Ezra McCarthy
Hello and welcome back to the Lawn Care Blueprint. Today we’re going to be looking at a fascinating concept called the five daily negotiables. And these are five simple, but really important actions that if done every single day can transform your business. So let’s jump right in today. We’ve got Wena with us here and we’re going to be, as I mentioned, discussing these five daily non-negotiables, something that really I’ve been kind of diving into lately. Couple different reasons why and we’ll see it’s really helped my business so, Wena and let’s kind of dive into the questions here as we get started.
Wena
Hi Ezra. So before we get into the specifics, let’s define what we’re talking about. What exactly are these daily non-negotiables and why are they so impactful?
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, this is really good when and this is something to be honest that I just recently came across. I’m in a coaching group with Dan Martell and he frames it this way. He talks about the five daily non-negotiables. And then I was listening to an interview by John Maxwell and he was articulating. I think of the five things that he does every single day. And it was really good. If you want to listen to the interview, it’s on Kenny Coleman’s podcast, Front Row Seat. And someone was asking him. So you do this every day? So what about on your birthday?
And he says, well, and he goes through his list and then he says, but what about and he gives all these examples and he says, but what do? And he says, I do them every day. And so these simple five things that you commit to every day, every single day. Now, John Maxwell calls this the rule of five. And Dan Dan Martell teaches us as well, these five things that consistently over time can make a big difference. And that this was an interesting illustration I believe john walks maxwell uses appointee talks about if you take five swings at a large tree everyday eventually the biggest oak tree will fall actually true story about this when we were kids my brother and I, he’s two and half years older than me i don’t know what got into our heads we’re probably like four five I was probably four five years probably anywhere I’ll see two years older than me.
Well we got this old. If you ever seen those old saws to where there’s a handle on either side and then two men would use it they go back and forth on a tree. Well, we have this old, old, old saw like an antique and we got it into our heads that we’re going to cut this tree down. And this tree was probably a good 50, 60 feet tall. Well, every day we just go out there and I don’t know, we probably read a book or something or saw at that point about, you know, loggers, they’ll go and they’ll cut this tree down there, yell timber.
Well, that’s what we wanted to do. So, we took this old saw and we just started chipping away at this tree. And as little kids, you’re not doing it very long or very hard. But lo and behold, we stuck out at long enough over the weeks that we were so excited that a tree fell and we went inside and said, guess what we said? We chopped the tree down that said timber. Well, all that to say, the small daily actions are just so important.
And so we’re gonna kind of dive into that a little bit more today and how it can help you.
Wena
That’s great consistency, the tree story. So you’ve mentioned John Maxwell and you’ve heard of the rule of five. But what does it actually mean and how does it apply to your daily routines?
Ezra McCarthy
Yes, this is what’s good. And this goes back to the coaching group that I was in and in the coaching group, they’re on a coaching call and Dan will ask people, Hey, did you do your daily five? And this really got me maybe thinking, and he has a framework that he uses that he articulates what they should be. And, this got me sitting down to think, okay, what are five areas of business that if I consistently did something every day would propel my business.
Now, John Maxwell, his rule of five, he’s obviously into writing, into leadership areas, and so he has five areas that help him. Part of them is in his writing career, he’ll think, he’ll file, which is basically organizing notes, asking questions, and writing every day. So this really got me thinking, okay, what can I do and practical tip those listening in, in your business, what are areas of your business that if you did something consistently every single day would drastically affect your business?
So we already mentioned several things that John Maxwell does his five things, read, file, think, ask questions and write. So why does this matter in the long term? The impact comes from consistency and compounding. Think of it in terms of you ever looked at one of those spreadsheets for interest compounding in the bank. It’s insane how I think it’s every seven years. It literally doubles consistently over time. So these small gains accumulate over time. So think of it this way five focus actions a day that’s one thousand eight hundred and twenty five actions a year or eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty in ten years, so think of it this way so one of the things that Dan Martell talks about and I’ve incorporated into my five daily is five opens. So what if you reached out to five leads a day? That doesn’t sound like a lot. And it really isn’t. You could probably do that in 10-20 minutes with a call, text or email. And are five people going to buy from you every day? No. But those five every single day reaching out to those five people, you give that a week. And as I’ve already went over the numbers, that’s going to compound in two and five, 10, 20 years, your business is gonna be completely different because of just that one daily non-negotiable, the power of five that we’re talking about that could completely change your business.
Wena
So Ezra, how does this strategy apply specifically to, you’ve mentioned the leads, right? Other than that, how does this strategy apply specifically to the landscaping industry? So let’s zoom in, why this approach is especially valuable for lawn care business owners.
