Episode 8

Ezra McCarthy
Hello and welcome back to the Lawn Care Success Podcast. Today, I have Luke Latimer with Latimer Lawns. They have a family business that does—well, you can ask him the exact numbers—but they do over a million dollars in gross annual revenue. I think the fertilization and weed control business is something that people are really interested in, especially as the revenue per truck is a lot higher.

So Luke, great to have you on the show. Before we dive in, can you give the listeners just a quick background about your journey? You’re in your family’s business and the fertilization and weed control business—how have you grown to the size you guys are today?

Luke Latimer
Yeah, thanks for having me, Ezra. Latimer Lawns has been around for—I always have to redo the math—23 years now, I believe. We started out with my dad having some experience starting up a really big company in Indianapolis. Then we were kind of from the northern Indiana/South Bend area, so he moved back up here and became a teacher.

It was the classic side hustle story. Latimer Lawns started as a side hustle, and next thing you know, he’s making more with his side hustle than he was with his main hustle. He went full-time, then hired a full-time employee. And now we’ve just grown and grown.

It’s my dad, myself, and my brother. We just hired a full-time applicator, so that’s four of us. And then we have some part-time help—my mom behind the scenes, and I have a sister answering phones and that sort of thing. So it just blossomed from trying to start a side hustle.

Ezra McCarthy
So are you comfortable giving just a ballpark of where you are in gross revenue?

Luke Latimer
No problem. Obviously, it varies because we do snow removal, so that can kind of make or break it. Last year we did $1.25 million, I believe—so a little short of $1.3 million. And this year, we’re shooting for—we should hit $1.4 million pretty easily because we had a good winter so far. Plus, we bought out a company, which I know we’ll get into.

So our goal this year is to hit $1.5 million with four full-time guys in the field.

Ezra McCarthy
Some stout numbers—especially for the employee count there. But I’ve just got to ask, being in the fertilization and weed control business, what is the worst or most ridiculous DIY fertilization disaster you’ve ever seen?

Luke Latimer
Yeah. Ugh… Let’s see.

The main ones I like—and this happens, I think, every year—sometimes it’s not even a service call. I’ll just be driving through a neighborhood and see it.

My favorite is when a homeowner—not a customer—goes to the home improvement store and buys something. It’s hard, because they all say “weed killer,” but they don’t understand the difference between something like a 2,4-D product or a three-way product compared to glyphosate.

And so that’s my favorite—when they’ve got 25 little dead spots all around their lawn because they saw “weed killer” and just grabbed it, then went out spraying dandelions.

You can’t miss it.

Ezra McCarthy
I remember in college, we were doing this fancy home. And this guy—he was one of those guys that the neighbors would get so ticked at him because every night he’d be out there with the blower, blowing off the sidewalks. He wanted his place looking perfect.

And it had a great lawn. Well, before this happened, it looked great.

He went and bought some fertilizer and weed control. And he went out there—and instead of his lush, beautiful lawn like it normally was—he burned the whole thing.

Luke Latimer
Yeah.

Ezra McCarthy
Like, I’m talking straight-up brown. And it was so funny because the neighbors were like… I don’t know whether it was his fault or not. He was trying to blame the application company where he bought it.

But the neighbors were kind of chuckling, because he was that guy—out there every night. They were all kind of secretly thinking, “If someone’s going to mess it up, it’ll be him.”

Luke Latimer
Man, wow. Yeah. So he was that guy.

Ezra McCarthy
Yeah, so just curious—I know the fertilization business is really a volume game. What are some of the big differences you see between you and your family running a $1 million+ fertilization business now compared to when you guys were a smaller operation?

Luke Latimer
Say that again, I’m sorry.

Ezra McCarthy
What are the biggest differences running a larger—or million-dollar-plus—business compared to when you were smaller? What stands out?

Luke Latimer
Yeah. Obviously, early on it was all my dad. I was in middle and then high school, so I got a different view then compared to now, where I’m the general manager.

But every step along the way—nothing happened too fast. We went from a side hustle, to making ends meet, to full-time owner-operator, to then having a right-hand guy. We never doubled sales in one year or hired two new applicators at once.

We kind of… I mean, we stagnated at one point. But over the last five years, it’s been about 8–20% growth per year.

There are a lot of differences, but one that really stands out is technology. That’s a huge one we’ve embraced over the last five years.

