From Pulling Weeds to 30 Employees, The Sean Collins Story | Episode 149

You might make 50 calls.

Right. You might get you might get to a point. It's not about 50 calls. You're missing my point. I'm going to interrupt you because this is really pissing me off right now. It's not I'll make f there it goes. Excuse my language. I will make fucking 5,000 phone calls if it's people I know and I think it's gonna grow my business. It's not about the number of calls. It's about who are you calling and why are you calling them? Uh let me finish. And then when you call them and they give you a hot lead, I'll call that person a hundred times over a 10-year period. Say, yo, I won't cut your cemetery. Welcome to the podcast dedicated to real estate, insurance, and building your business. Join us as we take you along our own business building journeys with additional wisdom from our network of local and national experts. Welcome to Bricks and Risk.

This episode is brought to you by Property Management Redefined. PMR is not just managing properties, we're creating partnerships that build long-term success for property owners. John and his team can be reached at manage at goPMR.com or by phone 267-753-6005. Tim. Yes, Sean. Who's a good client for PMR?

Property management redefined is looking for property owners who value three things accountability, reliability, and a results-driven approach. You want to maximize returns, but still provide client and tenant satisfaction.

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Right here, guys. Reach out to John Sachs and his team at Property Management Redefine. Take good care of you. Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Garrety. Tim Garrety's co-host for the day, Sean Mooney. And today, Sean, we have my cousin on today. We have entrepreneur superstar Sean Collins, owner of Garden Views. How are you doing today, Sean? Good. How are we doing, boys? Good. Thanks for coming in. Ah, no problem. So Sean is a true entrepreneur, to put it lightly. Not only is he my better looking cousin, but he has business deals and hard work running through his veins. From cutting his neighbor's lawns at a young age and building a small business from scratch with his brothers, shout out to Brian and Steven. Sean graduated up by purchasing a landscaping services company called Garden Views and growing into a considerable scale. They're currently at 30 employees. Going by the motto build, design, maintain, Sean has found further opportunities through outdoor living spaces such as fire pits, outdoor kitchens, and custom pools. I've seen some of that work. He earned a diploma from LaSalle College High School. Hail LaSalle. As well as a BS degree from Delaware Valley University. Go Aggies. So you're my youngest cousin. We're 17 years apart, for those who don't know. My dad, John Garrity, is the oldest of five. And the only boy. So he's got four younger sisters. His youngest sister's your mom. Shout out to Aunt D. So the rumor in the Gardy household for me growing up was that you started hustling at a young age to earn money. Is that true? True. Okay, let's talk about that. What were you doing? Anything. Anything to make money. Okay. Give me an example. You fixing toilets, you cutting lawns. Newspapers, you sweeping driveways, you bringing in groceries.

You know, cutting grass, picking weeds at the neighbor's house, you know. My parents would be, where'd you go? I was at the neighbor's house picking weeds.

Were you doing Uber Eats back then?

No.

Alright, so let's talk about picking weeds. How'd you do that? Did you go to a neighbor, knock on the door, and say, I see some weeds in your garden right here, would you mind if I pick 'em?

No, they were just older neighbors. They were always, you know, they didn't mind if I came over and helped, and I was like, what else am I gonna do with my time? Okay.

And then when you started helping them, how'd you figure that out? Were you like, oh, it'd be 10 bucks? Or you're like, they'd be like, How much you want? Or you just said, No, I'll just help you pull the weeds, and when you were done?

Pretty sure it was pro bono.

Okay. Yeah. Alright, so you start hustling at a young age, pro bono. Then you started cutting lawns. Let's talk about we get we're getting into like business with your brothers. Right. How'd that start? Neighbors see you cut the lawns, see, can you cut mine? You start knocking on doors. Like, how did that start?

You know, cut ours, cut the neighbors, and just kept on growing. Everyone, when they see a young kid out there cutting grass, why don't we give it to the young kid? Yeah. It's like me with a lemonade stand.

I I have to stop. There, like if I'm dry, I don't care if I'm on the turnpike, like pulling over and getting a couple. Just trying to illustrate the point, Tim. Um, you know, I'm gonna pull so like with kids, it's like, ah, little Jimmy over there is cutting grass. Better than me cutting grass.

Right. You know? All right, so you you run home, grab, you grab the family lawnmower, go over to your neighbor's house, start cutting their lawn. What were you charging? Twenty bucks. Okay. So you start making twenty bucks. Start going to other neighbors. Like, I'm trying to get a sense of how'd all this happen? Were you just going to I'm gonna knock on every door on this block and see if I can cut their lawn? Was I sending them a letter? Were you making phone calls? Like, how did you get started cutting lawns?

I'm more just people driving by, hey, you want to cut my lawn? Yeah, give me a quote. Okay. Okay. Do it right there on the spot. Next.

Okay. And then you got to a point where too many lawns. Right. Who'd you bring in first? Did you bring in both your brothers? No, we were all in it together. So you were all doing it from the start? Right. Okay, so I'll do this lawn, you do that, you do the Johnsons, and then all three of us go out there together.

What we used to do was we used to watch the prices right. Okay. From like whatever it was, eleven to twelve. Frickin' love that show. Right?

And then we would shout out to Bob Barker.

And then we would go out.

I wasn't even there when he was a kid. He probably drew dry. Was it? Yeah. We had the real white hair in the tan at that point.

Like it was like, you know, he had a cane backstair backstage at that point. But keep going.

