Episode 11

Ezra
Hello and welcome back to the Lawn Care Success Blueprint. Wow. The podcast where lawn and landscape pros learn how to build a profitable, sustainable business. Today we have my friend with me, Greg Durham—or you might know him as Uncle Greg. Greg left the corporate business behind to pursue a lawn care business. And today we’re going to talk about the mindset shifts that he went through, systems and strategies to make the leap from the nine-to-five into your own lawn care business. Greg, great to have you here today.

Greg Durbin
Thank you, Ezra. Nice to see you.

Ezra
Yeah, so I’m just curious, Greg. Now you started kind of with a corporate background. What led you to go from that to starting your own lawn care business?

Greg Durbin
Well, I had been in a corporate world for 30 years or so, and I had lost my job, my previous job to the lawn care, and was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, where I was going to go next. In the meantime, I was helping my nephew, Evan Lindman. Evan was working and he needed a little help. And so I said, okay, I’ll help you while I’m job searching. As we were working, I’m going along and I’m thinking, you know what? I could do this.

I used to work at the Country Club of Lansing when I was in college. And so I already knew how to cut, and I’d worked there for a couple of summers while I was in school. I said, you know what? I’ve had my own business before. I’ve been in the corporate world for a long time. So, you know, this probably wouldn’t be that difficult for me to be involved. Cutting—anybody can cut, but not everybody can cut. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. But I already knew how. So I thought, you know, I’ll go ahead and do this. This was October when I was helping him out—October, November during that timeframe.

Then I just said, you know what? I’m going to go ahead and start it. And so the 2019–2020, the spring of 2020, I started my business.

Ezra
I’m curious, were you in the same business for 30 years or were you just doing different corporate jobs for those 30 years?

Greg Durbin
Different corporate jobs.

Ezra
Okay, that makes sense. That is a long time to be at one job. So what was one shift, one mindset shift? You were probably always on a similar schedule before. Now, you know, if you’re going to make money, you had to go out and make it happen—find the work, sell it, and then obviously do the work.

Greg Durbin
The shift—well, the funny part is, I don’t know that it was really a big shift other than the heavy lifting kind of thing. But other than that, you know, 30 years of sales—I knew how to get out and hustle. I started out selling copiers out of college. So when you’re selling copiers, you’re working hard. You’re doing a lot of cold calling on businesses.

So I was used to that. I was used to talking to customers. For 30 years I was in sales, so working with clients was easy. I’d worked with CEOs, CFOs, doctors. I’d called on pretty much everyone. So that for me was easy. It wasn’t that big of an issue. The hard part was probably getting the equipment and making sure I was cutting and getting into the job pretty well. And then dealing with dew in the morning.

I’m sure you—well, you were in Texas, so I don’t know if you had dew down there. But yeah, just trying to get out and cut when it’s not too wet. I didn’t think it was that hard. I went out, got clients, passed out flyers, and had conversations with the clients.

Ezra
We did have some.

Greg Durbin
Met them and hopefully made them feel comfortable enough with me. I’ve said it before—my first 17 clients that I picked up off of flyers were clients that were not happy with their existing lawn service. They were rushing through, trying to get the job done because they had another one to go mow. The first 17 I picked up were unhappy with their existing service, and that’s why I got them.

Ezra
I just want to backtrack a little bit. You mentioned you went to college there in Lansing. I’m just curious, what did you go to college for?

Greg Durbin
Actually, I lived in Lansing. I had some good friends that lived in Lansing and I got a job working at the golf course. I was right across the street from the club and I actually went to Central Michigan. But I just lived there in the summers for a couple of summers with them. I was a marketing major and I was a double major—marketing and communications.

Ezra
Now this is a little off-topic, but I’m curious—do you feel like that helped you at all in any way as you went through your career and now that you have your own business?

Greg Durbin
Yeah, definitely. Just because of the sales background that I had for years—the marketing, communications—just trying to present with a client and develop a nice conversation with them. And not come across as the guy that knows everything, and just say, “Look, I think this will work in your lawn. I don’t think this will work in your lawn, based on what I’m seeing.” I would just give them my opinion and let them ask questions. Hopefully, I’d make them feel comfortable enough to go ahead and start using me.

So I’ve been really fortunate. I’ve lost a few clients over the years, but I still have most of those 17 that I started with. A couple of them passed away, so I lost them, but most of those first 17 I still have. It just kind of depends. A couple of them were just cheap and, you know, I raised my price $2 and they said it was too much, and so I lost them. But that was also starting out—when I started, I just had to get whatever business I could. Some of the prices were not the best prices probably, and I’m slowly trying to bring those prices up.

