuck in the Truck” or the “In Debt Dan” where they just kind of go in and they way undercharge, but then they do bad work. Like, you don’t want to give horrible work. That’s the problem.

If you’re going to be that boutique lawn service and have a valuable price, well, you better do good work and know how to stripe and not leave clippings anywhere except on the grass—not on the pavement. I’m really OCD and that can be your friend, but that can also be your downfall.

So it’s like, don’t undercharge too much when you’re starting, but value your time because time is money in this business. I’ve messed up a lot.

Ezra
We all have. Remember, you may have to start there, but at a certain point, you’re going to have to start trimming your customers. And that’s where having leads coming in is so important.

I remember I had this customer—she was one of those bi-weekly. And you know, I know some people say never do bi-weekly. Where I was in Texas, it could take me the same amount of time and I could charge almost double. So in some instances, I think it’s worth it.

Well, this customer though—it was not. For whatever reason, it would grow super fast. So after two weeks, I’d be going, and I had to push mow the back because of the gate size. And there’d be toys, there’d be trees, and then she had a dog back there and it wasn’t cleaned up.

Well, that wasn’t the worst. One time I’m going through and there’s this honking hole that the dog had just put right in the middle of the yard. So she had this bright idea to take a bag of cement—just like literally, like you’re thinking, a bag of cement—and just put it in the hole. She didn’t take it out and pour it out.

Evan Lindman
No.

Ezra
She just put the bag. So I’m mowing the lawn and it’s so tall I can’t see the bag. All of a sudden, I high center and I’m just like, what in the world? So I move the mower—honking bag of cement.

So of course I move it out of the grass and I mow the yard. Well, lo and behold, next week I come back and guess what’s back in the middle of the yard? She put that big old bag of cement that had just become cement at this point right back.

Evan Lindman
No.

People don’t care.

Ezra
Yeah, it was one of those customers. Needless to say, she loved me. But next year I’m like, hey, we had good lead flow coming in. That was my first year I started doing her yard, and you just take what you can get. So I’m like, you know what? This is one customer I need to refer away for someone else.

So I told her, I said, “Thanks for the opportunity to serve you. I’m not sure that we’re going to be a good fit this year. Here’s someone who can serve you.”

Then—she was kind of a larger lady…

Evan Lindman
You fired her.

Ezra
Then she texts me back and she’s like, “I’m just not big enough for you, am I?”

She meant her yard. She meant her yard. But anyway, it was really funny.

Evan Lindman
That’s actually pretty funny. Man, that’s just too funny. Man, you got me. That’s hilarious.

Man, I want to put in sound effects in that—this is not my show, so I’ll stop, because I have my drop board here. Could I do the… do you want to hear the—“Hello, this is Greg, on your head, oh! Hello, this is Greg.”

Could you hear that?

Ezra
Yeah, that did.

Evan Lindman
No one will know what that is if they don’t listen to our show. But anyways, as you were. Sorry.

Ezra
Share.

So maybe you’ll say, you’ve got to trim back, but to do that, you’ve got to have customers coming in. I’ve talked to people and they’re like, “Well, I only use word of mouth.” And this is something I hear all the time, especially from people hitting that $100,000 mark, and they may have one team member and they’re just like, “I can’t take anyone else.”

But here’s what I tell people—you can always trim back those customers. I think her name was Christy. You can always…

No, she was a very kind lady and she was nice. It was nothing to do with her. Just like—it was a rough yard. And like, you don’t want to be moving cement blocks every time you mow and mowing around dog waste. Like, that’s not a good business model.

Some people say, “Well, I can’t raise my prices.” But what I tell people all the time is—if you go out of business, you can’t serve your customers. And that’s something we have to remember. We’re doing them a disservice when we don’t charge enough, because then when they come back next time, you won’t be there.

So charge right.

And part of that is—how do you get customers?

And Evan, what did you find was the way to get customers, especially now as you’re growing? You’ve got a decent-sized business for a solo operator.

Evan Lindman
Well, what I did for the longest time is flyers, word of mouth, and flyers. A little social presence online and a Google Business page helped out big time. I got a lot of business off of Google and I didn’t do jack squat to it. But really, aside from even flyers and the online world, it’s the word of mouth—doing that good work.