Okay, so all three of you would go. So then we'd, you know, put the two lawnmowers in the back of the trailblazer, stuff them in there. Nice. And then, you know, I was the youngest, so one of the other two would drive and off we go. Okay.

Was there a point that struck you like obviously you're doing this for neighbors and snowballs into something, right? Like it's like what what was the point where it's like, hey, I like we have a business here or something. Like, where is there a point that you can recall where it like maybe changed? Like, holy crap, we got like 25 lawns or something.

Like I'd say, like, you know, junior year of high school.

Okay.

What was it? Like, what was like there it was like, all right, there's some money coming in here. There's we're our pockets are growing. Like buy more equipment, hire more staff?

Like, what was uh what were you thinking at that point?

Buy more equipment and try to expand. We didn't really start hiring staff, I would say, until after college. Did you have the zero turns back then? What are we talking about? All push? Yeah, no, you know, walk behind, you know, ramp it up into the truck, that sort of stuff. Okay.

How old were you, would you say, when you were throwing two mowers in the trailblazer and cruising over? What age was that?

Eighth grade? Seventh grade. Yeah, seventh, eighth grade.

Okay. All right. My brothers were what? High school. High school. It's they're in high school. You're driving the bus. I'm gonna it grew through word of mouth, it sounds like exactly so you you'd be cutting ten lawns and they go tell five people they know. Uh who cuts your lawn? They're like, oh, talk to the Collins brothers. Right. And then they'd be like, okay, call you. Hey, call my lawn. Collins Cutters. Call Collins Cutters. Who came out with the name? I don't know. Maybe you.

No, I don't think it was. Was one of no, maybe Brian.

Was Aunt D? Maybe. I don't know. I don't remember. You remember who came up with Collins Cutters? Okay. So then you graduated, you're like, okay, we need more equipment or we need the trailer. Right. You know, more efficient. Because again, we're breaking our backs, throwing mowers in the back of an SUV, like that kind of approach. Right. So then you probably took some of the capital, invested into the business, started buying equipment. Okay, so that's what's going on. When when did it come to the point? I think you were in high school where you had a friend, right? And friends, relative or parent. Yeah, neighbor. Neighbor. Right. Owned a landscaping company. Right. Talk about that a little bit. How'd that happen?

So, like, uh, we needed started, you know, we needed help on the weekends or asked kids in high school, hey, yo, you guys want to help us? We got this big job. Do you want to come out? And he came out, helped us out, and was like, hey, like, my neighbor is, you know, has this landscaping business and they're looking to retire. You have maybe you should talk to her.

Okay. So you know someone has a business. They may want to sell it at some point. Right. But you're just a worker. Like, you're just like these, I'm assuming they had other young kids, right? Uh, theirs was, you know, hired help, you know. Okay. Gotcha. So then what how old were you when this conversation happened? Ah, like junior, senior year of high school. No way. So you're like 16, 17 years old. Someone says, hey, someone might want to sell a bigger landscaping company. You're already running your neighborhood landscaping company with your brothers. Right. Like, what was it that got you to say, like, yeah, I I want to talk to this guy?

Yeah, uh, you know, it was like, oh, we could maybe turn this into something bigger than what we just have, you know? Get out of the make it bigger than just Huntington Valley, Rydall, Jacontown area.

So you know what's interesting about that? It's because we've had this conversation before. There's like some people who grow their business organically, like Collins Cutters. It happened organically. You cut five lawns, they tell other people you're cutting ten lawns, then you're cutting fifty. Right. That's your organic approach, word of mouth. But the business that came in front of you was an acquisition because you already had this business. Okay, you already you're super hyper local, right on Huntington Valley. But this is a bigger business. On the other side of town, this is out in like Malvern, right? Right. Okay, so it's out in Malvern. You're like, where the hell is Malvern, probably? Or maybe you already knew where it was. And you go all different world, different homes, you know, bigger business. What made you want to even like consider buying or taking over someone's business at some point versus just like, well, we're doing ride on Huntington Valley? Why don't we just do Abington next? Why don't we go into Fox Chase? Like, why don't we go over to Glenside? Like big tippers in Glenside. There are. What made you want to go that direction versus just let's just keep going word of mouth?

I guess I felt like we were at a little bit of a standstill. How can we take this to the next level? You wanted to go bigger faster. Right. All right, so bigger faster.

Did the like what was the business? Um did they mesh uh did they mirror each other? So you were just cutting or were you doing planning and mulching on all that stuff? Right. And were they doing the same thing at a larger scale or did they have different um like offerings, like different lines of business?

No, the same thing at just a larger, larger scale. Yeah. You know, instead of a half acre house that you know only has a little bit, maybe they're doing a three to five acre home. Yeah. And was it cutting or were they doing that was more, you know, full just maintenance.

Maintenance, yeah.

Um billion dollar homes. Okay. Were they doing any commercial business back then? Like were they doing any corporate or apartment building? Okay. So they had a few. Yeah, they had like you know, a salon and stuff like that. Oh, so just that kind of not like an office park or anything like that. No. Okay. So they're kind of like dipping their toes in commercial, which you hadn't done with Collins Cutters yet. Right. Uh they got these bigger, wealthier homes, like, yeah, it's it's a little bit more property, but it's more money. Right. Okay, so you start working with this guy. Then what happened? How'd the conversation start?

Wait, before that, did you prep for this? Like, you know what this guy's doing, or did you just go in and like let me let me feel him out, let me see what it's all about, or did you have like something you call him banks?

