97: Mowing for Money: The Lawn Care Business

At the age of 14, Bryan Clayton was kicked off his parent’s couch and forced to mow the neighbor's lawn.

He wasn't happy about it.

Until he realized how much money he could make! This episode is all about the lawn care business.

You’ll hear;

what it takes to get up and running,
how to find your first customers,
the biggest challenge you can face in running this business, and
what Bryan did to finally land his first commercial client.

Regardless of the side hustle you're in or want to get into, you'll also pick up solid, often hard-won business advice from this episode.

Bryan went on to build his little side hustle into a six-figure business, then scaled it to 150 employees generating revenue of over $10 million a year.

It wasn’t too long after selling it, he got back into business by co-founding GreenPal, a company that’s been described as the “uber for lawn care,” which solves pain points for both local lawn care providers and the homeowners.

Need a little push to start and then stay focused to grow your side hustle? Dive into my online Masterclass, Turn Your Thoughts Into Wanted Things.

If you like what you're hearing, you can give it a caffeinated thumbs up. We'd really appreciate it! Here's how.

What You’ll Hear:

03:40 the realization of, ‘I can make money at this!’
07:25 the difference between being a business owner and being self employed
10:03 benefitting from observing a growing, thriving community
12:54 residential to commercial contracts
14:12 the need to reinvent the business
15:08 getting a local McDonald’s franchise as a client
17:38 low barrier-to-entry to this business
19:22 you could do $100,000 gross and take home 70%-80%
20:15 GreenPal connects people who need lawn care services
22:00 as a business owner, you need to be proactive, not reactive
23:05 repeat business is what drives the lawn care industry
24:20 these days it’s easier than ever to grow your business
25:35 biggest challenges in this business
26:30 you need to do the difficult work as well as the hard work
30:09 what is more lucrative, small lawns or palatial estates
31:30 the decision to sell
Wrap-Up
34:07 how to “show up” up for the client
34:38 what to do when your client is unhappy