Obviously, I think I got referred around too much because my prices were too competitive. But I like what you talked about as well. I mean, you don’t want your lawn guy going out of business because you’re not charging enough.

And the biggest thing though is, you can get a lot of customers just with word of mouth. I guess maybe local Facebook groups. And I know a guy—his name is Ezra McCarthy. He builds websites.

What you’re talking about, Ezra, was really important too, because—Ezra always preaches this. He didn’t tell me anything specific, it’s just from what we’ve heard from him. We’ve known you for about a year now, Ezra, give or take. You gotta target the right clientele. And part of that is obviously with a website too.

But you can market to certain people even online. Even with your flyer, it’s your principle of targeting people that basically have more money—so you can get more money for yourself too. And I was targeting the wrong folk by, I guess, undercharging.

And I guess the way to get more profit out of your clients is to value yourself more, obviously. And then just to offer more of a boutique service.

And what makes your stuff set apart—like, you build websites, Ezra. And you were in the lawn care business. Your product is worth it. It’s incredible. It’s invaluable. And you can charge that price for your website because you’ve earned that.

So what I’m trying to say—I’m kind of dancing around it—is, earn their profit. And you can do that by doing good work and word of mouth. Word of mouth. And then you can charge more.

And if you really earn that rapport with your clients, there are some clients you could charge $500 to cut their lawn—like a week, like $500 a cut—and they’d pay whatever. So that’s the kind of client that you want.

Ezra
Brand positioning is so important. Like you mentioned, how you position yourself. I remember, whether you’re doing online marketing or postcards or anything that you do, how you position yourself.

I remember seeing a flyer for a trailer and it literally said, “Cheapest cuts around.” Now, they’re marketing, and they’re gonna get business. But that’s not the customers that you want.

That’s not an example for that. That was a domain provider, and literally the business’s name was Cheap Domains.

Evan Lindman
No.

Ezra
That was there, and I’m like—when I see that, that makes me run. ‘Cause I don’t want cheap. I want quality and I want service. I don’t care if I have to pay twice as much. If I can get quality and service, I’ll pay it.

And sometimes we buy out of our own wallet. And what we mean is, we say, “Well, I’m not going to spend $60 per cut.” But you have to remember—we’re not our customers. And to them, that may be a steal.

Evan Lindman
Oh yeah, it’s funny that you talked about cheap cuts. I think our first flyer, with my buddy back in the day—Eli—when we were getting the business going, I think it was E and E Lawn Care.

Now it’s E and D Lawn Care ’cause my brother was helping me. My dad—the “D”—the dad, Drew. And then my buddy Zach mowed with me for 10 years.

I think our first flyer with Eli—I gotta look for it—I think it’s on Facebook somewhere. It’s like, “E and E Lawn Care.” It was something like “The Best Cuts Around,” and we talked about—

I think it said “Fast and Cheap” was on the flyer. I’m like, you don’t put the word “cheap” on a flyer, because you’re going to attract the cheap client who can decide to pay you whenever they want—and then never pay you.

I’ve been there, done that. So you don’t want any of that verbiage, right? Because cheap is—cheap is a no-no.

Ezra
Right, that’s so good. So just curious, Evan, kind of where is your business at this point? Like, how many customers did you serve last year?

Evan Lindman
You know, I’ve severely had to downsize because I bit off more than what I could chew.

Even last year, I was mowing about five and a half, six days a week. Two years ago, in 2023, I was mowing basically six, seven days a week. That’s not good.

I mean, I’m a man of faith. My relationship with Christ is important to me. When you have a two-year-old and have to provide—

You know, if a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat, sure. And that’s great. But you also have to have some time to be present and with your family. That’s the goal.

Ezra
Uh-uh.

Evan Lindman
That’s a job too, but that’s a good job. So I went from 110 last year—I think I’m sub-100 now this year. I gotta get that probably in the… I think I’m in the 95, 96 range.

Because you want to mow—I finally figured it out here with mowing. I mean, I always knew this, but I wasn’t practicing what I was preaching. You really want to mow only four intense days a week. Load up the schedules. Make the lawns really valuable, like high-paying, marketable clients, right? It’s what you talk about—like, what kind of client do you want?