You're like, how am I gonna buy this thing? Or are you like, let me just go cut with this dude? Nah, I was just like, let's meet and see how it goes.

Yeah. And then you met up.

Well, what what was the conversation?

Uh, you know, we're looking to retire. Would you guys be willing to take this on and we'll try to do it over like a five-year period?

Wow. Did they have any other like kids or cousins, like nephews or other people that they were trying to sell? Like, how did they know?

There was one other they were like, if you don't want to do it, we have one other guy that would be interested.

Okay.

So they knew you were serious. You know, we want to pass it down to someone that's gonna do something with it, not just another landscaping company that's gonna add it to their portfolio. And they didn't look at you though, that like you're a kid?

I mean, see, you look a kid in high school, like 16, 17 years old. We want to leave this business to someone. And we were really thinking like junior playing football in the that really might be a good opportunity.

Yeah, it probably gets more towards, you know, probably we're now probably towards like sophomore junior year of college. Okay. You know, now I'm working there as like an employee, working there trying to learn the business.

But but at the time, so they bought you in as a as a worker then. Right. Okay. So then you're like, all right, but but at the time that you decided to go work for them, right? It wasn't drawn up that you were going to Yeah, it was like, you know, it was in the works, you know, it was in the background, but there was no handshake.

Yeah, exactly.

But but but operating your lawn in and around Huntingdon Valley is not like so I know that like geographically it's far away.

And to operate that asking these questions, is like this isn't normal. Like people aren't just like, oh yeah, I'll just go buy a business over at Malvern.

I know, but like you have to you to in order to do that, you have to kind of be all in. Yeah. It was no like, oh, let me go feel this now.

I'll think about it. Like you knew where you were going. Yeah. I was like, let's do it. So you knew where you were going, you're going to Malvern, you're working with this guy, let's call it like three, four years as an employee. He said, Come work with me as an employee, I'll pay you money, but you're still doing Collins Cutters, right? Right. So you're you're still allowed to do all that back home. Right. Are you still involved? Are you still cutting lawns there too?

Yeah, you know, I'm working there for eight hours and come home, maybe do a little bit and then do the rest on the weekend.

Oh my God. All right. So you're you're at this place Monday through Friday. Right. Come home at night. Any Collins Cutters work has to be done. You do that at night. Right. Any additional work done on the weekends, back to him on Monday. Right. So you're working seven days a week.

But where where where are your brothers in the mix? Are they going?

Or are they still involved with Yeah, they're at this point, no.

They're your back hurting because they're both on it, and you're like, oh, you guys think you can get off?

They're on to, you know, they graduated college at this point and they're working at their own day job. Yeah.

Well, one's one's a teacher, right? And one's in business, like corporate jobs. Right. Yep. Alright, so you start working for this guy. You're at Del Val. You're doing landscape design, right? Right. Okay. So you got the street knowledge. Hey, I'll pull your weeds. Then you're like, I'll mow your lawn. Then you're like, throw two mowers in there. Then it's like, all right, let's buy the equipment, do more lawn. Now you're working for this guy. But I think what's cool, this is also like a part of the story that I don't know if you've I you and I have ever really talked about it. You started like learning a little bit from the classroom. Right. Because you didn't have to go to college at this point. You really didn't. Like you could you're a worker and you're a grinder and you're out there, you're like, I'll freaking cut anyone's lawn. Like, I don't care because I know if I'm willing to cut anyone's lawn, I'm gonna make money and this business is gonna grow. So you don't need college. Like you've already figured it out. But yet you went to college. Was it a two-year program, four-year program? Four-year program. Okay, so you went four years at, you know, a university, you're learning landscape design. Why? Why'd you do that?

You know, to help us get into those areas of getting out of the cutting grass, go do the top-end jobs, you know, do a patio, do a retaining wall that holds up a parking lot. So when you're sort of stuff.

So when you're at Del Valle, like is part of the curriculum, like you're learning how to hardscape?

No, it's more of you know, horticultural stuff, like learning, you know, how plants get their nutrients and fertilizers. Wow. Yeah, yeah. So you're learning like the biology of the case. Yeah, so when I'm at Del Valle, you know, you can take 16 credits and do it in four years. And they're like, but you can take a maximum of twenty and be done in three and a half and save yourself money. So I was like, let's do it. Wow, you maxed it out. Max it out. And you're doing these two jobs. Yeah, and just you know, get done in three and a half years. I went the other way.

I I did college in five. I did five. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. He was a big fan of Mad Dog. He's like, I can't give this up. Right. You know? MD 2020. Why would I go?

Was he so in those early conversations with the uh firm that you wound up acquiring, is it was called Garden Views when you took it over. Um, was he kind of mentoring you uh along the way, like holding your hand saying, hey, you should do this, or you should talk to this client, or you should do like you know, focus on that.

There's a transition period. Hey, like, hey, you should meet Mrs. Jones and talk to her about X, Y, and Z.

Yeah.

