Lawn Care Blueprint w/Jeremiah Moser: Lawn Care Recurring Revenue Through Better Client Qualification and Service Pairing

Ezra McCarthy

Welcome back to Lawn Care Blueprint. Today, we are joined by none other than Jeremiah Moser.

And we’re going to be talking about why he chose or is choosing to leave a 30-year career in healthcare to mow lawns and run a lawn and run a business. So we’re going to be unpacking his business journey. Jeremiah, sure glad you’re here today.

Yeah, it’s great to be here. So walk us back to when you started Elite Cuts Lawn Care. Why did you start it?

And then why would you leave healthcare to go cut lawns?

Jeremiah Moser

Well, I guess that journey goes back to 2019. In 2019, I was a burnt-out nurse without realizing I was a burnt-out nurse. I was starting to question some of the ethics and strategy behind the corporations I worked for.

And then COVID hit and the world stopped and any coping mechanisms I had to deal with my burnout went away and things got pretty interesting for a while. And I just realized like, okay, I can’t do the nursing thing anymore. I didn’t have it in me to continue that as my career for the next 30 years.

And so I was like, I got to do something different. I want to do something that I enjoy. At that time, it was golf or it was lawn care and I didn’t think I was going to make the PGA Tour.

So we went with starting a lawn care business and it’s kind of been an interesting journey because I remember when I’m starting, I’m thinking, ah, this will be easy. We’ll be a multimillionaire in a few years. Oh, man, did I?

Well, I had no idea, no clue whatsoever.

Ezra McCarthy

So I know you’re being sarcastic, but did you really think that it was just that easy to get going and just grow real big?

Jeremiah Moser

Honestly, yeah, I just kind of, God, I can do anything if I put my mind to it. And maybe I was just telling myself that because that’s what I needed to hear at the time to get going. But there was a certain degree that thought that I could do better than, farther than I am currently.

But reality sometimes is kicking the teeth.

Ezra McCarthy

Oh, yeah. And not to say you’re not doing well, but it is hard. And I was just curious about your mindset starting in.

So when you got started, was it literally during COVID? Because I’m sure as a nurse, you were just working crazy.

Jeremiah Moser

Yeah, so actually I started in 2021. So we’re a year into COVID. And I just like at that point in time, I was like, I was done.

I had tried to get out of the bedside nursing. I tried to take a management position at a different facility. And I just realized there that like to climb the ranks of a bigger organization to where you really have some say how it was, you kind of have to say a lot of yeses when you may not want to say yeses.

And I didn’t have that in me. So I kind of went back to bedside for a bit and I realized like I can’t, I gotta have at least something that is a path out of this. And so that’s August of 2021.

I just kind of, I made the filings, did all the things and started asking for work.

Ezra McCarthy

How was your initial journey like? Did it start slowly? Was it quicker than you thought?

Maybe a lot slower? What was that like?

Jeremiah Moser

When I started in August of 21, I just started putting out ads on Facebook. I think I did some postcards, things that I got off of Entrepreneur Academy. And then I didn’t get any work until fall cleanups.

And then I did some fall cleanups. At the time, I thought everything was cool. I’m like, man, I got paid to do this.

Now I look back on that and then I didn’t get paid to do this. I paid to do that because I didn’t know any numbers or any pricing. I worked really hard to make no money.

But it was a good lesson to learn at the time. And I got enough work and enough involved in it that it made me really want to say, yes, I want to take a chance at this. And so in December of that year, I used some of my newly found travel nurse money because at that time it was ridiculous money.

And I bought a truck and I bought a trailer and I kind of said, okay, this is what I’m doing. And five years later, we’re still doing it.

Ezra McCarthy

So the next year, obviously, you must have gotten more customers. What was the next couple of years as far as your journey ramping up and finding the right customers?

Jeremiah Moser

So on 22 and 23, I was working full time and I was just kind of doing it on the side. And yeah, I found customers. I found a business networking group in my town and that was huge for me.

I mean, they really kind of took me under their wing and supported me, gave me a lot of work locally. And I grew to about 50,000 in revenue that first year. The second year we went to, so that was 22, 23, we went to 75-ish.

