Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The GreenPal Lawn Care Business Growth Show features real lawn care professionals sharing how they build reliable, profitable landscaping businesses in cities across the United States.
what revenue stage you're in, the volume
that you're doing right now.
I don't have exact numbers as far as
necessarily how many lawns we're doing
right now, somewhere in the mid300s this
last year.
When you first started in the lawnmowers
business for the third time in Tarpon
Springs, what did those early days look
like?
There's a lot of the extra cheap guys
who try to get yards for $20 or $25
here. You don't see them for too long
cuz they're not really making enough
money to be sustainable. They have a
piece of equipment that goes down and
then they can't afford to fix it. So, a
lot of the small guys just disappear.
They're unreliable.
If you have a landscaping business and
you're trying to grow, just keep going,
keep mowing, and keep growing.
Welcome to the Lawn Care Business Growth
Show presented by Greenpal. My name is
Jean Cabillo, one of the co-founders. On
the show, we talk to real landscaping
professionals that have built reliable
and profitable businesses. On the show
today, we have Eric Herbata with ETC
Services out of Tarpon Springs. Eric,
welcome to the show. Tell us a little
bit about your business in Tarpon
Springs and how you got started.
Sure. I will do the shortest version.
How I got started was a long time ago
when my daughter was about to be born
and I decided to go ahead and get a
mower and start a lawn care business or
at least try to start it on the side to
make some extra money. That kind of
quickly grew into something more. I've
ironically started this three times
because when I did that, we were in
upstate New York. Uh then we moved to
Middle Tennessee just outside of
Nashville. So I had to start over there.
Then now we're in Florida and I
literally started from scratch again
here. Basically, we've grown here in the
past 5 years doing anything from
lawnmowing, landscaping, mulching
through trimming, like your whole
roundabout, normal landscape business,
just still growing.
Okay. Tell us a little bit about what
like revenue stage you're in, the volume
that you're doing right now.
Sure. I don't have exact numbers as far
as necessarily how many lawns we're
doing right now, but we did somewhere in
the mid-300s this last year. So,
whatever that works out to. That That's
great.
That's great. When you first started in
the lawnmowers business for the third
time in Tarpon Springs, what did those
early days look like? Seems like you've
had two two opportunities to start in
New York and then in in Tennessee. So,
what did that look like? Was it a little
bit easier the third time or was it just
as difficult every single time?
The third time it was easier.
Unfortunately, I took the same route
though because I didn't really start
with much capital. When we moved to
Florida, I actually didn't really plan
on continuing to cut grass. It gets a
little tiring every now and then, but
you kind of always revert back to what
you know and what you're good at.
Literally started with a little what
size was it? Like a 6x10 trailer and one
mower on it again with one helper
whenever they could whenever they were
available, right? and legit went from a
handful of clients that were just around
town to then expanding out and getting
to where we are now again.
And so what really pushed your business
to the next level? Was it pricing? Was
it marketing? Did you hire someone? Walk
us through that kind of inflection point
where you're like, "Okay, yeah, this is
this is happening. This is going really
well. I'm going to continue with it." I
think the thing that worked every time
is just consistency and repetitiveness
and just doing it over and over. So, you
get some new clients, you make sure that
you do everything that you say you're
going to. You show up on time, you do
exactly what you guys agreed on, which
obviously if you're cutting grass could
be just as simple as mowing, edging,
blowing, just making sure it's all done.
and then coming back the next time when
you say you're actually going to. We get
a ton of clients, which I think is
funny, a ton of clients because we
they're can't get a hold of their old
lawn contractor or they don't like what
they were doing or they weren't
consistent or something like that. So,
by just being consistent in doing what
we're supposed to be doing, that helps
us grow. Word of mouth works obviously.
I actually don't do hardly any
advertising, but we do obviously use
Green Pal, and that's a huge kicker.
It's It's like the easiest way for us to
find clients without actually going out
and hunting. I don't do door flyers. I
don't do all that stuff. And we do a
couple other things, of course, but
that's pretty much how we continue to
keep growing and getting new clients and
growing our whole thing that we have
going here.
Gotcha. And what neighborhood
specifically in Tarbon Springs do you
service?
