Episode 37

Ezra McCarthy

Hello and welcome back to Lawn Care Blueprint. Today we are diving into an important topic in your business and that is introducing friction. Whether it’s during the sales process or maybe you’re trying to upsell or just manage your online presence, friction can slow things down, frustrate clients and cost you a lot of revenue. We’re going to go through and take a minute to spot some friction perhaps in your business, point it out and tell you how we can help reduce it.

Joining me today is Wena and she’s got some great questions lined up to help us tackle the issue. But before we get started, we’re gonna do a big shout out today to one of our reviewers on Apple. This is a big and important thing helping other people find us. So today we’re highlighting a review by Andy Wilson, who wrote us a great review on Apple titled Insightful. He says, I’ve added this podcast to my list of favorites.

And we got a rating there. Big shout out to Andy and Andy actually has a podcast. Feel free to go check it out called the lawn hustle. We appreciate Andy taking time to share this. And if you had a moment to leave a review, be sure to do that. This really helps other folks discover the pod. So let’s get into it.

Wena

I’m excited to dive into this topic because friction is something that sneaks into so many areas of a business and I think our listeners will really benefit from this conversation.

Ezra McCarthy

Absolutely. Let’s dig into how friction can impact the listeners, the lawn and landscape business owners and how we can start smoothing out some of these problems.

Wena 

To start things off, can you explain what we mean by friction in a lawn and landscape business context?

Ezra McCarthy

Friction is any point of frustration or maybe it could be extra added steps that are unneeded. So in every single point possible, we want to reduce friction, whether that be in the sales process, communication process, payment process, upselling process. We want to make it as absolutely easy as possible to sign up because the easier it is, the more people will sign up and stick with us because unfortunately humans are inherently lazy.

And so the harder it is, the less people will do it. So we need to be looking, we need to be a friction detective and say, okay, is there any point in my business where it’s frustrating or annoying to sign up or to stay signed up with me? Because if it is, then less people are going to sign up.

Wena 

In the lawn care industry for quite a long time and you’ve worked with lawn care business owners as well. Could you give us an example of how friction has impacted a business you’ve worked with or your own businesses?

Ezra McCarthy

And this is something that I’m really passionate about and gets me stirred up when I go onto a website and I see that someone, you have to write a book to get a quote. And what I mean by that is we want to make it so easy. And one of the best examples that I know of is Amazon with their one click purchase. Now we can’t do it like this because we need a little more information, but Amazon, they have their paint, your payment information saved in there. You’ve got all your info. So literally, especially for digital products, it can be a book and literally you can make one click and purchase it. 

You don’t have to enter it in because the more steps you introduce into the process, the less people are going to sign up. Now, if you’re at a point where you say, Hey Ezra, my schedule is booked out like crazy. I have more work than I can handle. Then in this case, introducing friction may be a good thing, but depends where you are in business. Most people that I talk to are saying, Hey, how can I get more of the right clients? And when you go to their website it’s hard to reach out to them. 

It takes forever to get there. Then you fill it out. You’ve got to fill out 50 questions to even get a call back or even worse. Here’s another example of friction. Someone calls you, you wait for the beep, leave a message after the beep, and then you hear, your voicemail’s full. Do you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to go to someone else. You’re introducing friction. Now, how can we reduce that? We’re going to get into that here in a little bit.

Wena 

Zero in on the sales process because this is often where things start to go sideways. What are the common areas where friction pops up during the sales process for lawn care businesses?

Ezra McCarthy

This is really good when and we’ll start at the very beginning from contact. We want to make it so easy for people to get a quote. We don’t want someone to have to jump through 50 hoops to reach out to you. Whether that be giving them options. Some people want to call you. Some people want to call you and get a person on the phone. Now, as you’re growing your business, you’re going to have to delegate. Whether that be an office staff, executive assistant, whether that be through whether in the future we’re using AI to answer our phones. 

Right now, I don’t think we’re there, but you need to have someone being able to answer the phone quickly. And maybe you can’t get to it, but you need to respond to them. I’m going to tell you within minutes because speed to lead is a huge factor. Back when I was doing some of these lead services, I didn’t recommend it, but literally you would have to get back with them within minutes. And the data tells us if you look at the results, the first person that will get back to them they’re more likely to go with them. 