And then the last couple of years, I’ve been right around that 100 to 120 range and trying to figure out how to kind of break that barrier and what I need to take to go to the next level. But it’s been a steady growth. Things have ups and downs.

You learn a lot of things, what to do, what not to do, but we’re heading in the right direction.

Ezra McCarthy

That’s good. Now you mentioned this year before we got on, you’re looking to hire on your first team member. I’m curious, what are some steps you’re taking?

Have you already started looking for that individual?

Jeremiah Moser

Yeah, so I’ve actually had an employee the last couple of years that has worked with me side by side. And so yeah, I’m using, you know, going through the Indeed process. I’ve redone my ad about three times.

I’ve adjusted the pay rate a bunch, just trying to find that right candidate for what I’m looking for. This year, I’m looking for somebody that’s going to be able to kind of run a little more without me there. And so I think in the last few years, I’ve really kind of leaned into using AI to kind of help craft those ads, to be specific, to draw the candidates I’m looking for.

And so we’re having some luck. I was actually, just before I got on with you, I was reviewing a few applicants that had applied and we’re getting people with good experience. And I’m hoping that in the next month or so, I should be able to hire somebody that can kind of get trained up quickly and on their own.

Ezra McCarthy

So you started doing some fertilization and weed control. How much of that is your current business? And then where are you looking to kind of expand on that?

Jeremiah Moser

My fertilization and weed control is probably about 50% of my business. And then the other 50% is maintenance. I’m actually looking to expand more so in the whole residential property maintenance.

I’ve been kind of, and this has been part of the process of growing. And to be quite honest, I think because I haven’t had an exact clear vision of what I wanted this company to be from day one, it’s kind of been morphing as I go. I’ve probably held myself back a little bit intentionally just to make sure that when I do go full throttle, I’m going full throttle in the direction that I want to go and I don’t have to stop and pivot.

I’ve heard many stories about guys getting really big and then going, wait, and having to pivot when they’re big and having to be really hard. With my nursing and stuff, I kind of feel like I’m in a blessed situation where I have options. And so I’ve really kind of, we’re really trying to grow towards that high-end residential total property maintenance.

We come out, we take care of the bushes, the landscape beds, the mulch, mow, trim, fertilize, aerations, overseeds, the whole works for properties at homes that are in that $702 million range. And being in a major metropolitan area where I’m at, I have plenty of those. So that’s kind of what we’re looking into getting into and going more away from just one or the other service.

Ezra McCarthy

Where do you find that those customers are searching for businesses like yours? Are they referrals? Are they online?

And then what does your sales process look like? Or the best sales process as you’ve developed here so far? That really closes the high-end customers.

Jeremiah Moser

So I do a lot of Facebook and then send out door hangers, getting in the Facebook ads and the community pages. And then if you can get into the neighborhood groups and especially if you can find the one person in the neighborhood group that knows everybody. I also have, like I said, that business networking group, even though I’m not a member of them, they still support me a lot.

And then I’ve really just spent a lot of time, a ton of time using AI and different tools to help me craft my service descriptions. I think that’s the thing that’s kind of making sure that we’re selling on value and not on service. I kind of tell everybody that I talk to, we aren’t a transactional company.

You’re not paying for the application, you’re paying for the result. And then our sales process, it’s kind of, it’s morphed over the years. I’ve used, I think, every different software that’s out there.

I’ve used Yardbook, I’ve used Jobber. I currently use LMN. I don’t think I’m going anywhere.

LMN has been fantastic as far as making sure that I recoup my money, but our sales process used to be just call us or send us a message and then I found you and got a website. And so I had a form on the website they filled out and it was last year, last spring, I was just inundated. I had a hundred estimates out, 60 of them had not, they’re just not won, not lost, just in limbo.

And they were all greater than two weeks old.

Ezra McCarthy

How much were you following up with these estimates that are in limbo? Right now, your SEO might be older than your grandma’s secret biscuit recipe. If your website loads slow, ranks even lower, and looks like it was built when flip phones were the hot new thing.

Jeremiah Moser

Is this working or not?