So, I actually
do things a little different than most
people. A lot of small guys like to stay
very condensed and in one area. I do the
opposite. We go all the way from where
we are, which is about 20 minutes north
of Clear Water. We go all the way down
to St. Pete, which is about 40 minutes
south, and then we go into Tampa, which
again is about 30 40 minutes away,
depending on where it is. But the
coolest part about here is that we're
basically around three
large cities, if you will. So we have
Clear Water, we have St. Petersburg, and
we have Tampa. And then obviously all
the suburbs that are around there. So by
hitting the center of all those, we make
routes during the week where we'll only
do Clear Water and we only do St. Pete.
So it's not like we're doing this whole
route,
right,
each day. But so nothing spec like we I
don't have a specific one. We're
actually really broad. And then that
actually helps because we can pick up
clients in any of those areas as long as
it makes sense and keeps their wrap
density pretty pretty tight.
Gotcha.
So like the Palm Harbor, Trinity, Dened
and all those areas as well, you you
cover.
We do.
Okay. And how do you keep your
reliability
so good in the area spec specifically
with the the Florida heat and also
during storm season?
Uh having AC in the truck is a big plus.
I actually won't lie. The first year
that I was here, I was using an old
vehicle and it did not have a air
conditioning. And the first year I
thought that it would be okay. It's like
when you visit somewhere that has very
high heat and very high humidity and it
doesn't really bother all that much. So
the first year I was like, "Okay, this
is all right." Second year, not so much.
And by the third year, I'm like, "If I
ever have a vehicle without air
conditioning down here again, I quit."
Reli excuse me, reliability wise though,
this past year, we actually just started
using, not trying to throw it out there,
but we started using Jabber. It's a
super easy program. There's tons of them
out there. And before that, and actually
all the way up until then, I had always
used the old school way of just doing
like spreadsheets and
yeah,
sort of routing out things that way. So,
we started using this and it's super
easy inputting everything. You know,
every client has their the days and
month, sorry, the days and the specific
times throughout the month when they get
serviced. And it's so much easier
because then it'll actually route out
all our stuff, too. So, that's how we
keep super organized. And then the heat,
you just got to you just got to deal
with it. Bring a lot of water.
It's gonna it's not going to go
anywhere. So, you just got to keep at
it. Yeah, you just got to stick with it.
And then we obviously get tons of rain,
too. So, you just got to work around the
weather. It is what it is.
Gotcha. So, walk us through how you
price jobs in the Tarpon Springs, St.
Petersburg, Tampa area. Is it a lot
size? Is it dollar per minute? Walk us
through that.
I pretty much do it as a lot size. And
to be honest, it's super easy here
because most of the lots are just about
the same size. you're looking at 7500
square feet or less. So, very small
little I always call them postage
stamps. Very small little lots. So, I
pretty much just price everything the
same at least to bid everything and to
start everything. Obviously, if we show
up somewhere and
there's only a two gate or if there's a
ton of stuff on the property or it's a
corner lot that just has just a ton of
extra stuff to weedy, then we'll adjust
it if we have to. your average price
around Florida, it seems a little low
compared to other areas, but it's about
$35 a cut. And some we do price out
individually, like the stuff we get
through Green Pow gets build
individually. We have other clients that
we build monthly or yearly or however
you want to say that. So, there's just
broken up differently, but
Okay. And what do you think separates a
profitable landscaping business from one
that struggles?
There's a lot
basic things are what I said. The
biggest one that I I'll say over and
over is just being consistent with your
clients, showing up on time, being
reasonable with your pricing. There's a
lot of the extra cheap guys who try to
get yards for $20 or $25 here. Uh you
don't see them for too long because
they're not really making enough money
to be sustainable. So, they have a piece
of equipment that goes down and then
they can't afford to fix it. they get
their insurance bill, if they even have
the correct insurance. When everything
goes up down here, nothing's cheap in
Florida. Let's just be honest with that
one. So, a lot of the small guys just
disappear. They're unreliable guys who
want to keep growing like what we're
doing. Just being consistent with all
this stuff. And I don't want to I don't
want to keep saying reasonable with
pricing, but just being average. And
then the bid part is that once you get a
better report with your clientele. So
the first year maybe you are a little
lower, but the next year you can up your
prices, even if it's just by $2, $3,
whatever it is. Uh and the next year if
you need to do it again, you can do it
again. And then that way it helps
maintain everything, keep everything in
line. Help keep the help keeps the
lights on.