I get a couple of people grousing about it, but I say, “Look, I’m keeping up with inflation.” My minimum cut right now is because I can do it. I know there are some guys out there who would say they won’t drop their deck for less than $65, and I just say, “Look, my minimum is $50.” Any of those clients that I have that are still under that, if they grouse about the price, I say, “Look, my minimum is $50. You’re doing pretty well with me.” So they’re kind of grandfathered in, but I still do raise prices on them.

Ezra
In my opinion, that’s such an irrelevant conversation—and I don’t mean that with any disrespect—but what your minimum price is, here’s why. I had a customer—and I’m always about raising prices—but it really should be: what is your man-hour rate?

Here’s why: I got into a conversation with one of my customers that I help now, and he said, “You know, I actually lowered my prices last year.” And I was just kind of blown away. I’m like, “Wait, what? You lowered your prices?” And he said, “Yeah, I lowered my prices, I was able to increase my route density,” and because of that, his man-hour rate went up.

And so that’s where it’s like—even if you’re doing $40 for a minimum, if you’ve got a cookie-cutter yard that takes hardly any time and they’re right beside each other—it’s almost kind of like an ego thing where people say, “I don’t do it for less than $65.” I’m not saying you are, but I think that’s the wrong question. It’s really, “What is your man-hour rate?”

Yeah, you may be getting $65 per cut, but if you’re having to drive 20 minutes, you don’t realize that you’re making less money than the fellow who’s got 12 $40 lawns in one neighborhood and he can knock them out and make way more profit. But it sure sounds good to say, “I don’t do it for less than $65.”

So we’ve got to really be thinking about: what are the real numbers? Not what sounds good, but what’s actually profitable?

I remember in college there was a landscape company that was pretty big and employed quite a few students. The owner used to brag, “I’ve got X number of people on this job site.” And it was a pride thing, but the reality was—he should have just gone out and gotten a skid steer. He could’ve had one or two people on the job. So, are we measuring what really matters?

Greg Durbin
Mm-hmm.

Ezra
What matters is profit and serving people. That’s why we get into business.

Greg Durbin
Well yeah, you’re right. The way I look at it is, I’m only pursuing clients now that are where I’m already at. I just put together a flyer for my clients last night. I’m getting ready to send it out—just preseason stuff. And the first thing on there is: if you refer a neighbor to me—clearly a neighbor—then I’ll give them a free cut. Hopefully a next-door neighbor.

Now I’ve got the issue of, I’m charging this guy $40 and I’m going to charge you $50. However, like you just said, I’m not going anywhere. It takes five minutes to load and unload, probably more. I have to do that 10 times in a day, that’s 50 minutes. Well, let’s just call it an hour. I just lost an hour’s worth of work.

Ezra
Plus the drive time.

Greg Durbin
Exactly. The drive time.

Ezra
And that’s what will kill you—especially if you have a team member in the truck with you, you have to multiply that wasted time by two. I just saw someone in a lawn care forum, and they were calculating where their leads were coming from. I’m not opposed to flyers, but he had handed out flyers and said it took four and a half hours. He calculated his average lead cost at $30.

I replied and said, okay, but what you’re not including in this equation is the four and a half hours you spent doing it. You might say, “Well, that was free.” No, it’s not. That’s your opportunity cost. And if you calculate your man-hour rate—which hopefully is at least $80 to $100 per hour—let’s just use $100 for easy math. That means those three leads cost $450 of your time. They didn’t cost $30 each—they cost over $100 per lead.

Greg Durbin
$450. Yeah.

Ezra
So when you start calculating everything, that’s why even the small things matter. Now, I’m curious, Greg—you mentioned those 17 clients when you first got started. It sounds like flyers were helpful for you. Were you just passing them out to get those when you first started? And how long did it take to land those first 17?

Greg Durbin
It was actually pretty quick. I got them, I think, within two weeks. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say how I passed out the flyers, but I put them on the mailboxes. I put them on the flag, which I know is a no-no.

Ezra
I think as long as you don’t put them inside the mailbox, isn’t that kind of the caveat? You can’t even do that?

Greg Durbin
No, you’re not allowed to touch them. No, you’re not supposed to do it on the flag either. I tried to be stealth, but when you drive through the neighborhood and see a bunch of yellow flyers on all the mailbox flags, it’s not very stealthy.