And have those Friday, Saturday, Sunday open for rain and other stuff like that. If equipment breaks down. If you run over too many nails. I ran over like six nails last year between my truck and trailer. I don’t know what was out to get me. I’m not weird like that, but I was. The Lord was teaching me a lot of patience there last year.

But yeah, I finally realized—even mowing five days a week is too much. You want to chip that down to four, and I’m slowly getting there. Some of my pride gets in the way, but then you get afraid. You’ve got to provide for your family, because things can change on the turn of a dime.

But I’m cutting, I think, about 95, 96 right now for this upcoming year, and I’m getting ready to go. We’re probably about—man, I’d say two months away, give or take, and I’m just ready to go. I’m ready to get out there and mow.

Ezra
So with that being said, with seasonal, how do you try to plan and budget? Do you set a certain amount aside? Because that, in our industry, obviously is being real seasonal—how do you deal with that? Because obviously you’re going to have your expenses and then you’re going to have business expenses in the winter. How do you deal with those expenses?

Evan Lindman
That’s a good question. I mean, you try to kind of budget and plan for that rainy day or rainy winter fund.

Like here’s the honest truth, guys. I plow snow with my buddies. I haven’t gotten—OK, I know how to do it, I haven’t gotten into it for my business yet. I would have to upgrade to a 2500 truck if I were to do it. Get a newer used truck, a plow, and a salter.

But point being said—winter is where the account maybe dries up a tad bit. And I learned the hard way. I was never in debt per se, but I was making a couple payments on mowers and my truck. And I’ve paid all that off. The only payment that I have on now is one mower. That’s it.

But you gotta budget for the winter. And the wife and I talk about it. This is the time where it’s really good to be frugal—and kind of cheap. You want to be more frugal than you think frugal actually is.

Every dollar counts. And paying with cash is king. I mean, talk about Dave Ramsey—a lot of what he says is good. I like the Ramsey approach.

But it’s tough for the guys here. When you’re a solo operator in the winter, you’ve got to have money set aside and budget for it.

My wife was a teacher. Now she’s not. She’s a stay-at-home mom. And so you gotta budget. The account gets dry and the account gets tight.

How do you supplement that? Well, what I started to do—and what other businesses do too—during my drier months, where it gets a little tight, is between mid-January and mid-February. That’s where you offer your prepay for the year.

But what you do—where I shot myself in the foot last year—was I gave them too good of a prepay window time. It was like two months. No. You want one month. It’s gotta be basically between the dead of winter.

And it’s 10%. I had 18 people prepay this year. That was great. Versus last year—31. That was way too many prepays.

18 is the sweet spot. But luckily, over the past three or four years, I’ve raised everyone up 25 to 35%, so I was covering that cost.

Ezra
And discount.

Evan Lindman
But yes, back to your main point—you’ve got to budget during the winter. I would start setting money aside even halfway through the summer. Just $100 here and there, and have it add up.

So you have that, I guess, $5,000 cushion for just expenses during the month where it gets dry. And it’s tough though too, like even removing snow and doing that. Snow is so random. Unless you have your own snow business, you’re really not making—

I mean, my buddies, they pay me very, very well. So I’m not complaining. But you’ve got to find ways to keep busy during the winter to budget. And sometimes it can be pretty tough.

Ezra
So on the pricing front, how do you price your property? Say you pull up to a property—residential—how do you go about pricing that? Are you doing by per man hour? Do you do a minimum? Do you do online pricing?

Evan Lindman
I kind of do where the direction of the industry is going—man hour. How long will it take me?

I’ve done a lot of investigation—or not, not that, research—online to figure out how to make X amount per year. Say you wanted to make like $80,000 per year. I think, with all the insurance and everything that our business entails, like the lawn stuff, you want to make—I think it’s between $45 and $50 an hour.

And that’s what you’ve got to do. Like a solo guy pulls up—say I have, I mean, basically, average for a solo guy, you should be able to get anywhere between one to three lawns done in an hour.