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, it’s really easy in our industry as long and landscape business owners. We can get caught up just in the daily grind. We’ve got crew scheduling. We’ve got weather. I was just looking back at some old pictures and I remember two thousand twenty three there in Texas were just nuts with all the rain. We’ve got rain. We’ve got equipment. Maybe a truck broke. We’ve got fires on job sites. Maybe the materials didn’t get delivered correctly. Maybe the vendor messed up. It’s just a very hands-on business. It’s really hard to kind of step back.
And then on top of that, you’ve got the seasonality. You’ve got spring, you’ve got spring rush season, you’ve got summer, and then you’ve got winter where it can be slower. And if you’re not careful, it can lead to kind of this feast and famine cycle. But instead of just allowing yourself to get caught up in that just feast or famine where we’ve got a lot or not very much, if we can begin to implement these five daily non-negotiable habits, in your business that every day rain, snow, sunshine, whatever it is that, and these can change according to your place in business.
When you’re just getting started, maybe it’s going to have to do more about customer acquisition. Maybe when you’re starting to grow a team, maybe it’s going to be around encouraging your team, finding great team members, keeping the churn down and you know, it’s going to vary, but getting those five daily things, these habits, five daily habits could be so powerful.
Wena
There’s no one size fits all, but could you give us a strong example of the five daily habits for landscape and business owners?
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, that’s a good question, and there really isn’t a one size fits all. So a couple examples, one I’ve already mentioned is one of those could be reaching out to five potential customers or leads every day. This doesn’t have to take a long time. This could be five emails. Maybe this is something I’ve harped on that people just don’t do. People don’t ask their customers for reviews. But what if you just ask one customer for a review every single day. Now that may sound daunting, but that could take literally 10 or 20 seconds. And in a year, if you did that every single day, your business could be completely changed because I’ll tell you what, your competition is not.
I’ve told this step at this point, hundreds, if not thousands of people on different podcasts, speaking to them individually. And those that I know of, I could count on one hand, the people that have taken us to heart and done it. And the ones that have they have more work than they can handle. They’re growing year over year like crazy. Why? Because they’re taking and making that daily habit. Maybe your other daily habit is reviewing your key numbers every day. Maybe that’s just taking two minutes to look at your finances or your key metrics. Maybe that’s revenue, maybe that’s job completed, maybe it’s expenses, maybe it’s scheduling, or maybe it’s reading 10 pages of a book a day or taking a few minutes to listen to a podcast that can help you learn to grow.
And all these things over time consistently are going to help keep your skills sharp, give you new ideas and help you not to get burnt out. It’s really easy when we feel like there’s no hope. Our business, we just feel like, it’s just going to be the same place for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years. But as we begin to listen to people who have crossed over the hills that we’re on, these mountains we feel like we’re on, we can say, okay, there’s hope for where I’m at and I can actually break out of this grind the season that we’re in right now.
Wena
But many business owners say they’re too busy running the day to day to add these new habits you’ve mentioned. So, how can someone who’s busy actually integrate these five tasks into an already packed schedule?
Ezra McCarthy
It really is hard. I would say there isn’t necessarily an easy way, but there is a way. And if it’s important enough to you, you’ll make it happen. So here are some games, some tips that we can use to help us begin to implement these daily five things, which you’re going to have to sit down and figure out what is going to help my business most. But here’s some things that would help, start early.
Maybe if you’re one of yours, is the daily five opens and you can say, okay, the night before I can schedule my emails, Gmail will give you, it’s a really great tool or can literally schedule emails. So you can schedule it out to go the next morning. If you have an iPhone, there’s send later, which is really nice. You can text someone the next day, but start early, whether it’s first thing in the morning and you may not want to text someone first thing and get up six, six, 30 in the morning or whenever you get up, but schedule it for later. Schedule that email for later. Start early, schedule it.
Literally put these things on your to-do, put it in your calendar, block out that time or maybe you say, Hey, I’m going to delegate this to my team members and then follow up. So maybe have your office manager put that into their job description and say, Hey, every morning at eight o’clock, I want you to send one, maybe two review requests, three a day, or you can use tools automate and keep it small. And then, Oh, now I’m forgetting his name off the top of my head, but he wrote the book atomic habits, which is a really good book about habits.