Ezra McCarthy
Can you hone in on that? What technology has really helped your business—CRM, marketing, software?

Luke Latimer
Yeah. We could go on and on here.

My dad’s greatest strength is production. That guy—he’ll find the most efficient way to do something. That’s his background.

Where he struggles—which is common with a lot of older owners—is with technology. So he grew the company to around the $700,000 range, and then we kind of stagnated. It wasn’t…

Ezra McCarthy
Can I pause you there? What was he doing to keep track of his customers? Because you mentioned that was a weak point of his. Around that $700k mark—was he using spreadsheets? Did he have some sort of CRM? How was he managing that?

Luke Latimer
He had a CRM. It was one of the first lawn care–specific ones. It was awful.

I mean, it was good when it first came out, but there was basically no progression over 10 years. And that’s a long time in tech years. So, he had something—I’ll give him that. But he was also using spreadsheets. No QuickBooks.

We were late to the game on that side of things. It all went through this CRM. And it was… it was all just clunky.

Ezra McCarthy
That’s terrible. What was he doing for billing? At $700k—was it all mailed?

Luke Latimer
Just about all of it was mailed. There was no app, no route optimization. You had to manually put the customers in the right order on the route. You were printing off route sheets.

Honestly, it looked like a Mickey Mouse operation when you were logged into the computer.

And it worked for him for a while—but it was part of the reason we stagnated.

I came on board right toward the end of that stagnation.

Ezra McCarthy
And what year was that?

Luke Latimer
I came on board in 2015. It took me a couple of years to get confident—feel like I knew what I was doing.

When I came on board, the first thing I did—we were still mailing all of our quotes in 2015. It was bad.

So I created a quote template and said, “We’re switching this.”

Now, again, my dad was a genius when he first started. He brought a small printer into his truck—this was before Google Earth measuring—so he’d measure the lawn, sit in the truck, type it up, print it out, and leave it in the mailbox. That was groundbreaking at the time.

But technology kind of passed him over a bit.

Since then, we’ve just continued with automation as we get busier per person. And there’s so much more behind-the-scenes work as we grow—that’s where automation really becomes more and more important.

Ezra McCarthy
So for quoting—do you use Google Earth or Google Maps to do measuring? And then do you send quotes by email? How does your process work now to speed things up for the customer?

Luke Latimer
Yeah, our quoting is still a little clunky, I would say.

But one of the things we like to think makes us different is that instead of having just one fertilization and weed control program, we offer three different ones. So it’s more of a good-better-best approach, depending on people’s budgets and needs.

That makes it a little harder to automate through the CRM, since it’s not just one-size-fits-all. We also offer a lot of add-on services—pest control, seeding, landscape maintenance, different weed control programs, and so on.

So what we do is—we have a quote template in Microsoft Word. My dad loves Word. We convert it to a PDF, copy-paste in the welcome message—“Welcome to Latimer Lawns,” that sort of thing—and then send it out that way.

It’s still a bit manual, but it works. And yes, we use Google Earth and Google Maps for measuring—those are great tools for that.

Ezra McCarthy
Especially over the past few years—since 2020—prices have been bonkers. So how have you handled that? How have you passed those costs along to your clients so you can stay profitable and stay in business?

And have you gotten any pushback when you’ve had to raise prices?

Luke Latimer
Yeah, I would say—looking back with hindsight, because we all panicked a little when it first happened—but looking back, it was a blessing.

The price increase was so dramatic, and one of our weaknesses had always been that we struggled to raise pricing. It was always that “what if” fear—what if everyone leaves? It was kind of a scary thing, especially for my parents.

But the situation basically forced us into it. We didn’t have a choice. And a lot of our customers hadn’t seen a price increase in five-plus years. So even then…

Honestly, we had so little pushback originally.

Now we get a little more pushback. We’re out there a lot more, we actually have a marketing strategy now, and we’re doing more quotes—whereas before it was just word of mouth.

So yeah, we do get more objections now. It used to be we would close 80% of our sales—because it was all word of mouth. We weren’t necessarily the cheapest, but people trusted us. You’re always going to close more of those.

Now we’re much closer to that 50% mark on our quotes.

But COVID forced us to realize: you can’t offer the personal touch of a small company, great communication, and top-tier applicators—and also be the cheapest. It just doesn’t work.

It’s still hard to explain that to some people. They just want to look at the two prices and have you match it. But it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. And that’s not always a winning conversation.