Depends—if I have help, then I can get about two to five lawns done in an hour. And that’s where you kind of have to figure it out.

Lawn care Facebook groups have been big for me just to figure out what different guys are charging. But don’t take whatever these guys say on Facebook as gospel, because a lot of what they say is true, and a lot of what they say is wrong.

And there’s this arrogant poos on there that don’t actually want to encourage people.

So you pull up. But the general rule I’ve talked about with my buddies too—even cutting grass, like just mowing—you want to get close to making $100 an hour with mowing.

Because that’s still covering your costs. Because it’s not actually $100 an hour when you think of all the drive time it took to get there, the gas, the insurance, equipment costs.

So that general rule is $100 an hour. I’ve heard some guys say they need to make $75. Like—where are your goals set?

Yeah, I use a couple different approaches to it. I hope that answered that well enough.

Ezra
No, it does. Just curious—how do you keep track of your customers? Do you use some sort of CRM or how do you manage billing?

Evan Lindman
Oh, good question. So you’re gonna like this, Ezra. For a while, when my dad was helping me, we would just send out physical invoices and do it that way. That actually worked.

And then I’d say around 2017 or 2018, we switched over to email invoices. That worked great for a while. Then I got turned on to Yardbook a couple of years ago, and I absolutely love Yardbook. I think it’s great.

You can use the free version. You can do everything you ever wanted to do with the free version as a solo operator. My main bread and butter is mowing, but I do hedge trimming, mulch, core aeration—things like that. But everything you want can be done in Yardbook.

And I’m not knocking the other ones, but I wouldn’t pay any—I wouldn’t pay $40 a month for a different CRM when you can do it all for free. There’s nothing that’s appealed to me. Maybe because I’m a solo operator. If you had a bigger company, I could see how those CRMs could be more applicable for a bigger company.

But I’m kind of high on Yardbook. I’ve been really pleased with it too, and the clients seem to like it as well.

Ezra
I have to disagree with you a little bit here, Evan. I looked at Yardbook, but here’s the thing—they don’t have a mobile app.

So that’s one thing about Jobber that I do like. Either way, you need something. To me, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Yardbook or Jobber—I do recommend Jobber—but there’s other good ones.

There are some that aren’t quite so good that I won’t name. But you need something, because you need their contact info. Like, if you’re not getting their email address, if you’re not getting their phone number…

Evan Lindman
Baby, no.

Ezra
Like, you’re leaving money on the table. Even if someone doesn’t accept a quote, you can follow back with them next year—because maybe two months down the road, they went with a cheaper bid, and that guy wasn’t good.

That company… so keeping all that data is literally—that’s where most of your company’s worth is. Not in your equipment, but in your customer database.

Customer database. So that’s why using some sort of CRM—although I don’t know about Evan’s choice—but either way, get something.

Evan Lindman
Yeah. Yes.

To push back, Ezra—Yardbook does have a mobile app, but you have to reach out to them and they give you some sort of… yeah, it’s on Safari. It’s also just on my phone.

But to what you said, which is great though, Ezra—a CRM. Until Yardbook came around, I didn’t have any of my clients’ information, really, and I couldn’t contact them.

At least with Yardbook—and this goes for Jobber or any other one. Jobber, what is it, Service Autopilot, there’s other ones.

Ezra
Sound Safari.

LMAO.

Copilot.

Evan Lindman
All of these. All of them—you get your customers digitally on something. I don’t care what it is.

Because I would nickname my clients. Like, I had one client that I called “Indian guy on the hill” because I didn’t know any of his name or his contact.

You need to put everything in. Get all their names.

I’m a funny guy. I love comedy. But be professional and be serious. Write out their name. Get every sort of number possible or emails, because their emails can bounce.

And that’s where Yardbook and Jobber can really just come in and help you out big time—like a CRM with all your clients organized.

Because, as you said, something happens—you’ve got to contact that client right away.

Well, Evan six years ago, how was he going to contact them? You’d have to either have the number of the client in the phone or go knock on the door.

What’s the way to do it? Being organized.

Being organized saves just a… I guess, waterfall of anxiety. Because when I’m disorganized, I get way anxious for no reason.