Ezra McCarthy

It’s time for an upgrade. At Green Frog Web Design, we help modernize your online presence and get your lawn and landscaping business in front of real customers who want to hire you. Leave the ancient tech in the past and visit greenfrogwebdesign.com to sign up today.

Jeremiah Moser

My follow-up was not that great. I’ll be quite honest. You get stuck doing them and then you try to follow up back as best you can.

And I just realized that I was so inundated with doing them that I wasn’t able to follow up and there really wasn’t a procedure. So what I did last year was that I set it up on my website that you have to now book a consultation. So you can’t really find the phone number on my website.

I mean, if you scroll to the very bottom, it’s there. Everywhere it says schedule consultation, you click the button, it goes to my calendar. The calendar, which is customized, so I know that I have time to talk to people.

They pick a spot, they fill out their information on the form. I get all that information and then I call them at their scheduled time and then I’m able to figure out what they need, pre-qualify them, do they have irrigation? Because we do require that for all our fertilization and weed control customers.

Let them know that we require fertilization and weed control with all our maintenance. Without it, I can’t guarantee the results and I let them know that. And it’s shocking how in two or three minutes, I can be like, oh, they realize they’re disqualified, they know why.

Most people get it, they understand, they’re not mad about it. I usually, if they don’t qualify, try to just be like, well, here’s what I recommend you do on your own. Or if I know another company in the area that would take them on, I’ll send them their way.

And then those clients that are really good, I can really kind of sell them over the phone and it saves my time because now it’s on the schedule that I created. And I’ve had a lot of great success. I don’t have a whole lot of people leaving me in limbo anymore.

They either say yes or they’ll say no because there’s kind of that we talked about.

Ezra McCarthy

I’m just sitting here thinking, I’m sure a lot of people listening in are thinking, man, what a great problem. 60 estimates in two weeks.

Jeremiah Moser

Yeah, I had a lot of price shoppers, man, a lot of price shoppers. And I went back and I looked through those and I think out of the 100 estimates, I think 15 I got.

Ezra McCarthy

And so… I get why you did it. One thing I would push back though is follow-up.

I bet if you followed up three to four times on those estimates, I’m sure you could have brought that way up.

Jeremiah Moser

Oh, I’m sure I could have. I don’t disagree. My follow-up process is much better now.

So…

Ezra McCarthy

No, that’s good. But I will say this is one thing that I do talk a lot about reducing friction. But if you’re at the point where you’re overwhelmed, I think we even talked on the phone about this.

Jeremiah Moser

Mm-hmm.

Ezra McCarthy

That’s when introducing friction. And I’m curious now, I’m sure the people that do sign on that go through your consultation process, it feels like, and I’m sure you do, take more care of them. They rise.

This isn’t just someone trying to rush through clients, trying to sign up as many people as possible. Do you find that the people that sign up are a lot higher quality and are willing to pay the premium prices?

Jeremiah Moser

Absolutely. And honestly, that’s a little bit of why I went to this process is that those people want that great lawn, but don’t necessarily want to pay the premium prices for it. When you introduce just a bit of friction to actually go through the process to find out, those people weed out really quick.

They don’t want to do it or they try to skirt the process. I’ve had people call me and say, Hey, I can’t find you how to get ahold of you. You need to call me back.

And I’m like, that’s not how it works. But premium clients, yeah, they want that extra level of detail I found. And this is how I give that to them is that extra care and communication where they get to talk to a person.

And it’s really about building that relationship versus a transaction.

Ezra McCarthy

I’m curious, have you tracked your average customer cost per year or client? So like how much they spend per year before and after? Have I tracked that or?

Yeah, I’m curious, have you tracked before you implemented this process what your average customer spend per year was and then now after? Because I’m guessing it’s a lot higher now.

Jeremiah Moser

Honestly, I guess I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really track much of that before. With LMN, I’m able to track all of that now.

It’s one of the reasons that I kind of went with that software. But yeah, I would agree. I mean, most of my clients, my average maintenance client is going to be around $2,500 a year.

And my average full service client is going to be in the $6,000 to $8,000 a year range. And so with that being said, I mean like I’ve weeded out all my returning clients just with my prices and some of the requirements that I have. But all my clients that I had that were kind of at the bottom have been kind of filtered out already.