Ezra McCarthy
That’s really part of what I’ve found too—helping customers realize that to get good service, you have to pay for it. And the right people—they’re okay with that.

One thing I’ll say—just working with you guys—because we actually do help you with SEO, and we’re helping you get reviews from your customers… I have never seen so many great reviews from one company.

We’re sending them out and—not just that people are leaving five-star reviews, but…

Luke Latimer
Good.

Ezra McCarthy
So many people—literally, if you look up Latimer Lawns and read the reviews—people are raving about you guys. And you cannot get that unless you’re offering great service.

So obviously, you, your dad, your brother, and your other team members—you’re serving people well. And to do that, sure, you need productivity. You have to follow a schedule and get things done.

But I’ve seen several reviews where people mention, “When I talked to Luke,” or “When I talked to someone, they answered my questions.” You can’t do that if you’re just rushing, rushing, rushing because you’re trying to be the lowest price.

I feel like I harp on pricing a lot, but if we don’t make a profit, we can’t stay in business to serve our customers. And that’s a disservice.

Like you mentioned—a 50% close rate? I wouldn’t be scared of that. Because you know what? Some people aren’t your customer. They’re True Green’s customer. And that’s okay.

Luke Latimer
Right. Exactly. Yes, exactly. And you let them be. Let them be.

I was purposely not saying the name, but yeah—that’s it. And we’ve got some local ones that are no better. Some of the franchises—they’re not True Green, but they might as well be. They’re huge companies that start buying everyone out and all that fun stuff.

Ezra McCarthy
Well—and True Green’s a completely different model. They’re a volume business. I remember talking to someone else—a different person—and that’s okay. Some people, that’s what they want and that’s what they need. Let them go to it.

But for a small local business—where the customer wants someone who knows what they’re doing—I was talking to someone the other day. They were a fert and weed control applicator—I won’t say the name, but it was at a certain large company we may have already mentioned. And they were saying they just threw them on a truck.

Luke Latimer
It’s a different business. Do it.

Ezra McCarthy
With no fert license. They had no idea what they were doing. And they were asking, “Hey, what’s in the tank I’m about to go spray on people’s lawns?” And the person said, “You don’t need to worry about it. Just go put it on.”

You can’t tell me they were doing a good job.

So anyway—I’m getting a little off on a tangent—but that’s not your competition. And if it is, you may need to evaluate your business.

Luke Latimer
“Just go spray it.” Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lose-lose there. Yeah, you’re gonna lose. You just… yeah.

Ezra McCarthy
For sure.

So team members—obviously you’re growing, Luke. You’re getting more business. How do you find and attract those quality team members who are going to treat the customer right—who you’re not worried about being dishonest?

I look at reviews on businesses all the time, and especially in this industry, the number one complaint I see is, “I saw them on my Ring camera, and they did a quarter or half the lawn.”

Obviously, you’re not doing that. So how do you get team members who are going to do it right?

Luke Latimer
It’s a good question.

The short answer is—we train them from day one: assume you’re being watched at all times. And it’s true. Even if a house doesn’t have a camera, all their neighbors do. You’re getting seen from six different angles.

Part of it, I think, is we grow slowly. One applicator—especially if it’s the right guy—can do a lot of revenue. So we’re not hiring five people all at once and crossing our fingers.

Ezra McCarthy
Can I pause you there? Can you break down the numbers? What does a normal applicator do—or what can they do if their route is optimized well? I think those numbers are really interesting for people.

Luke Latimer
It’s tough. I mean, I’d have to break it down because there’s some subcontract work included in that just-under $1.3 million we did last year.

We’ve got one large $400,000–$450,000 contract in there that includes pruning bushes and mowing. The mowing we subcontract out, and for some of the other stuff we’ll hire a college kid for the summer. So there’s definitely some extra work in there beyond just fertilization.

But as you were saying—it really depends on route density.

My dad’s doing some really nice routes. He gets grumpy if he drops his tailgate and the job is less than $100. He’s working in nice neighborhoods with big lawns. We’re not really that close to a big city, so we’re typically getting 15,000-square-foot lawns.

I break everything down per acre. We use per-acre pricing, which helps. But I’d say an applicator can do $250,000 pretty easily. $300,000 is achievable—my dad is probably closer to that number.

Ezra McCarthy
And this is a team of one—just for the listener—correct? That’s interesting.

Luke Latimer
Yep. Each of us runs solo. We work completely independently.