And Yardbook and Jobber, LMN, all those—that’s where they’re good. They keep your customers and your database organized.

And Ezra, I know you’re big on organization, so…

Try to be. So just curious—now, I didn’t ask you beforehand—do you, I’m just curious, do you do credit card on file or how do you accept payment?

Evan Lindman
Good question. I’ve steered away from the credit card on file, even though I do mow $500,000 homes.

When you develop really good relationships with your clients, I wouldn’t want to have a card on file and then hit them with 3%.

So I’m not. I offer cash payment, check payment, Venmo, Cash App, and Zelle—and never had a problem. I’ve had well over a hundred clients.

I’ve just given you five different ways to pay. A couple people have asked about the credit card payment, but then I tell them point blank, “Hey, here’s why I’m not doing it,” and then they understand.

But then, to play the devil’s advocate—I get the advantage of card on file. Because guess what, guys? You can get paid right away.

So that’s your discretion on what you want to do. But I like how it’s set up now, because Zelle is instant too. I mean, all of them are instant.

And card on file—I just don’t want to deal with any of the hash with people. Because some people just don’t like having their card being on file somewhere. And I don’t want to be responsible for anything like that.

Ezra
And you know, I can’t say too much, because I used to do the same thing. But now in my business—

Wish there’s so many things that I wish I could go back and do differently.

Because I use Stripe for payment processing. It is just amazing. You can send card update links, you can process their payments, and it’s actually a little bit more than 3%.

It’s almost 4%. At least that’s what I pay.

Evan Lindman
Yeah. It is good.

Ezra
It’s going to vary slightly, but to me, it’s worth it. I pay them hundreds of dollars a month, unfortunately. But the convenience of it… yeah.

Evan Lindman
But you make that money back, right? So if it’s like a hundred-dollar bill, you deal like a hundred and four dollars, you know—it’s something like that.

Ezra
Well, it’s just included in the cost. I don’t add that in. And so that’s where I’d encourage you—yeah, ’cause even though it’s the exact same price, if you charge someone $100 and then say, “Here’s an extra charge for a credit card file,” or if you just said $104, they’re not going to care about the $104.

But it’s just a mental thing. They don’t like that extra charge.

So it’s just like—I remember in college, I guess it was—I worked for this farmer.

Evan Lindman
Yeah, don’t—yeah.

Ezra
And he lived in the city. This was a long time ago. And I remember I told him—I was doing some work for him—“I’ll charge you $13 an hour.” And he about had a cow.

Well, then I told him later—I did another job—and I said, “Hey, I’ll do this job for $99.” It took me three hours. So you can do the math—that’s over $30 an hour. But he didn’t squawk at all about it.

So it’s a mindset thing.

Evan Lindman
There you go. Because he did it at set price.

Ezra
You know, some of these tricks—if you try to charge people on top, please don’t do that.

But there are ways that you can do it to serve your customer, while making it easier and less hassle. So I get why. But I think it’s worth trying to look into.

Evan Lindman
That’s a fair point. I mean, you heard it from the horse’s mouth, guys. If you wanted to do it like that, you could.

I just don’t want the hassle. And let’s be honest, I sometimes do like walking up to a client at the end of the month—and some prefer to pay with cash. And cash is nice, right? I mean, not for every payment, but cash is nice.

And then all my Venmo, checks, and those payments—they’re fun to organize too.

But the craze of taking the CRM and everything digital now, for organization-wise, has really just been huge for me. And that’s been a blessing.

Ezra
Sure. In your business, have you ever experienced times where things didn’t go as planned or big setbacks? And what have you learned from that?

Evan Lindman
I’ve learned—you know, I’ve been doing this 15 years, Ezra—and I’m still learning this today too: when stuff goes wrong, when crap hits the fan—just relax. Don’t get anxious about it.

Obviously, we pray about it and ask the Lord for wisdom, but I get OCD and I just stew and ruminate over it.

It’s like—how is worrying going to add a single hour to your span of life? Or help your business?

Sometimes you really do, as the saying goes, roll with the punches.

I get very frustrated when rain comes through and messes up my five-day work week—turns it into five and a half, six, seven days.