Okay. So he's kind of connecting you to people. Right. He knows that you know your stuff. You're college educated on the subject. You're uh school of hard knocks educated, if you want to call it. You've you've done it yourself. You started from pulling weeds to creating a business. Look, I know sometimes you and I talk about it and you're you're extremely humble, which I, you know, appreciate and I respect. But dude, not everyone has that get up and go attitude, especially at a young age. Like people are like, no, I got a baseball game. They're like, you know, I just want to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Like you're out there, you're like, no, I'm making money. Like I'm making cash. And I think that's a good lesson for anyone in business, anyone in life, that you're not gonna get anywhere without hard work. Whether it's you want a PhD or you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, or you want to build a landscaping company, it all starts with hard work. Because as you grow and get going, what happens is you're like, well, there's more hard work if I want to grow. You know, it's it's not me and my brothers anymore. It's 30 freaking employees at this company now, and I'm responsible for their livelihoods. Like they have families, like this is their career. Like, my job is to put food on their table, maybe bring in five more, bring in 10 more. And and then we got a massive company. So I I think that's like super honorable. I know you're super humble about that, but all right, so let's get back to it. So you're in college, you're learning horticulture, you're graduating early, you're working at Collins Cutters, you're working at this place, then the guy says, All right, it's time. Let's sit down and put pen to paper and let's figure this out. Right. Without getting, you know, you don't have to get into numbers and stuff like that. How did you even buy it? How did that happen? Did you have enough money saved up? Did you have to get bank financing? Did you just work at a deal? I'll pay you back. Like, how did that happen? Uh owner finance. Okay. So he gave you a private loan.

Right.

And then we, you know, we paid interest on whatever it was for that year. Okay. Were you the type you're like, I'm gonna pay out all your interest in January? And then I'll want to.

We were more like no, we were just we kind of let season by season, so you get like, you know. We just let it roll to the end and we're like, all right, what what's the damage and just cut the check? Gotcha. Okay. So you would just let it go all the way into December? Just be like, all right.

What do I owe you? Right. What's it? Yeah, you owe me you owe me a conservative. Okay, cool. There you go. Right. And then next year, how long did it take to pay off the business? Five years. Was it meant to be a five-year program or did you uh did you amplify it? No, we it was meant to be.

Okay, so you stuck with that one. All right, we stuck with that one.

All right, so you you own you own garden views now. Right. You're f any of the family still working the business? Yeah, my Brian does. Brian works in the business. What what's Brian's role?

What's he doing? You know, helps with estimates, paperwork, that sort of stuff.

And they also does he's the book nerd. Yeah. Auntie also does. No offense, Brian. That's a good thing.

Yeah. She does, you know, invoicing, that sort of stuff. Okay.

So your mom, my auntie, Denise, she is she's doing uh the invoicing, following up with people. All the deadbeats get a call from Aunt D. That's right. And it's like you feel feel the wrath. That's right. The the kindness is not weakness, wrath of Aunt D.

Um, you know, my parents are retired, so they instead of them killing each other, you know, they We don't want that. Yeah. They need to keep moving. Right, that's right. You know? That's great. Keep them young.

And what's what's Uncle Pat doing? Let's let's not he's out there, you know. Shoveling? Cutting? No. Yeah, he's cutting.

Yeah.

So he's still doing cuts. Yeah. And you're still doing all the accounts from Collins Cutters, too.

Yeah, they're still That's all still part of the business? We probably lost some and gained some here and there, but yeah, they're still there.

So that's kind of just like an existing book that you just you take care of them. They're neighborhood people, you know, like good friends. Yeah, you can't let them get started. Can't let them go.

So who cut like back to the geographical distance? Because that in the There's almost like not enough hours in the day for what you're doing, man. But that's what I'm saying. Like any landscaper around my way is not going out of like a five-minute drive. No. Right? So like they're like mentally, they can't go geographically. Geographically. I think they look at it like there's enough people that we can find within five or ten minutes away. Like, we don't need. But you almost have two different businesses. How how many lawns do you think are are um cons cutters, like right now?

75. Really? It really got down. It's yeah, I know, but not as big as it was.

It's still a lot of lawns. A lot of lawns to cut. It's like almost like you're running two different businesses. Yeah. Like you can't pull sta like you can't pull staff from Alvern.

So like the cruise in Newtown Square, let's say we go all the way from Newtown Square to Harleysville. Okay. To uh where else? Like all the way up on like County Line, like County Line in Bustleton. Yeah. Oh wow.

Spend a half a day driving.

Where else too? You know, down to Drexel. Oh wow.

Dude's so awesome. Hey everyone, this is Tim, your favorite bricks and risk co-host. But don't tell Sean. I hope you're enjoying this episode, and I'll get right back to it in a moment. Our audience grows through word of mouth. So if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you're on, that would be fantastic. Please also help spread the BR word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend. We greatly appreciate your time and trust. Now, back to the show.

Nothing real, like, you know, nothing kind of, I don't know, let's just say that south towards media or nothing so much that way, towards like Delaware.

You're going like north and east. Right. Basically. Right. Do you have any other locations for equipment other than like Newtown Square or Malvern area? Right there. You have one central location.

Yeah. Your staff is 30?

Right.

How many trucks do you have? I don't know. Eight. How much do you spend a month on gas?

I don't know. I don't know that off the top of my head. No. Where's Brian? Yeah, that's that's a Brian question. Brian, you gotta text me. Give me the gas bill for uh for August.

Have you ever Okay, so like what you just laid out to me makes my mind go low.

Oh, here we go. Boom. Like, like it's the 180 degrees between me and Mooney, but yeah, no, I I see what you're saying.

Have you ever Done like an audit on your business to say, like, hey, me like what what's it cost to like service this guy in Harleysville? Right. If we're going to Harleysville, it's like an HOA community though.