There are some big HOAs we might team up on occasionally, but yeah—we’re not on crews. Everyone runs their own route.

Ezra McCarthy
So this ties back to the question I kind of interrupted earlier—about hiring. Finding those team members… because there’s a difference between someone you can throw on a weed eater—where they’re with a crew leader—and someone who can go out alone, who you can trust.

Luke Latimer
Yeah. So to piggyback off what one person can do—we also view that in terms of value. Yes, it’s a lot of revenue and profit, and the owner’s happy—but we can spin that around. We pay our applicators really well.

We make it a full-time, salaried position. We promote it and really treat it as a trade—not just a job. And that’s helped.

We’re very family-based, and we’re starting to expand outside the family now, which is great. We decided to go with someone who had no experience, but who was just a really good person.

It was kind of a friend-of-a-friend situation—my brother knew him. So we had a little more insight into his life situation than what you could get in a standard interview.

And that’s already paid off. We’re training from the ground up—I mean, he’d never even backed up a trailer before. But if it’s the right guy, it’s a no-brainer in my opinion.

Ezra McCarthy
Two-part question here. I’m sure you looked at it—why did you choose to go for character over experience? Had you had a bad experience before? And then can you give us a general ballpark of what salary you’re paying to get a quality person in your area?

Luke Latimer
Yeah. One of the reasons we went with him—aside from character—was because he had no experience, and we had a part-time position we wanted to grow into a full-time role. So there was an incentive to go with someone without experience, because it took a little less of a hit on payroll.

The starting salary was $42,000. A top applicator for us could make $70,000–$75,000.

Ezra McCarthy
That’s pretty good.

Luke Latimer
Yeah, that’s pretty good.

Ezra McCarthy
For Indiana.

Luke Latimer
That includes some snow removal—which is all hourly, all bid-based, and that’s all extra. There are also bonuses and personal incentives and things like that. So yeah, it’s not crazy to hit $75,000.

Now, the second part of your question—why did we go that route—it was just a gut feel. Because the other thing is, we’re here every day, especially in the off-season, just working on equipment. And honestly, we wanted to hire someone we enjoy hanging out with. We spend a lot of time together.

So yeah, it was somewhat based on vibes, I guess. And we didn’t really find anyone super qualified. Now, I wasn’t going to wait until March—like March 15th—to hire, which a lot of the big companies do. That’s just too late. I want to know who we’re hiring, get them in the door, get them on payroll, start training—all that fun stuff.

I’m sure if we had been more patient, there might have been someone with experience. But there wasn’t anyone who really jumped out, so it wasn’t that hard of a decision.

Now, if it were a different position—if I wasn’t family and I left—my dad would probably have to hire someone with experience, right? So it kind of depends on the role. We were just looking for someone to be the low man on the totem pole and grow from there.

Ezra McCarthy
And with the seasonality—you mentioned salary. Is that how you structure it to keep them around full-time? Do you just budget for that? Because how do you handle the low months in the winter? Or is snow what covers their costs? And what happens if it’s a slow winter?

Luke Latimer
Yeah. I mean, we consider snow a necessary evil. We pay it all as extra—even me. If I’m in a truck or on a salt rig, it’s all extra. It all starts at $25 to $30 an hour as a baseline.

We always joke that on top of the salary, snow is where we make a killing. I always tell the guys, “If it’s one o’clock on a Tuesday and we’re out plowing snow, we’re making a killing.”

But yeah, as far as…

Ezra McCarthy
Top of their salary.

Luke Latimer
Our budget—well, the nice thing about salary payroll is it’s the same amount every week, right? So you know what to expect. That’s all built into our lawn programs. Snow is all extra.

We just bankroll ourselves through the winter. We already know what our average year looks like, so by December the money for payroll is already in the bank to get us through.

And we’ve got plenty to do in the off-season—fixing equipment, updating systems. The last three winters in particular, we’ve had full to-do lists.

Like, we got to the end of this past winter and—remember, I was talking with you about email marketing? That got scrapped. So we’re going to try to move that up higher on the list next off-season. But yeah, we can never quite get to everything.

Ezra McCarthy
Have you made any business mistakes with hiring early on—or has everything kind of gone smoothly with your team members?

Luke Latimer
I’ve been really lucky.

This is our first time hiring outside the family. My dad had a right-hand guy for like 10 years, salaried. Then I came on and overlapped with that guy for about six months before he moved on.