Gotcha. So how do you handle hiring in
the area? And what's the biggest lesson
you've learned managing people? I used
to just go through like Facebook
Marketplace or Craigslist. That's the
way we always used to do it. Started
using MD. This year, it gets you not
necessarily better clients, but a little
bit different of a of a group. And then
you just got to go through, you just got
to be honest with them of exactly what
you're looking for in the employee and
kind of the direction that the business
is going. And then hopefully it syncs
up. So, as long as they're on the same
level that we are as far as our main
goals and then they're happy with
everything that we do, that's the
easiest way or that's the best way that
we get somebody who actually wants to
stick around for a while. Obviously, the
biggest hurdles are just keeping
people's.
Yeah.
And it's it's just the way things are.
Things are a little different than they
used to be. And especially here a lot of
people say that they can work out in the
sun all day long and then they they'll
work for a few weeks and be like, "No,
this wasn't for me." You get your die
hards that are totally into it and
there's people who love working outside,
love doing stuff with their hands and
they're happy to do this stuff. You just
got to find the right You just got to
find the right one. And it's not the
easiest to do. Sometimes you got to go
through a few people and a few things to
get there, but
hire fast fire faster. Correct.
You try not to.
Try to give them the benefit of the
doubt.
Yeah, for sure. It's you got to be a
different breed to be out in the sun day
in and day out. So, you got to be you
got to be super super tough. So, when a
homeowner hires a lawnmowing company in
Tarpon Springs, in St. Pete, in Tampa,
what are some things they should look
out for? What are some things they
should avoid?
I don't know. I don't necessarily know
things that they should avoid. I know
that whenever somebody hires us, we
reach out right away. We make sure that
we let them know what day we're coming,
what to expect, ask them if they have
any special requests or anything that's
different about their property that's
from somebody else. I don't necessarily
know about things to watch out for then,
but obviously if anybody asks for money
up front before they cut the grass,
sometimes that's a sometimes that's a
red flag.
Yeah.
I don't know. We try to do all the
things to avoid all those things. So, I
don't really know exactly what to tell
somebody not to do.
That's that that's a great point. And
last question, what's one piece of
advice that you could share with someone
that's trying to grow their landscaping
business in the Florida area? My advice
would be
our opinion on the same thing is slow
and steady. We joke it's like the turtle
in the hair. You don't want to go too
slow, but you also definitely don't want
to go too fast. When we were in
Tennessee, I don't want to say I did it
too fast, but I scaled pretty quick and
I wasn't ready to be as big as it got at
that point. So, here in Florida, as I've
been scaling and getting bigger, I've
just been doing it slow and steady of
what makes sense for our business.
Certain times we'll push a little bit
more to pick up a good handful of
clients at one time and then we'll pause
for a little bit. Then we'll do it
again. And we do it basically just to a
good point where it makes sense for us
so that way it's we're not completely
overwhelmed and also so we're completely
making sure that all of our clients are
taken care of. I think a big thing about
growing is that everybody wants a new
client and more clients and more clients
and more clients. But if you really look
at it, say you have a client that you've
had for five or six years,
sometimes if you keep getting all these
new clients, you're putting all of your
efforts towards that and you're leaving
them in the background and in the dust.
And sometimes your oldest clients are
your best ones because obviously they've
stuck with you forever. you probably
have been able to increase prices and
they stayed with you and they're
probably the clients where if you just
reached out for any kind of upselles or
ask them if they needed anything extra
that they're probably going to do that
stuff. So that's my that's my tip is
just grow but grow at a pace that works
for your company and make sure that all
of your clients that actually that you
actually do care about because obviously
they're helping you grow your business
are taken care of 100% the way that they
should be.
Gotcha. That's That's a great tidbit.
So, Eric, thank you so much for joining
the show. If you have a landscaping
business and you're trying to grow, just
keep going, keep mowing, and keep
growing. Until next time, we'll see you
soon.