Okay. Right. Like all these all these areas like we expanded to. It's not a lawn. No, it's not, it's like, you know, these five guys are going there for the day. Yeah. Yeah. And that's their you know. That's where they stay. You're going to, you know.

I would I if this I'm like you're not even gonna sleep tonight.

I'm not.

Because you're gonna be like, how does he but I would be in AI, like, you know, mapping this stuff out and like and like building efficiencies and finding ways to uh triangulate like the the way that we're doing these jobs and how to like building efficiencies and okay, if I'm in Harleysville, like alright, now I'm like, all right, how can I find two more in Harleysville? Because if I'm there for the day, then I can just like What's the drive Harleysville to Newtown Square, like a half hour?

No, 45 minutes.

Yeah, it's wow, yeah. That's a hike. That's the you know, the blue route all the way up to the landscape. All right, so here's a question, not to get too far down his rabbit hole. Here's another tunnel. If you're up in Harleysville, are you trying to get another HOA? Yeah, of course. Okay, how would you do that? Would you knock on a door? Would you you waiting for word of mouth?

You know, reach out to who we know. Okay. You know, what talk to this property manager that maybe has something nearby or Alright, so let's get to something real quick.

Okay. I usually Okay, got I usually save the quote for the end. But this this is the quote, this is the quote that got us talking. I'm like, we're we're definitely doing an episode. It's not the grades you make, but the hands you shake. You and I were both hammered, basically. I was leaving to catch an Uber at your 30th birthday, and then I was like, oh dude, I f I friggin' love that line. It sounds like Harleysville, let's use this as an example. Right. It is about the hands you shake. Right. Because you're shaking hands up there. And then maybe in the back of your mind, maybe subliminally, maybe they know you'd like to shake another hand, or maybe you're telling them, yo, you got anyone else up here for me, like you, that wants my service, let me know. I'll talk to them. Is that what you're doing? Is it just happening all organically? Are you kind of wink wink like letting people know you're interested in more business?

Yeah, like we don't there's not much on social media. There's not much, you know, we're not sending out emails. It's more just okay, uh, we're looking to, you know, expand here. Let's see if who we know in this area and let's see if we can reach out to them or existing clients. Do you have anyone, you know, that you know that might be interested in So it's reaching out to people you already know.

Right. Saying we we'd like to help more people. Right.

Well, it's here's I would I would have okay, I would hire a VA to dial the phone I would not hire to every property. So I would pick where I wanted to be. I'd probably s try to stay towards Newtown Square because if I'm gonna spend money most efficient to be there. But I would hire a VA to call every property management company uh in that area and just and dial and dial and dial and dial and dial. Because you already have relationships with some property managers, right?

I mean you would reach out to people you don't know. Yeah. The VA. You'd hire a VA to reach out to people you don't know. Who's handling your landscape in this year? And we were just having this conversation today. There's the approach of like I can make 50 phone calls a day, VA or yourself, reach out to people I don't know and figure I'll get two appointments out of that and one of them will sign up with me. Yeah. And you're like, how long does it take to make 50 phone calls? So there's that philosophy. The second philosophy, which I agree with you, who's my strategic handshake in Harleysville? And does that person know one other person or three other people that he either could introduce me, he or she could introduce me to, or give me their numbers and I'll call them myself. That's the other approach. That's the warm approach. That's you already got the report, the relationship, the trust of the existing account. You're not gonna call these property managers, you don't know, because you're like, who the hell are they? And how do we even know if they want to work with someone like me?

That is one way that I got like one of our first like big jobs. Uh yeah, tell that we did a I was calling a cemetery and uh looking for plots? Yeah, where to bury you. Yeah, yeah. Uh I had this client that just pain the ass really pisses me off. And um called him and he was like, nah, maybe next year, maybe next year. And I called next year, and finally we it hit.

That's what I mean. Well, how'd you call that guy? What was the you just drove by a cemetery?

You know, it was like I got another one, a small one. He was like, hey, you should maybe call this guy. He's looking. So then I he didn't know who he didn't know who I was from Adam. Right. But that was the guy running the cemetery account? Yeah, it's privately owned. There you go. He probably, it's been, I don't know, five, six years we're still there. Yeah.

Here's the thing there's no right or wrong way. And this is this is what we love about this show. It's like he and I always different ideas. But we're always like lockstep. We we are lockstep in where we're going. Yeah. But how we get there sometimes. How we get there is different. He wants to go hire a VA and make 50 phone calls to people he doesn't know. I'm like, no, no, no. I'm gonna go talk to five people I do know.

Yeah, but you could do both because I'm not speaking to I'm not calling 50 people. I know. You're still paying someone to do it.

Yeah. I'm not paying someone to do it. What do you do with the insurance company?

No.

You're not practicing with the idea.

No, every business every business is different. It's like when we had uh Marla, the spray tainer, on our show. Shout out to Marla and so a close. What I what my advice for, I'm like, you gotta be on Instagram. And she's like, Are you on Instagram? I'm like, No, I don't do Instagram. I hate Instagram. But for you, for what you should be doing and how you should be marketing your business, you need to be on Instagram.

No, he he knows better than you.

You know?

No, I'm saying what I'm saying now is like, do you have a finder's fee? Because I'll hire the VA, I'll get you to work, and I'll take a finder's fee to go find you the business.

Yeah, hey. That sounds that's not so bad.