Other than him and our new employee, it’s all been family, which definitely makes things easier.

We still hire seasonal help, but that’s more about finding a great kid with good integrity. We pay well. Like right now, I’ve got an 18-year-old doing spring cleanups—he’s making $20 an hour, driving his own truck, doing his own thing.

But I know I can trust him, so it’s worth it.

Ezra McCarthy
Good deal. Yeah—trust is so important. That’s the big thing I always tell team members: “Hey, I’m fine with you making a mistake—we’ll fix it. But dishonesty is a no-go.”

Luke Latimer
Yeah. And he’s the son of one of our snow subcontractors and one of our suppliers we buy equipment from. So it’s back to that: Who do you know? Who do you trust?

If there’s a problem, I can just call his dad.

Ezra McCarthy
Yeah. So Luke, I know we were talking earlier—you said you had actually bought out a smaller fertilization business. I know you guys get a lot of leads organically, but what made you decide to buy out a fertilization and weed control business?

And if another business owner is listening and considering buying a business, what tips would you share based on your experience?

Luke Latimer
Yeah, we’re right in the middle of that right now—only about two weeks in. I’ve barely made it into the field because every day it’s just a flood of emails, onboarding, calls—I’m trying to prioritize all that first.

We’ve actually done this twice before. The other two were really small—like 25 customers and 55 customers.

In both cases, the sellers thought they had something more valuable than they did. Unfortunately, it wasn’t turnkey. They weren’t selling a business, just the chemical side—no contracts. You could argue that doesn’t mean much for residential, but still—no contracts, and their prices were lower than mine.

That alone is a no-go. If I’m raising prices on Day One, chances of retaining those customers are pretty low.

So both of those deals turned into more of a “let me try to kindly explain you don’t really have a business here.” But in both cases, they ended up just giving us the list anyway. One guy we paid—barely.

Ezra McCarthy
When you gave or bought…

Luke Latimer
We gave on the two small ones. It was more like, “Hey, let’s work together here.” Bought them a super nice glass of bourbon for Christmas or something like that.

Both of them were still mowing guys, so to this day we send them tons of referrals.

Now this newer one we just bought had just under 200 customers. What made that one work is that his prices were about 15–20% higher than ours. So my eyes got real big when he showed me that.

And my dad and I were talking about this over the weekend—we really just give all the glory and credit to God because the timing was uncanny.

We had just hired a new applicator—but didn’t yet have full-time work for him. We were hoping to grow into it.

And on the backend, we’d just hired a part-time office manager to handle phones, text messages, emails, e-payments—all of it. Without that, I don’t think we could’ve pulled it off. I’m swamped onboarding the accounts, but I’ve been able to delegate a lot of the workload.

So it was just kind of perfect timing. The pricing was great. And the seller—I’d been networking with him for a couple years. Super good guy. And he was motivated to sell it to me.

Ezra McCarthy
So you found that because you already knew the guy. I know a lot of people try to connect with potential sellers. Sometimes people are super friendly—and sometimes they’re not.

How did you build that rapport with him? Because it sounds like he was a competitor—or could’ve been. How did you go about that?

Luke Latimer
Yeah—frenemy. He was definitely a competitor.

We were in the same neighborhoods. He was smaller, so he was a little more concentrated. He didn’t service nearly as many locations as we did.

But I think the fact that we don’t mow grass—we’re strictly on the fertilization and pest control side—makes it really easy for me to network. I don’t want to mow, and a lot of the mowing guys appreciate that. So there’s just a quicker trust factor there.

But I’ll admit—we went both ways on that. My dad’s from a little older generation—more of the “keep it close to the vest” mindset. He used to think everyone was out to get him. Not anymore, but there was a time when networking just didn’t happen. The only way he’d talk to someone was if they weren’t in our service area.

That’s changed. I made a conscious decision about four years ago to start networking hard—and holy smokes, it paid off.

It just takes time, but it has paid off so much. Now we’ve got mowing guys we refer customers to in each corner of our service area. If we’ve got a lead in a certain township—boom—I’ve got someone to send them to.

That’s kind of how it started. There was a local Christmas dinner for lawn care pros a couple years ago, and I met him there—one of the local guys put it on. Super nice guy. From there, it’s just been a snowball. We now network with everyone—from the bigger companies we get bulk salt from, to local solo operators. It’s always better to have friends in the business, I’d say.