Ezra McCarthy

That’s really helpful because what I hear a lot of people say is they’re getting like that. And obviously it depends on the market, but like $1,000 to $1,500. But if you have that higher margin, you’re going to be able to take that extra time that maybe is needed or you can get the better service.

Jeremiah Moser

Well, and what I found has boosted my margin is that I’ve required people to couple fertilization and weed control with my mowing. What was happening was I was having a lot of people mowing properties and then they stopped watering or they wouldn’t fertilize or they’d have somebody that wasn’t doing it well. And we show up every week.

So they see our truck, we take that heat. And so I’m like, okay, I’m not going to take the heat for other people, especially when we want to be a premium company. And so by requiring that, my fertilization and weed control are way more profitable than the mowing is.

And so combining those two brings the margins up on both of them quite significantly.

Ezra McCarthy

Before that, did you feel that most people that were reaching out, was like 50-50 wanted everything and then half just wanted cuts? What did you find? And then did you get a lot of pushback when people reach out now when they hear, wait, I’ve got to do fertilization and weed control too?

Jeremiah Moser

I honestly don’t get a lot of pushback on fertilization and weed control. Most people that are wanting a mowing service already know it. And also it says it right on our form.

So when they start filling out the form, they know that it’s required. And I believe it says that on our website. And if it doesn’t, that’s something I might have to look at.

But I would say yes. Before the requirement, I probably had half and half. As far as my maintenance clients go, half had fertilization and weed control and half didn’t.

Yeah, the ones that didn’t, all those properties just didn’t look, we couldn’t keep up with how they looked as far as quality.

Ezra McCarthy

Did you find that half that didn’t have it dropped off when you started implementing the requirement? Oh. Because I’m sure that was a fear as you thought, man, I’m going to have to make half these people add an extra service they didn’t have before.

Jeremiah Moser

No, I wouldn’t say half dropped off. I would say of the half that had only, probably a quarter of them just signed up. They already had somebody else that was cheaper.

And when I said, hey, this year, you have to go with us in order to stay on. They’re like, yes, we’ll go with us. Actually, I just had a situation with a client that I had started with last fall after our last round of applications and did not realize that staying on this year was a requirement because he didn’t have to last year because it was in.

And he’s like, let me call the other people back and tell them to cancel because he had hired somebody else that got him in January. And I’m like, because he wants me to do it. And so, yeah, a lot of people understand that’s a part of having a really nice looking lawn if you’ve got to have all those ingredients.

Ezra McCarthy

Well, Jeremiah, the next three or five years, where do you see you trying to take elite cuts going forward?

Jeremiah Moser

I want to grow this to the point where, well, the first step is I don’t want to have to be doing double duty of working as a nurse and running the business. I’d like to be able to get myself out of it. And then just continue to grow.

But for me, how we grow is more important than growth itself. I want to make sure that we’re taking on the right clients. I want to make sure that we’re hiring the right people.

I don’t want to just rush headlong ahead. And then in a few years, look back and go, we should have taken some more time and we could have avoided a lot of mistakes. That said, I would like to see us somewhere near that seven figure mark in five years.

Ezra McCarthy

It’s a great goal. I love to end this. Two questions.

What is one podcast you’ve joined recently and then a great business book you’d recommend, maybe you’ve read recently or you just like?

Jeremiah Moser

Well, podcasts, honestly, one that I’ve been listening to lately is Sam Gimbel’s Culture Proof, just as I’m getting ready to hire and trying to get into that mindset of how do I be that good leader that I’m supposed to be? Because when the pressure starts getting to you, sometimes you lose that. So that’s a great one.

And then a good business book. Honestly, the one that really changed my life as far as how I think about money and just entrepreneurship is Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

Ezra McCarthy

Well, this has been fun, Jeremiah. If someone’s interested in learning more about you, where’s the best place to find you?

Jeremiah Moser

You can check out the website, elitecutsmn.com. Otherwise, I got Instagram, Elite Cuts Lawn Care LLC or Facebook. Otherwise, I think we got a YouTube channel too.

Ezra McCarthy

Well, it’s been great, Jeremiah. Thank you each one for tuning in and we’ll look forward to catching you on the next one.