Right? Right. You just pay one time fee, pay me, I'll go get you the lineup to make it. Looks like you guys are getting coffee after this.

Yeah, yeah. I get all those emails all the time. Right. Me too. Yeah. Do you know what I do? Spam. Right. See ya.

Yeah.

What do you do with them?

I put them in the can. They actually I get I got two emails. We want to buy your agency or we want to like fund your agency with like 500,000 like line of credit or something. Yeah, of course. Money from Dubai? But it's all a listen, you like you just explained in that phone call, right? So like someone he knew. It wasn't you didn't know this cemetery. Someone who knew a guy you knew. Yeah. Oh, so he knew a guy who knew a guy. Okay. It's all about who you know, not what you know. Yep. So my point in saying that is But it didn't happen. And you called again the next year. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. What I'm saying is you might make 50 calls. Right. You might get you might get to a point that's not about 50 calls.

You're missing my point. I'm going to interrupt you because this is really pissing me off right now. It's not, I'll make fucking cerebral. Excuse my language. I will make fucking 5,000 phone calls if it's people I know and think it's going to grow my business. It's not about the number of calls. It's about who are you calling and why are you calling them? Uh let me finish. And then when you call them and they give you a hot lead, I'll call that person a hundred times over a 10-year period, say, yo, I won't cut your cemetery.

That was my point. What's the difference between you calling someone you don't know and the person that you call who knows a guy who knows a guy?

Because the guy who knows the guy knows Sean, and the table's already been set, he'll be like, the other guy's gonna be like, oh, yo, remember that guy Sean you introduced me to? He's ready to call me. He called me, he calls me once a year, every year. I appreciate that. What a good guy. Now he's never gonna get Sean out of his head. If 50 VAs call this guy, he's gonna take them all, flush them down the toilet, and say, I don't want those people. I'm interested in him because he took the call.

So if he calls someone and says, Oh, Sean, you know what? We uh we just re-upped with our guy uh last month. So we're locked in for a year. Then you have a lead for next year. Like you you can't just dismiss, like, oh well, that's just a waste of time.

You'll never that's not that's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. You're saying hire someone to call people all these random people. Yeah. Call every property manager, management company from here to Newtown Square or something. We're down the Mooney Channel, okay? I'll I'll meet him on his level.

You've turned into a food fight over here.

I would hire a VA and I give them my phone and say, find all the people on my phone that have anything to do with landscaping. Those are the people I want you to call. Those are the 50 phone calls I want you to make.

Yeah, but you're acting like there's an infinite number of people on your phone that you can call it.

No, I need an infinite number of people.

It's not. The property managers need the service. I want to talk to them, not the three people on your phone that have landscaping services.

This is what see, this is why the show works so well. Because you and I dislike each other on a lot of business levels. We have a guest. Let's let him speak. That's true.

You're saying something and you don't even do it.

There we go. There we go. Woo! I know you're Mike Wilson. Thank you.

I want the VA at the office.

See, I will do it. I am. I will I do it. I'm doing it. I'm gonna do it behind the scenes, and I'm gonna start leading the uh lining up leads.

We're gonna get off Mooney's back here. All right, so let's talk about commercial maintenance. Because this was one of the things that you had brought up. So you're Collins Cutters, it's not commercial maintenance. You're cutting mom and pop, like people's front, back lawn. Then you go to this company, they're mostly cutting lawns, right? No, they're mostly doing like maintenance, not not much mowing. Okay, all right. So I'm sorry, mowing and maintenance, two completely separate things. Maintenance is more like flower beds and landscaping, that kind of thing. Exactly. All right, so they're doing they're doing landscaping, but they were doing it for people's homes. Correct. All right. But commercial maintenance is like like what you're talking about, an HOA, property management, management company's got 20 HOAs, uh, they got uh each one of them has a hundred units, those are those are big properties. So that's commercial maintenance. So why why drive to Harleysville for commercial maintenance? Like what what's what's the argument versus just doing more lawns?

You know, you know what you're getting from that client. The contract's set, you know, they're gonna pay you X, and that's done. And you know what you need to do.

Know what you need from like a timeline standpoint, or know what you need from a financial standpoint?

Financial. Compared to Mrs. Jones, you know, she might do a ton this year and not so much next year. I gotcha.

So it's the homeowner's unpredictable. The HOA is every year they change out the flowers. Every year we got to check, see what's dying. Right. They and they have enough plants, trees, flowers, whatever, to be like, there's always gonna be something that needs to be replaced. There's always something that's gonna be dying or needs to be trimmed or whatever.

It's also a set number. Like you know exactly what that contract is earmarked for. So how much your brain is. Smith might need a tree prune this year, she might need a tree prune next year. Like it's you you don't know what you're gonna get with her from year to year.

Go through all your commercial clients, 50, 60, 80, whatever. They all add up. Here's what you're getting from them. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Smith, you know, you might know what you're gonna get. You're gonna get close, but it's not gonna be.

Yeah, they could say, We you know what, it's been a tough year, Sean. Like, you know, my husband lost his job, or like, you know, we're we're just cutting back on landscaping. We're gonna skip this year. Right. So therefore, you could have lost a client. But with the bigger accounts, bigger money, you find here's a question, because I don't know this. In commercial maintenance, it's gonna require more labor, obviously. You're gonna have more people involved, more trucks, you know, you're probably bringing more stuff from the nursery, more mulch, the whole thing. Does it have a better margin or a worse margin than cutting someone or than doing someone's like uh personal landscaping? If you had to guess.