The data doesn’t say the cheapest and we don’t want to be that person anyway. The data tells us the first person. So when they call, we either need to answer the phone or literally call them back within minutes. Because back when I had the lawn care company, you’d be surprised and maybe not, how many people would say, hey, you’re the first person to get back with me. You know what happens next? I got the sale. Whether we’re introducing reducing friction in the sales process, whether on our website, making it so easy to get back with them. 

And then once we do, how quickly are we getting a quote back? Are we doing quotes within hours at a minimum 24 hours, hopefully sooner getting that back to them. Now, obviously if we’re doing hardscaping, we may have to do job costing. We may have to do some of these other things to make sure our numbers are on point. But if that’s the case, 48 hours at maximum, unless it’s just a monstrous job, you should be getting those quotes back because that is so integral, because then they’re going to benchmark every single quote after that off of yours. 

But if you’re the last one, they’re going to be referencing all the other ones first. And especially in the fertilization and weed control and the lawn care side, you need to be getting that back within 24 hours. So reducing friction and then payment. Are you sending them a link so they can sign up right there digitally? Or if you’re mailing it, they need to get into the 21st century and then send over the payment option so they can put their card on file where they can sign up right there in your CRM and you are using a CRM, right? Reducing friction at each one of those points is going to really help your closed ratio and that’s going to affect your business growth.

Wena

It really does sound like the Amazon way. So convenient. It’s so fast. So easy. Why do you think that slower, complicated sales processes can cost potential clients to lose interest?

Ezra McCarthy

Because people are busy and if it’s frustrating, if it’s annoying, how many times have you put something in your cart and then not bought it or got distracted, maybe buyers and more, all of these things. And people buy so many things on impulse, they may be busy, they may be on their lunch break and you’re taking two days to get back with them, they’re already with someone else. So people are busy, people are distracted, they have, man, I forget how many.

It was either hundreds or even in the thousands, literally, of things that are coming at them all the time. So unless we’re responding quickly, then they’re just going to move on to something else.

Wena 

The quick response gives the customers the best convenience there is. So what are some practical steps business owners can take to simplify their sales process and keep clients engaged?

Ezra McCarthy

I mentioned a few of these already, but looking at each step of the process, there’s a really good book called Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman. And it talks about each step of the sales process, one, communicating with the client, and then I would also add reducing friction. So I’ve already mentioned that the sales process or even before that, the contact face, look at your business and say, okay, how are people reaching out to me? 

How can I make it easier? I mean, look at the sales process and we say, okay, what am I doing now? Is there anything that I can do to make it easier? Can I use DocuSign? Can I use my CRM to send quotes? Can I send it through text? All these things and then the payment process and then communication. And then in each one of these steps, trying to look at ways to cut down the friction because then our churn rate, how many people sign up or don’t sign up and then cancel our businesses, especially in the recurring side, the lawn care and the fertilization weed control side.

It’s about a turn because it costs, I believe it’s something like 10 % as much to get a new customer as to keep the one you have. So whether that’s keeping the ones you have or getting new ones, friction is super valuable.

Wena 

You mentioned a few things that matter a lot, efficiency, convenience, and speed. So in the coding process, how can we have it more faster and more transparent without sacrificing accuracy? I believe you’ve also mentioned CRMs. Aside from that, is there anything else?

Ezra McCarthy

Well, I think that goes into it the coding process if you literally have a template now the difference here would be if you have a heart taping or landscaping but even in those I would say you can have a general template and then what you can do is change the appropriate parts of it So say you have a lawn care contract you can duplicate that over and then literally you can change out the address if you’re doing it by square foot or if you just.

However you’re structuring it, you can duplicate that, change up the appropriate things instead. So instead of trying to remake it every time, it can literally take you minutes. And then directly from your CRM, which I recommend Java, but you need something. You can message it, email. I recommend texting it if you have the customers, because the average text message is open in something like under 10 seconds. Text that over and then through your CRM, they can literally sign up right there. So making that process easy and simple for you. 