But what I did was buy yellow or fluorescent green paper—something that pops—and I kept it super simple. I only listed a few things: mowing, edging, trimming. Then I cut the paper in half, so instead of having 500 flyers, I had 1,000. I folded everything and just went out and passed them out.

I don’t know exactly how long it took, but I wasn’t making a lot of money then, so it didn’t cost me $100 an hour. I just went out and did it. Probably within about a two-week period, I had picked up a bunch of clients.

Then I had reached out to someone—I saw he was going to be selling his business. I contacted him over the winter, and they said, “We’re not selling anymore.” But they kept my info, and in June he reached out and said, “I’m too busy. Business is crazy. Would you be interested in buying accounts from me?”

I looked at it and said, “Man, I just don’t have the money.” His price was fair, but I couldn’t swing it. A couple weeks later, he reached out again and said, “Look, I pre-bill all my clients. I need to get rid of about 10 accounts. I’ve already billed them, and I’ve cut them twice. If you cut them for the rest of the month, they’re yours.”

So I went from 17 to 27. And then I picked up a couple more. I think my first season I had around 32 accounts.

Actually, he reached back out to me again a couple of weeks later and said, “I’m still too busy. Here’s seven more—you can have them.” So that’s really how I grew my business—half came from him, and half I got on my own. It worked out pretty well.

Ezra
This is so good, Greg. And I want to bring this up for listeners—keep your ear to the ground. I remember meeting with a young guy who was about to go to college. He had a lot of contracts—probably 30 or more. At first he was trying to sell the business, but it was later in the season, maybe August, and honestly, I just didn’t have time to take it on. So I told him no.

Later, he reached back out—and he would’ve given it to me. I just didn’t have the capacity. He had a legit, completed-size business. I think it was doing a couple hundred thousand in revenue. But I wasn’t trying to grow at the time, and I had to say no.

There are people out there like that—maybe they’re retiring, maybe they’re overwhelmed, or maybe they’re just not making enough. If their pricing is terrible, it might not be a good fit for you. But the opportunity is real.

Greg Durbin
Wow.

Ezra
You never know how, just like Greg said here, someone passed off 10 or 20 clients. And from what I’ve seen, the average customer acquisition cost is at minimum $40 to $100. So literally, what that gentleman gave you, Greg—now it sounds like you did some work for it—but even with just 10 clients, that’s anywhere from $400 to… well, I’ve got flu brain here, but either way, he gave you a decent amount of value.

Greg Durbin
You’re saying $400 for the season or $400 to acquire an account? Is that what you said?

Ezra
Oh—to acquire. No, no. The yearly value from where I was in Texas for a small residential yard was around $1,500. That’s not even including any other upsells or ancillary services. Obviously, it can go way up from there. That was just for one small residential client. I think I was charging something like $350 per mow in some cases, so it totally depends on the size and scope.

Greg Durbin
Mm-hmm.

Ezra
So obviously, that kind of client is going to be worth way more. But customer acquisition cost is what it takes to get someone to become your client—from the time you start marketing to when they say yes and sign up.

Greg Durbin
Yeah. So if you figure $400 to acquire an account and I got 15 from him, that’s $6,000 in customer acquisition value right there.

Ezra
Or yeah—normally I see it between $40 and $100 per client. I was trying to do the quick math, but like I said, my brain isn’t doing quick math this morning. Either way, that’s why it’s so important to keep your ear to the ground. Like I mentioned, I remember when I was moving and trying to sell my own accounts, I found someone and gave them a great deal. Looking back, I wish I’d had someone do that for me when I was just starting out.

Greg Durbin
Yeah, that’s it. I’ll be 62 next week, so I’m already starting to think about what I’m going to do for retirement. One thing I’m considering is doing something similar to what that guy did for me—finding someone to take over the accounts. I pre-bill my clients for the month, and I could just say, “Here you go. They’re yours. You just have to cut them.” It’s not a big profit like some people think they can get selling a business for a full year of revenue, but it’s a clean handoff. Supposedly, it’s tough to sell a lawn business anyway.

Ezra
It really is a joke what some people think their lawn business is worth. And I don’t mean that disrespectfully. A friend of mine was looking to buy a company doing around $250K in gross annual revenue. It was basically a solo guy with one or two helpers, and the owner wanted $250,000 to sell the business—basically one year of gross revenue.