Uh I'd say that like home maintenance, you probably have a better margin on. But a lower lower dollar. Because you have, you know, on the commercial, you're not the only, you know, they put it out for bid and there's you and five other guys bidding it. Maybe it's lowest bid, maybe they don't do lowest bid and it hits the middle, you know. Right. They want quality. Right. So I'd probably say that the homeowners get better margin. Yeah. What are you doing for marketing? Anything? No. Nothing.

You have the trucks like have their name on the side, but that's what's your um you probably wouldn't even have a customer acquisition cost because it's just so it's all word of mouth. Right. Word of mouth or a phone call. Right. So um people he knows. I'm gonna piggyback off of what you just said. Um I think that there's someone sitting at this table that would be well suited to have an email newsletter. Absolutely. I think that that would be Which is what I do. That's why I'm bringing it up. Appreciate that. You you so so the reason I bring this up, the the cost to acquire a new client like cold is gonna be way higher than either A finding someone through your network or B adding services to your existing client. Correct. Right? I would be a monthly newsletter about what's going on, the services that you offer, because now you're like cutting Mrs. Jones, right? You have a relationship with her, but she gets her sh snow shoveled by Jim's snow and the company.

Right. She only does the lawn or landscaping maintenance.

But she's like, oh, I didn't know you did snow, right? So so letting people know about know about everything that you do, because that it's going to be the most cost-effective way to grow your your revenue per client than anything else. It would be even if you spent like I don't know, what could he do? How many clients do you have? Like total rough number?

In the hundreds, you know, it's 200.

250 250 clients. Like to get that out, you're staying top of mind with all of your clients, you're letting them know all your services, like you could do oh man, and you could build AI.

You can also do be with 200 people, he could do a pretty awesome pop by program.

Yeah. And then like aerating, like how many get their lawns aerated, right? Like, but they don't know. Like, but if you had it in front of them in their newsletter to say, hey, run a special, if you sign up for aerate in the next week, and then and it allows you to um book these people in advance and know exactly how many people you're not waiting for them to say, Hey, I want you to aerate this year. It's like you're you're you're physically pushing them into making that decision that allows you more time to get them lined up. I think for you, a newsletter would be phenomenal. Well, you get mine.

I do. You've seen my stuff, get my magazine. I do. All right. So a lot of what he's talking about are like touch points. So touch points, the reason someone would consider doing touch points in any business, landscaping, real estate insurance, you'd be selling pizzas. Doesn't matter. I always say pizza shop owner. The reason you do touch points is because you want to stay top of mind. Because you never know when that moment strikes in their mind where either they or someone they know has a question for you, is considering service, is considering changing service. So his point is more like, all right, so like let's say you're cutting 200 lawns and you only do snow service for 50 of them. Right. Because they're always like, I've always gone through Jimmy, or I always go through Sally. If you have some kind of regular cadence with them in some kind of way, shape, or form, email newsletter is one way to do it, where you're staying in front of them X amount of times a year that they keep seeing over and over again, oh wait, Garden Views could also do my driveway. Eventually, it's gonna go through their minds so many times. So sometimes people they say some people have to see things seven to nine times until it really clicks, and they're like, Oh, you know what? Sean's already doing my I love Sean, I love his cruise, I love everything about it, it's a fair price, it's good quality. Let's call Sean about snow removal. So you're talking more have a touch point or touch points, don't blast it out on Instagram. It's like you put the Things on Instagram, those aren't touch points. Because you don't know who's looking at it, why they're looking at it. Well, I wouldn't say don't do that. I'm saying I'd say don't. I do Instagram, but what you're referring to more is like with the amount of people he has. I'm saying it's something you could institute tomorrow very easily.

Right. It's not a lot of work and not a lot of money. You're talking to a warm client or someone you have a relationship with already. Right. Every new client gets dumped in there. Right. Uh Mrs. Jones could have her driveway sealed every year, but the guy just retired. So now she needs a guy. So does she go to the phone book or does she say, Oh my God, I saw Sean's email last month. Sean, oh, my guy, he's gone. Can you do this? Like it just it's just that touching them over and over, like letting them know what you do is the most cost-effective way to raise your margins. Increase referrals per client. Right. It's it's the best way to do that. So after I'm done getting the leads from my VA that's going to be calling the property management company. Then I'm going to sign you up for MailChimp. Then I'm going to get the newsletter put out, and then we'll be cooking with fish grease.

It's so funny. We we got in here today and my email went out for Bricks and Risk Happy Hour. I'm sure you probably saw that too. Or maybe haven't seen it yet. It went out definitely. You're like, yes, I did, Tim. We came in here at uh 11 to record an episode before you stopped in, and like the email came out while we're in here. I was like, see? Yeah, I already had that done, I already had that scheduled.

Um all right, so here was uh one I was just thinking Tim would help you get the newsletter set up because he's like the uh the official cousin.

Uh one line you dropped was we work hard but we play harder. Why that?

You know, we go out there, we work, but you gotta go home and have fun and do things you enjoy. What's fun? What do you do for fun? Oh, drinking beer.

That didn't take much playing cards, drinking beer.

Yeah, throwing darts, playing cornole.

Yeah, I heard you're you're a big dart guy, aren't you?

Yeah. You in a league, you got a little league going on. You know, just for fun. Darts in the garage, maybe a little neighbors will come over, be out there to like four in the morning. Oh, yeah. Oh, dude, you totally need to be happy. I could see you down there at the Beth Air's tavern.