You’re driving down the street—crap, I just ran over another nail. Well, there goes two hours of my day. That adds on to the two hours of my week. I’m not getting done Saturday now—I’ll be getting done Sunday afternoon.

And you just gotta… I have to… sometimes you have to stop playing the “woe is me” card. Stop ruminating about it and be like, “Lord, I just thank You that You provided this trial to teach me patience.”

And I pray that I won’t take this stuff that’s happened to me home to my wife and my son—because they don’t need it.

It’s like—who wants to be around someone who smells like body odor? We have to wash our attitudes too. No one wants to be around someone who has bad breath and bad body odor. That’s why we take a shower.

Well, your attitude needs an adjustment and a shower too.

You gotta really roll with the punches, and then shut up sometimes—bite your tongue, get the problem solved.

That’s why I’m encouraging everyone: go on a four-day intense mowing schedule. Don’t even do five—do four. Because guess what? You could have two days of rain and then you’ll be way behind.

So I hope that advice helps people. This business is so rewarding—but it can be very frustrating.

And then, I just get on top of that—I just get mad. And I know I shouldn’t. I know better.

Ezra
Where do you see your business—E & D Lawn Care—in the next five years? Where are you trying to take it?

Evan Lindman
Good question. I mean, I’ll be 100% transparent and honest with it. I would like to maybe get mowing down to 60, even 70 lawns.

I mean, our podcast—we’re praying that it kind of takes off, makes some more passive income doing that too.

But I want to hop into the snow game. Do it for myself full time. Get some of those commercial jobs.

‘Cause guys—snow, it’s a pain in the butt. It’s unpredictable. But the money is great.

We’re talking about being dry during the winter. Say you land one $20,000 commercial job and they pay it in two installments—you’re set for the winter. That $20,000 will carry you through the winter.

I have a buddy—he has a lawn care business. He cuts—man, he cuts 120 a week, but they’re all really small. He had a $20,000 commercial contract that he did two years ago. Didn’t do it this year because he’s trying to downsize, but he loved it. He said that was a really great add-on.

So with my business, I want to downsize mowing and get more into the side services. Like, I even want to do blade sharpening, do more core aerations, more landscaping—end of mulch, hedge trimming, things like that.

And then really just take off there in the snow game.

And maybe, Lord willing, make some side money podcasting more—because we’re getting somewhere with it. But we’ll never be the guys that just want to sell people on stuff.

I’m sick of all the promo codes that certain creators have. Like, OK—just this. I mean, the information they say is good, but it’s like—just don’t sell me on it. Just get to the nitty and gritty of the content.

Ezra
Well, just one last question here. If you could give advice to someone, what would that be?

Evan Lindman
Man, you put me here on the spot, Ezra. This one’s good.

If I can give advice to someone—now, to pick at that, would this be like business advice, or just anything? Just in general?

Ezra
Either or.

Evan Lindman
Well, advice—I would say this, really.

My advice would be: we are but a breath in this life. Trials and tragedy can change at the drop of a hat, turn of a dime.

And my advice is actually more of a question—where’s your hope? Where do you go when trials and tragedy strike?

And I can tell you where I go. Because if it wasn’t for Christ in my life, I would be—I’d be nothing.

I don’t think my business would even be… I might be more successful and have made more money without God and the Lord in my life. But with Christ in my life, I just get a way different perspective on how I treat my clients and how I go about handling things.

So my advice would be—it’s more of a good question: where’s your hope?

Ezra
That’s good. Well, Evan, this has been great. Hopefully this has added some value to the listener. And yeah—if people want to find you, where’s the best place to find your podcast?

Evan Lindman
On all podcast platforms, guys. Just search Turf Nerds: A Lawn Care Podcast.

I do have a co-host—his name is Greg. “Hello, this is Greg.” And some of his catchphrases are… I mean, we have the famous “Really?”

So find us on all platforms and you can hear us banter back and forth about the struggles of lawn care dudes who are in the field.

Ezra
Perfect. Yeah, you definitely want to go hear Greg.

Well, great to talk to you, Evan, and come back again next time for another episode of the pod.

Evan Lindman
Thank you guys, it was an honor. See you guys.

Ezra
Sounds great.