Ezra McCarthy
That is really neat. So now that you’re integrating these 200 customers—have you faced any challenges trying to bring them under your brand? It sounds like the person you worked with was a quality guy, but what are some of the challenges in onboarding these customers into your business?

Luke Latimer
Yeah.

I’d say the biggest challenge was timing. He was a little late getting this going.

From the time he first called me, to having a meeting, to actually writing him a check and signing a basic contract—it all happened in just a few days. But he had waited too long to decide.

He came from more of a farming background, and I think he was just ready for a career path with less stress. He realized he could make more money with a W-2 job and have a lot less pressure than running his own business. That’s ultimately what he wanted.

But yeah, now we’re scrambling. I’m trying to get out into the field while also starting training. That’s probably been the hardest part—we’re kind of backed into a corner.

Because he didn’t know what he was going to do, he didn’t re-sign anyone.

Ezra McCarthy
Ah, so the timeframes got tight.

Luke Latimer
Exactly.

It’s not like he handed me a bunch of customers who had already re-signed and paid—I could just drop them into our software and roll forward. It was more like a raw customer list.

So we structured the deal with a lump sum up front, and then an additional payment per customer retained. We’re actively tracking all that now, because I’m finding that some of those customers had no real intention of returning, or hadn’t been contacted at all.

He just waited too long. As of now, I think I’m only at around 40 that I’ve actually locked in.

Ezra McCarthy
So what’s your sign-on rate—out of the 200?

Luke Latimer
Well, that’s the thing. It ended up not really being 200. That number was probably a bit of a stretch. I’d say it was closer to 160—maybe even a little less.

Ezra McCarthy
Do you think you’ll get more signups from that? That seems pretty low.

Luke Latimer
Yeah…

I always have to remind myself—it’s no different than in previous years, even before this acquisition.

We’re lawn guys, right? We’re ready to go. So it makes sense for us to want all our customers signed up by March—it’s smoother, everything is prepped, and we’re not skipping over their neighborhood when we launch routes.

But that’s just not how most people operate.

Not everyone thinks like a lawn care business owner. People have jobs, marriages, stress—they’re not thinking about their lawn until the first sunny day when they step outside and notice it.

I’m getting all the quotes out now. But without contracts from the seller, this really was just a customer list. So I’ve been reaching out to all of them directly.

Once I’ve done my initial reach-out, I’ll give it a couple weeks. Then I’ll have my part-time office person start calling the ones we haven’t heard from yet.

And I’m getting ready to send an updated list back to the seller—he’s going to try and help with a few introductions to help bridge the handoff.

But yeah, I’ve seen this before—sometimes you send the quote, follow up, hear nothing… and then you get one perfect spring day, and boom—they start signing up.

Ezra McCarthy
I was just talking to someone last year—it was the same thing. They were kind of frantic right before spring, like, “No one’s reached out. I think my business is tanking.”

Then two weeks later I checked in with them and they’re like, “Man, I’m slammed.”

It’s so easy in our business to fall into that panic. I just talked to another guy the other day—two weeks ago, he said, “We’re slammed, no time for anything.” Then last week, he’s like, “We’ve got no work.”

And I’m like—it’s the middle of March. Just ride it out.

Luke Latimer
Haha. Yep, yep.

Ezra McCarthy
Hold on to your guns—just give it a couple of weeks.

While this is fresh in your mind, Luke—if you were talking to a smaller business, maybe they’re doing $100,000 to $300,000 a year, and maybe in the next five years they’re looking to sell—how would you advise them to structure their business so they actually have a sellable asset?

Even if it’s only worth $20K, $30K, $50K—how can they make it worth something?

Luke Latimer
Yup. Yup. That’s a great question.

So I’ll answer that from the other side—because I touched on this earlier with my dad. We kind of stagnated at around $700,000. And from what we’ve heard from bookkeepers and others in the industry, that’s a very common ceiling. A lot of companies hover around that number.

And the truth is—getting from $700K to $1 million can be really hard.

But for my dad—there wasn’t really a need to grow. He made a really good living, he loved what he did, and he didn’t have to work that hard. There were busy times, sure—but if he wanted to play golf twice a week, he could. So there wasn’t much thought of selling.

Now, this is a bit of a long-winded answer—but I say this because he and I now have an ownership agreement and a buyout clause. It’s signed, drafted, ready to go.