Uh no. Nah. Not the Beth Airs. He's a garage guy. Yeah. Supposed to do it in the privacy of his own residence. Yeah. Yeah. It's cheap.

You just walk upstairs. Yeah. See?

Pretty good. That's where the moonie efficiency comes from.

Do you have your garage like all done? Is it like all decked out? Yeah, it's pretty yeah.

You know, there's a TV in there, watch sports, there's darts, there's cornhole. Nice epoxy floor.

Oh, I love a good epoxy floor. Eat off that thing. Yo, they have the new one that's not epoxy anymore. It's like better than epoxy. You see that one? No. It's uh what epoxa? No. It's like uh it it it uh called rubber, Sean. No, it's like it it seals like Travertine. Oh like you put it down like a stone mason kind of material. It's dope. I'm like, yo, I gotta I now I need to get one of them. Maybe that's a side business, you know. You don't do that, do you?

No. You don't do epoxies.

Wait, who did yours? Uh so services. Okay. Does he cover Ambler? Yeah. Looks like you got someone doing yours. I gotta call him and see if he does the travertine.

All right, here's the tip. So we always do a tip for listeners and watchers. I thought yours was great. Because this is really what all boils down to. Don't get discouraged by defeat. Why that tip?

You know, there's been plenty of jobs that we've lost on, you know? And you just gotta figure out, all right, well, we did what did we do wrong and move on. Let's try not to make that mistake again.

Where do you think you do you think you just learn that for the fact that you know you can go out and get another account tomorrow? Did you learn did someone teach you that? Be like, don't worry about when someone says no.

You know where it hurts most, the pocket. So, you know, we did a job and let's say we lost, you know, three, five grand or whatever. All right, what'd we what'd we do wrong? Let's right not do that again. Right. So it's kind of like it's you know, don't close both eyes and you know, put your hand in front of your face and then throw the dart. Right. Do that plenty of times. Right. I love a good dart analogy.

That's awesome. And then one, we don't want to get too big a struggle because it's not all sunshine and rainbows, obviously. So biggest struggle you put down was consistency with staff. Why why has that been tough? Like what about staff in the landscaping business? You know, sometimes today, five guys didn't show up. Five didn't show up? Yeah. Wow. What? So like one one sixth of your crew just said no. Just personal stuff, yeah, you know. Drink too much.

Or, you know, sick. Yeah, sick, you know, and this guy had off, that guy had off. It hurts. Oh my god.

How do you deal with that?

You know, you like this cruise. Regroup, you know, you guys are gonna have to go here today, and then you know what we didn't get done today, we're I we're gonna have to work the weekend.

Uh, it's like that's like a that's like every day.

Yeah, you try and you know, yeah, minimize it as best you can.

What kind of retention would you say you have? Like, do most of your guys stay? Do you say we have a constant like year to year, like a core like 20? And the other ten couldn't be about a about a third will leave and then you bring another ten in, kind of thing. And then if you go up to thirty-five, maybe like ten or twelve of them will leave and then so there's always gonna be maybe like a third, quarter or a third of attrit you're just gonna lose people to attrition.

Okay. I don't know how you do it. Like, what?

Because he's shawnee business, man. He doesn't stop.

I know, but like how you where are you going to find 10 people? Are you constantly recruiting? Are you or like, oh, this month we gotta find ten people? Oh, okay.

You know, you get them in the beginning of the year, and then you keep those guys.

Do you have people in your Rolodex, as Mooney puts it, to go get more guys from? Yeah, you know, it's all friends and family of Yeah, you go you can go to your existing crew. Right. Let's say you got 30, 10, go, you go to your 20. Can you bring another 10? Right.

Bring, hey, bring in your cousin, bring in this guy.

Does that solve the problem most of the time? Yeah, I would say 90% of the time.

Okay. And then do it's never like, you know, it's random to me, but not usually random to the guys. It's just like a part of part of the business.

Right.

But like you got a crew going out to Harleysville, and like three guys are like, oh, no shows today. Like, what what? Now now you can't do Harley's. So now you gotta like have these guys go somewhere else, and then Harleysville's gotta be tomorrow. Like, I can't imagine. Like a like with like a flight control center, like, you know, with you ever see the Matt with the planes that are in the air?

He's got a tenth of the staff that you have, and and that is, you know, that's some nuts.

Well, everybody coming on mine, I'm like, everybody's just in the office. Like, we got no problem with that.

Like, jeez. Dude, awesome episode, man. Appreciate you coming down, jumping in the studio with us today. Um, before we shut this one down, why don't you tell our bricks and riskers where they can learn more about you and everything you got going on?

Uh GardenviewsLc.com. And then uh we got an Instagram. There's not much on it. And then uh Where's Aunt D? Is she not on the Instagram? No. Yeah, you want to get you want to give your cell phone number out in case someone wants to call yourself? 215-530-3032. I noticed too that he's got the uh TMF bracelet on. Yeah, it's been on since, well, I had it since uh sophomore year of high school. I broke it, broke one like maybe two years ago. And then this is uh next, the newest one. Love it. There was no writing or anything on the last one, it was just a black oh with the insignia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's cool, man. Good stuff. Awesome. Well, that's all we have for this one, folks. Thank you for tuning in again to another episode of Bricks and Risk. See you on the flip-flop. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets, and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today. You can find all BR episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.