But I told my friend, “That’s not worth it.” You could go get those customers yourself, buy all brand-new equipment, and still have $50K to $100K left over. Unless your business is fully systematized with a team in place, there’s just not a whole lot of resale value.

That’s why it’s so important to take into account where you’re trying to go in your business. Is it a job for you, or is it a business that could run without you?

Ezra
And if you’re trying to scale a large business, that advice is gold. But even if you’re not, it’s still helpful to understand the value going into it.

Well, I know this has been a bit of a shorter episode and we kind of went off-script on the questions. We’ve got a hard stop coming up here, but I’m curious—Greg, if you had some business advice for someone growing their lawn care company, what parting wisdom would you give them?

Greg Durbin
I would just encourage folks to get out there, work hard, and do what you need to do. One of my old jobs had a mantra: “Do what it takes to get the job done.” Now, not anything illegal or that’ll get you in trouble—but get the job done right. Make sure the work is complete, your client is happy, and then ask for more business.

That’s the thing a lot of people forget—they forget to ask. Ask for a lead. Ask if they know someone who needs lawn care. One thing I saw someone do, and I wish I could remember who to give credit to, was this idea of “the five clients around.” Basically, when he’s mowing one lawn, he thinks about the five surrounding houses—next door on both sides and three across the street. When you’re already there, go knock on the door and say, “Hey, I’m mowing next door and across the street. Would you like a quote?”

If they say yes—great. If not, no big deal. You’re just being neighborly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve petted a neighbor’s dog while mowing someone else’s lawn. That goes a long way with people. And I’m sincere—I like dogs. I’ll talk to the neighbor, give the dog a little attention, and that neighbor sees how I carry myself.

I’ve picked up a lot of clients just from being nice to the neighbor. Another tip—real estate. If you see a “For Sale” sign, pay attention. When the house sells and the new owner moves in, go knock on the door. I’ll say, “Hey, I see you’re moving in. Don’t want to interrupt, just wanted to drop off my card. I don’t know if you’re handling lawn care yet, but I’d love to give you a quote.”

That kind of warm intro works really well, especially in neighborhoods I’m already servicing. It helps build route density, and route density is huge. That’s key.

Ezra
These are really, really helpful, Greg.

Greg Durbin
Yeah, I just pull from my sales background. It’s what helps me connect with people. And don’t be afraid to talk to your clients. I see guys in Facebook groups complaining that their clients come out to chat and slow them down. But you know what? I’ve got a 90-year-old customer who walks out, hands me a bottle of water, and asks me to sit down for a few minutes.

So what do you do when a 90-year-old man asks you to sit down and talk? You sit down and talk with him. We get along great. He enjoys it, and honestly, so do I. The other neighbors see that. They see how I treat him, and they respect it.

That’s how you build trust and grow your reputation. Take five minutes—it’s worth it.

Ezra
Business is really about relationships. Because here’s the thing: taking time to pet someone’s dog, does that matter? Not on paper. But if that’s what they value—if that’s how you connect—then it matters. When an elderly customer wants to chat, it’s not just about mowing lawns anymore. It’s about connection, trust, and service. You’re not there to be a therapist, but sometimes you might be the only person they talk to that day.

Ezra
Because that’s really what business is about—serving people. And I know we need route density. We can’t spend an hour at every customer—I get it. And most people won’t. But taking that simple step to connect with someone not only helps them—it helps your business too.

Greg Durbin
Yeah, right. I had an account—an older woman I was mowing for. I’d wave to the people across the street every time I saw them. Well, last year they reached out and said, “You know, my husband had a stroke. Can you mow our lawn for us?” Boom—just like that, I picked up another client, literally right across the street.

So now I mow hers, then mow theirs, and I just added another $50 mow right there. It’s worked out really well. I’ve been happy doing it the way I’ve done it. And my clients are happy too. And you know what? It also makes it harder for them to get rid of you.

I had a guy knock on one of my client’s doors and offer to mow for $25. The client came to me and said, “Can you match that, Greg?” I said, “No, I’m going to have to pass.” And you know what they said? “Well, we really like you.” And they questioned the other guy’s price—“$25? That doesn’t sound right.”

So they decided to stay with me because of the relationship. That’s what it’s all about.

Ezra
Greg, you’ve dropped some great value here today. Thank you for being on the show, and thanks to everyone listening to the Lawn Care Success Blueprint. If Greg’s journey brought you value, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with another lawn or landscape pro.

For more tips, tools, and inspiration to grow your business, tune back in next time on the Lawn Care Success Blueprint.