And part of that conversation was—“You couldn’t have sold this before.” Your prices were too low, and you were afraid to raise them. It was a weird conversation to have—because it’s family—but the business, as it stood back then, wasn’t sellable.

There was no real technology in place. It wouldn’t have transferred well.

So to answer your question more directly: you have to build something turnkey. You have to be on top of your systems and structure.

Ezra McCarthy
So what does that mean specifically for a fertilization and weed control business?

Luke Latimer
Nowadays—you’ve got to have a really nice website. You’ve got to be working on your Google reviews. You need to have an online presence.

You don’t need thousands of Instagram followers. That’s great—I know some guys who do well with that strategy—but it’s not a must.

But you do need a CRM that can transfer easily to a buyer. Because all of that data is going to be integrated over.

If you don’t have that—if you don’t have something like QuickBooks where a buyer can review the financials, see trends, see customer history—then it’s just not going to work.

Ezra McCarthy
How would you advise someone to structure their contracts? And I know with residential, there’s rarely a formal contract—people can quit any time, and you’re not going to chase them down. But if someone is saying, “Hey, I might want to sell in a few years,” how can they structure things in a way that adds value?

Obviously, getting your numbers nailed down is key. If someone says they’re doing $500,000 but has no proof, well… do they really? It’s like that “tree falling in the woods” scenario.

So how would you recommend someone structure their contracts or agreements to make the business more appealing to a buyer like yourself?

Luke Latimer
Yeah, that’s a good one.

First off—pricing is number one.

If your prices are too low—which a lot of owner-operators fall into—that’s a problem. Because owner-operators are always more efficient than their top employee. It’s not a knock on employees, it’s just reality. The owner is going to move faster and make better decisions on the fly.

So if you’re underpricing and then expecting someone else to step in and run it—it’s going to be less efficient, and those margins disappear fast. If the prices aren’t there, then really all you’ve got is a customer list, not a valuable customer base.

Same with your equipment—it matters, but pricing and customer structure are key.

Ezra McCarthy
So how do you structure pricing or contracts to help with that?

Luke Latimer
Yeah, on the contract side—at least for us, I don’t know exactly how it works for mowing—but we’ve built a system that’s simple and scalable.

Once someone signs up, we send what we call an “onboarding email.” One of the key details we cover in that is: we auto-enroll customers from season to season. There’s no re-signing every year. You’re not getting a new contract annually.

Then in January, we send out a letter about any price increases.

Ezra McCarthy
This is really good. That’s so good.

Luke Latimer
I mean, especially if you’re mowing—and you’re an owner-operator—you can fill your schedule so fast. You don’t need hundreds of clients. But even with our 850 customers—imagine sending out 800 contracts every year? No way.

And customers love it. They don’t have to think about it. They just know we’ll be there in the spring.

Of course, they can make changes, cancel at any time, for any reason. We’re not trying to trap anyone—but the auto-enroll structure makes it cleaner, more professional, and it builds long-term value. And when it comes time to sell, that’s exactly what a buyer wants to see.

Ezra McCarthy
This is super helpful. I think that’s one thing—obviously, different business models. Lawn care is going to be a little different. But for fertilization and weed control, that model you shared is so good.

It’s all about making sure the customer understands you’re not trying to take advantage of them. You’re just creating structure and clarity. And like you mentioned—if at some point you do want to sell in a couple of years, having that system in place gives you something sustainable. Sure, there’s going to be churn—that’s normal—but this gives you long-term value.

Luke Latimer
Right, right. We’re not trying to trick you.

Ezra McCarthy
Just curious—what is one piece of advice, as we wrap up, that you wish you had when you and your dad first started working together to grow the business?

Luke Latimer
I wish I had started networking sooner.

It wouldn’t have fixed everything, but it would’ve helped so much. Because entrepreneurship is hard. I was just having this conversation with a couple guys I’ve been mentoring—a landscaper and a mower, both newer. They’re asking questions, trying to get started, and I’m just trying to help.

There are so many levers to pull. It’s crazy. And there’s no one right way to do it. If there was, it’d be easy and everyone would be doing it.

We all operate in our own local markets, and those can vary a ton.

So yeah—networking. That’s something I should’ve done way earlier. And it ties into what we were talking about before—making your business sellable. Networking is a huge part of that.

At the end of the day, people want to work with people they know and trust—even loosely. The most recent company we bought, the one with 200 customers—I knew the guy. I knew he was a good person, and I knew the fit was right.