So literally you can drive around the corner or even as soon as you get in your truck, pull up your iPad or your phone, change out what you need and send that quote. And the customer, you’re starting the customer journey off right. And I don’t think enough of us in the long landscape industry think about the customer journey because this is such an important part thinking how does this make my customer feel? If we make our customers feel like I’m doing you a service by going with me.

That’s not making them feel anything. Wanting landscaping is a luxury service. And what I mean by that is they don’t have to do it. They can have their kid or the neighbor kid do it for half the price, but we’re selling convenience. We’re selling time with their family. So the more frustrating and annoying, if we put those roadblocks in, we’re dampening, making that experience way less. And so the easier we can make it, the better it’s going to be on the customer experience and the customer journey.

Wena

Peak seasons, how can follow up friction be minimized? That’s when everybody’s busy and you’re not getting any calls. How can you follow up?

Ezra McCarthy

Friction can be minimized by really hiring an assistant or office staff because as we know, I just saw the other day there was an individual and there was something like, I can’t keep on top of my voicemails. And I’m thinking to myself, this is insanity. You’re literally every voicemail that’s missed. And the worst is when you call in the voicemails full. Like this should not be, you can hire an executive assistant in this day and age. Literally they could be anywhere in the U S or Canada, or even overseas say.

How can I have someone you can do that can ring through and so they can answer the phone for you, reply to emails? You need to get back to people quickly. Follow-ups can be minimized by not doing it yourself. There’s a great quote we just did a podcast on it shortly ago at this, by the time this was released a month or two ago on a $10 task. If you’re a business owner, you should not be doing $10 tasks and replying to emails is a $10 task. And if you’ve got 400 emails in your inbox, you’re throwing money out your window.

It’s just insanity. So during the busy season, hiring is one of the best unlocks that you can do to buy back your time because our time as business owners is so valuable and we can’t serve people well if we’re running around everywhere unorganized.

Wena

Let’s talk about upsells because this is where a lot of business owners leave money on the table. So how can a business owner present upsells in a way that feels natural rather than you being pushy to get a sale?

Ezra McCarthy

This is a really good one and this is something I think people don’t think about. And this goes back to our main point of this conversation friction. You want to make it seamless and you want to make it easy. So whether you or your team member is there on the property, you see a problem. Hey, these branches are overhanging down. Our team member has to try to duck underneath them. So take a picture, send it to the client and say, hey, this is a problem. But then have a solution and say, hey, this is how we can help. Texting over that quote with a button to say, hey, here’s how we can solve it for you. 

Here’s a quote, one click quote, where they can just through the CRM, click that automatic card on file, pay it and they can take care of it. So uneasily presenting with low friction to the client, this is the problem, this is how we can solve it. Here’s the solution. So making it as easy as possible, realizing that, hey, we’re here to help the client, we’re not trying to soak them for all we can get, but we’re here to serve. And that’s what business is about and coming at it from that mindset and then realizing we’re here to make this as easy as possible because we’re trying to help the homeowner buy back their time and not stress. And so we can do that by making it as easy as possible with less friction.

Wena

Speaking of easy, fast, and convenient, we need technology for that and thankfully we have that now. So now let’s shift to the digital front, which is your online presence because in today’s world, a clunky website or confusing booking process can quietly kill growth. So how does a poor online presence create friction for potential clients looking for a lawn care service?

Ezra McCarthy

Yeah, this is a good one. And one thing I’ll just tell a story about, I was helping a client and he was telling me about, Hey, is a fertilization we control client. And he was spending money on ads. And we were doing a website review. We’re trying to figure out, okay, what is going on here? And looked at his website and it was okay. But then as I started digging into it, he had an instant quote option and he’s like, yeah, I’m spending literally hundreds of dollars on ads, not getting any leads. His business was really struggling. It was just, it was sad. 

So we’re digging into it and we looked at where you’re like, okay, I’m going to walk through the process on how to get a quote. So I go, let’s get a quote page. Put in my information, everything, and I literally could not fill it out. It was completely broken. And I’m like, no wonder you’re not getting any leads. You literally can not sell it out on this website. Now, most people listening to this, it’s probably not that bad, but you need to function test and test out, make sure you’re getting it. 