And one of the tools he recommends in there, it’s called habit stacking. So you already have a habit. Let’s say most of us probably get up in the morning and grab a cup of coffee and maybe you have trouble getting enough protein. We’ll give you that example. So you say, Hey, I’m to the night before stick my protein shake right by the coffee maker. So literally I’m not going to forget, or maybe you say, Hey, I want to take vitamins. Maybe if you’re into that, so you’re going to stick it right by the coffee maker. You’re stacking these habits, you’re not going to forget your coffee, I’ll tell you that. And so you can put that other habit right beside. And so adding it isn’t you’re not creating a completely new routine, you’re adding onto the other.
So ,some of these things, habit stacking can help. And it’s really important to stick to it, whether that be on the business side, these goals, consistency is the game. One of my favorite books by Darren Hardy. The book is called Compounding. Tremendous book. I’d recommend it for everyone. And it talks about just these small things that consistently over time can completely change your business. You may not recognize it in two days. Probably not. Maybe not even seven days. Maybe not even a month. But consistently can completely just change your business.
Wena
You’ve mentioned the book by James Clear, Atomic Habits. So what would happen if someone sticks with it? Like what results would business owners see when they make these daily habits as part of their routine?
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, we mentioned a couple of times the feast and famine cycle and I was just listening to a podcast this morning and they were talking about that. saying, hey, we get into these cycles. We’re just super busy and we turn off the marketing and then guess what happens? They don’t have customers. So then they wrap it up then they get lots of customers and then it slows down. And then they’re into just this ever cycle. And so these five daily things help us to begin to build consistency. Whether that’s marketing, whether that’s learning, whether that’s growing as a leader.
John Maxwell, another great principle he talks about is the law of the lid. Basically, your business is not gonna grow more than you do. And if you’re the same person, which you really can’t be, but if you’re the same person that you were last year, your business is probably the same or maybe even less. So, regularly trying to get new customers, regularly trying to improve your marketing, regularly getting those review requests all these real things can completely just change your business over time.
Wena
Let’s talk about accountability. How can business owners keep themselves accountable to actually doing these five things every day, especially on those tough or busy days?
Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, one thing I really like is a checklist. So literally I have a checklist with me just about all the time that I have where you can literally check it off. So track it visibly. And there’s something about it. I don’t know, psychologically, at least my mind. And I think a lot of people, we just like to check something off. We feel like we’re getting something done. So literally have a checklist, preferably on paper, if not on your phone that you can track every day. Somewhere where it’s visible, maybe on your office wall or a habit journal, a spreadsheet that you can tick it off every day.
And, one thing that John Maxwell recommends, and this is one of his principles, so he used a lot of it here, but the end of day checklist, just go through and say, and literally check it off and say, how are we doing? Maybe you say, hey, I want to find someone who wants to partner up and you can literally tell them, hey, here are mine, what are yours? And then check in, maybe it’s your spouse, your wife, your husband, depending who’s listening, husband or wife, you can check in and say, how are you doing? How are your daily five doing? And then as I mentioned, have it stacking, tie it to another habit, or you can publicly say, hey, this is my goal. And then expect them to come back and check on you. Maybe you can tell your team, hey, this is my goal, and then have them say, hey, if I don’t do this, here’s what’s going to happen.
And I remember listening to one business owner, one of his team members was struggling with losing weight. And they said, hey, this is my goal. I’m going to lose this amount of weight by that time. And he said, OK, wait, stop. How serious are you? And the person said, I’m very serious. He said, OK, if you don’t lose your weight by that time, you can’t keep your job. Now, that sounds pretty extreme, but I could tell you I bet that person lost the weight. Why? Because they put themselves publicly out there and they set a goal and they gonna hit it.
I just encourage you, if this is something you’re working with, start today. Begin to sit down and say, okay, what are my daily five that can completely change my business if I consistently make this a habit in my business? Five daily non-negotiable things that I can start today. And you’ll be amazed where you’ll be in a year or two.
Wena
Any final advice for lawn and landscaping business owners who want to implement their own 5-Daily Non-negotiables?
Ezra McCarthy
This is really helpful. It starts small. So many times a lot of us as entrepreneurs, we get these big ideas and we’re just going to go do this huge thing and then one month from now we’ve totally forgotten about it. But instead, if we start now, start small and stay consistent. Define your daily five negotiables, give it a start date, which hopefully is today, and then do it and then do it every day. And you’ll find it’s helping your business and it’ll help you to feel like you’re getting something done. Your business is growing and it will help you grow that.
So, Wena, thank you so much for helping us explore this topic. I’d encourage each of you to start today, find out what your daily five non-negotiables should be and begin. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Lawn Care Blueprint. I’d encourage you to start today. Your successful business isn’t built in a day. It’s built daily.
Small actions done consistently create massive momentum and until next time be sure to hit that subscribe button and leave a rating and review.