How do I Expand my Lawn Care Business? #2

the third question how to expand from from landscaping into you know excavation jobs as well but what I want you to do is when these giant jobs come up because they will I don't want you to take them I want you to bid them I want you to stay in that loop Josh I want you to put your numbers and put them in high so you don't get the job but you get your nape make and model of the equipment that you want to choose you have an idea rent it rent it try it out so make sure you rent it make sure you fit it feels good to you before you commit to purchasing it there's no mystery that way I made the mistake of buying one of my first pieces of equipment was a TLB a tractor motor backhaul and I was building retaining walls and I chained my pallets up and I dragged him around and I throw the blocks in the bucket I tell you straight up after a season of doing that I bought myself a bobcat and I was just like oh my gosh this thing is so much better so more Universal I can great I can load I can dig so many things they can do with it great first piece of equipment and I've bought cat Newhall and John Deere cat whatever it's just a skid loader I should say I mean the thing to use the mouse so exactly so what's your next piece of equipment you're thinking about getting then where's where was this question going now like a bigger tractor loader backhoe but you know many know it because obviously hardscaping project yes I tell you I used that mini haul almost as often as I'm using my skid loaders it's one of those machines we're we're a little big for turbo starts getting jobs oh well like some you know retaining wall job and stuff I'll bearded transfer that for you know it's too cumbersome you just can't get you can't maneuver it on a site very well mini hope you'll be surprised and I'll let you use it you have a third question Josh you know from landscaping as well oh okay Wow of these questions I love the fact that you're looking at the future and you're trying new things because a lot of guys out there are doing this exact same thing the first thing I'm going to tell you is that you're going to want to go you want to size the excavation job to your skill level so you don't want to go out and dig the Menards the next Minard superstore you don't want to bid bid on those bigger excavation jobs you want to get your feet wet with additions that's a great place to start you want to get your feet wet with regrading customers yards you're gonna advertise for excavating you're gonna get all sorts of different things you're not going to be able to go on go I'm only going to do this this or this you're gonna have to take everything that comes on but what I want you to do is when these giant jobs come up because they will I don't want you to take them I want you to bid them I want you to stay in that loop Josh I want you to put your numbers and put them in high so you don't get the job but you get your name on their radar screen so whoever that contractor is or that customer is you don't want to just say no and walk away you want them to go all you know for the next job and you want to you want to practice you're gonna use their big jobs as practice as rehearsal for your smaller jobs and for future big jobs this is a beautiful thing you want to get your name out there you want to rehearse how you interact with the contractors and the customers even on jobs you don't want and then you're going to also practice how you bid that job and you're gonna ask after the job is bid because you bid it because you are interested in it you get to ask at that point it gives you a reason and excuse your foot in the door to say hey I understand I wasn't the low bidder on this one but I'm really trying to refine my numbers and prove my process could you give me an idea of where the the next two bids were that came in in front of me or where or something like that what's gonna happen josh is not all the time but once in a while they're gonna give you those numbers that's how you get those numbers that's how you do it and so what you bid a job for a hundred thousand dollars the next guy may have been it at sixty thousand and the guy below it may have been it at fifty five thousand but now you're going I know what this job and I know how much it goes for so I can the next job that comes up I can use as a comparison to this project and maybe the next job will be half that size of this giant job and you do want to do it and you go oh golly this one job bit for fifty-five that's where they got it at and it's half the size of the the job that you know I missed so let's bid it at twenty twenty-five where be if you didn't go through the process you didn't take the steps you'd never know oh so you got a bid every single thing that comes at you to get started in excavating to get started in hardscaping you're gonna start doing the actual small jobs basement excavations remodeling additions additions on remodeling jobs grew regrading yards and that will grow you can always get started than that I mean the average basement excavation is anywhere from $2,500 to 4500 $5,500 for a typical square box hole in the ground eight feet deep that's an eight-foot deep hole with a big basement your area you you'll have basements put a lot of the guys watching on the video aren't gonna have basements you may just have footings so you know you're gonna get your feet wet doing that and that's where your company's gonna grow and you just going to keep plugging away and you're gonna get nose and there's gonna be times when you want a yes and the good Lord is gonna say no I'm not gonna give you this job because it'll kill you i I've had that happen count your blessings when you don't get jobs don't let it discourage you I had a job Josh personal story I think it was a half a million dollar boulder retaining wall something like that just this monstrous boulder retaining wall and another landscape company came in and they bid it and they absolutely lost their butt and I just looked at this job and I thought that could have been me that could have been me so be thankful for the jobs a girl we never want to underpin either yes be thankful for the jobs you get be thankful for the jobs you don't get but learn from every single process that jobs you don't get can be a better learning curve when you take advantage of it when you don't get a job just don't walk away a followup with the customer while you didn't get the job find out who got the job or even maybe you don't want to find out who got the job find out how much they got the job for and then add that into your knowledge base so down the road you can start bidding more competitively and start getting in bigger jobs does that help what um what do you think of the best way to like to kind of learn so you know learn more about how to do the excavation jobs you got to do them you got to do them and do them and do them and do all you can go to school you there's there's academies there's there's training academies you can go to but you gotta go you got to start small you got to Google some stuff and you just go out and you do I wanted to get into sewer and water and I talked to so many people about sewer and water and I've got a great friend that owns a five million dollar sewer and water company now and every time I ask him he looks at means to Stan rolls downhill just cleared nothing up and you just got to go up you gotta just start small you just gotta start growing from there that's what I'm saying don't go out and tackle the big jobs because you're gonna get your tit in the wringer as my dad would say God rest this we'll start small and learn by doing there is no better teacher than experienced good bad or in between the lessons the the jobs that go south on you are gonna give you your best lessons the jobs that go right unfortunately you're gonna forget about and so you need to have those bad jobs but I don't want you to focus on those bad jobs just I want you to have a take away from them all right Josh are we good I appreciate it good deal hey I'm just giving a plug out to a buddy of mine he sent me a t-shirt dirty gloves as in New York or New Jersey sent me t-shirts so I'm giving a shout-out to him today Josh I hope I've helped you out the name of your landscaping company one more time is Karim an A+ lawn care landscape out of Iowa if your nylon you need some hardscaping landscaping done go to Josh he's a good guy he's obviously trying he's learning and growing god bless all you guys out there god bless Josh I hope the very best for you buddy the ever Dateline if you ever need any other help you know how to reach me now thanks man you're welcome and if you guys want to need some help email me we can do a video chat like this and help everybody at the same time [Music]