One of our customers, and we actually had him on the podcast a while ago, Luke Ladiner, shout out to him if he’s listening. And before he had started, he had built his own website and it happened as soon as people would fill out the contact form and it wouldn’t get to his email. And what some people don’t realize is if it’s not set up correctly with, there’s some technical terms, STMP and some other things, make sure you have to set up correctly. If it’s not, that will not get to your email or have some other people that don’t check their email. And we’re like, okay, that’s the case. How can we link it to your CRM to make sure it goes right into there?

Maybe we could see it sends you a text. So there’s different options because we need to make reaching out as simple as possible. And then obviously you need to be alerted or your office staff or your assistant needs to know quickly so we can respond so easily. So we need to function test. In our online experience, do we have clear calls to action? Do we have a place where they can reach out? Is it easy? All of these things work together. And if it doesn’t, you’re going to end up like this guy who’s like, Hey, I’m spending literally hundreds of dollars.

I’m losing money and I don’t know what it is all because he simply had not taken the time to function test what he was doing.

Wena 

Optimization. Yes. How important is that when it comes to reducing friction on a lawn care website?

Ezra McCarthy

This is an important one and something as well I’ll just notice here. You need to optimize it for mobile so that one it looks good and then two it’s clickable. Now in this day that should be a given but you’d be surprised sometimes people try to build their own or they have somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing and what I mean by clickable is on your mobile device we want to see a phone number to be able to hit it and then it calls. 

And it needs to be easy and simple to navigate because I’ve seen some people and you go to their menus and there’s 20 things on a menu. And I’m like, okay, if I’m a customer, I don’t want to sort through a menu of 20 things, especially if you’re on your phone trying to figure out where. I want it simple, clear and easy for the customer because we need to be customer first.

When we think about this, because in our minds we’ve got all this jargon. We know what aeration and dethatching is and we know the difference between softscaping and hardscaping and landscaping and all these things. But a customer doesn’t know. They just know, hey, my garden beds look terrible and I need help. A lot of customers don’t know and they just want help and they want to talk to you. We need to make it as simple and easy as possible, reducing friction so that we can help them.

Wena 

Online tools. How can it help business owners streamline, for example, payments and customer increase? Can you give us a few examples?

Ezra McCarthy

Several different things that you can do. One, you can have online pricing. There’s things like Deepon and some of these other things that you can get instant quotes from. The downside is that you have to ask for a lot of information. There’s things like my service area. We had Chris on a little while ago that you can check your service area. Things like that, you can accept payments. You know, like service autopilot, you can go into a customer portal and accept payments. Customer inquiries, you can use things like Calendly. If you’re really busy, we have one customer who put that on the website. 

So from the website, you can literally book an appointment. All these things are ways to streamline your operations and make sure that you’re not wasting time on the wrong people and that the right people can get through.

Wena 

Did you share an example where improving the online presence made a noticeable difference in client satisfaction?

Ezra McCarthy

Yes, I remember one customer, Martin. Martin, if you’re listening, shout out to Martin Malley. We were working with him and he was having trouble answering his phone. So one simple thing we did for him, well, he started answering his phone, but we also changed it to instead of a button, the call to action button being call now, we changed it to get a quote, then they filled out a form. And we saw a drastic increase in his leads just because one, it was going to the right place and people weren’t bouncing off a full voicemail.

So simple things like that are really important to make sure the process is easy and simple for the customer. Because remember, the key phrase is reduce friction.

Wena 

Any final tips for lawn care and landscaping?

Ezra McCarthy

Yep. So what I’d recommend to you is function tests. Go through, think about your customer journey at each point. Say, how can I improve this? And just take one thing at a time. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming, but as you grow, as your business grows, reducing friction and every aspect of the business can really help. That’s it for today’s episode. 

Hope you got some valuable insight on how to identify and reduce friction in your business, whether it’s doing the sales process, the invoicing, what it’s due for production. Each of these things can really help as you grow. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember small consistent improvements can make a big difference. Start with one area and keep working. Until next time, we’ll talk to you on the next one.