If it had been someone I didn’t know—even if I’d heard the company name in passing—but didn’t know the owner or wasn’t confident in his reputation? No chance. I’d let all those customers go. A bunch of them would find us online anyway.

So I’d have networked harder so I could ask more questions and ramp up faster. Because there’ve been so many times over the last five years where we’ve hit a new expense or made a growth decision—and we knew it was needed, but it felt painful.

Like, “Do I really want to spend $500 a month on a bookkeeper or a website?” Or, “I already have a CRM—do I really need to eat that 3% credit card processing fee?”

Those kinds of things always feel too expensive at first. And then a year later, you realize the problem has only gotten worse. You finally make the leap—and it turns out to be the best decision. Then you wonder why you didn’t do it five years earlier.

So yeah—there have been a lot of those moments. But when you’re in it, it’s hard to see ahead.

Ezra McCarthy
So true.

Luke Latimer
For me, I hadn’t been running the business that long, so I was just trying to do the right thing. And it’s hard. It’s hard to know what’s right. But I wish I had more people back then telling me, “Hey, this is a no-brainer. Just go for it.”

Ezra McCarthy
Networking is so important. I was just thinking about it the other day—in my own business.

The payment processor I use? The only reason I use it is because another marketer sent me a bill through it, and I thought, “Okay, I like how this works.” It was Stripe. I really like it. I’d recommend it.

Same thing with my CRM. I saw a different marketer’s form on their website, and I said, “I’m going to go check out HubSpot.” Now, I wouldn’t recommend HubSpot for lawn and landscape companies—but for my business, it’s great.

And honestly, I look back now and I’m like—whew—thank goodness those people were using good tools. Otherwise I might’ve ended up with some dead-end product.

Networking and just seeing what other people are doing—it can take your business so much farther.

So if you were going to talk to a small fertilization and weed control business—maybe they’re at $300K, $400K, or $500K per year—and they want to hit that million-dollar mark, what would you tell them is the one main thing to focus on this year?

Luke Latimer
That’s a good one.

Assuming they’ve already got their program dialed in—that’s number one. Get your program tight.

Now, you can haggle between suppliers and save a few bucks, but I think it’s more valuable to stick with one supplier—at least for your chemicals. Build a relationship with your sales rep. Honestly, base it more on the person than the brand. You’re often buying the same product anyway.

Pick someone you can work with—someone you can call, ask questions, troubleshoot. I talk to my supplier weekly. I send them soil tests, we strategize. Lately, we’ve been doing more specialized work—like seeding in new construction areas with bad soil. So I need those conversations.

And that leads into the bigger point: find someone—whether it’s your supplier, a mentor, or a “frenemy”—that you can bounce ideas off of.

Especially if you’re newer, and you don’t have backup equipment or backup plans. Things go down. Parts are delayed. That’s when networking pays off—when someone knows you and says, “Yeah, you can borrow my spreader.”

Now, if your goal this year is to grow, then you need to be doing tasks that are focused on growth.

Maybe that means hiring a part-time person. Maybe it’s outsourcing something. But you can’t do it all—and you have to carve out time for growth-related work.

If your focus is sales—great. Then do things that lead to sales.

I personally like being in a BNI group—it gets you out of the lawn and landscape industry bubble and helps you build referrals. So ask yourself, “What am I doing right now to get leads?”

Are you working on your website and Google ranking? Or maybe you’re going after commercial clients—then you need to go door-knocking, find the right contact person, the controller, etc.

Whatever your path is—give up the small stuff. Whether that’s office work, routing, or minor production tasks—delegate it. Hire a part-time tech. Outsource what you can.

If you’re trying to grow, you’ve got to focus on that part.

Ezra McCarthy
Thanks, Luke. If someone’s curious and wants to follow your journey with Latimer Lawns, where’s the best place they can find you?

Luke Latimer
Shoot me an email. We’re on social media, but I don’t personally run those—our office manager handles that—so it probably won’t get to me directly.

But yeah, you can email me at luke@latimerlawns.com. I’d be happy to answer questions there—or even set up a call if it’s something more involved than what can be handled over email.

Ezra McCarthy
Hopefully, this has been really helpful for the listener. And thanks so much for being on today, Luke.

Luke Latimer
Absolutely—my pleasure.

Ezra McCarthy
Sounds great. We’ll talk to you on the next one.

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