How to Make Money as a Teenager

I'm with Matt Darden II and he started cut short landscaping when he was 11 years old he's 19 years old now and he just purchased out East Ridge landscaping and he's grossing over 1.2 million dollars a year we're gonna find out how Matt got started we're gonna look at the journey that got him to where he's at right now we're gonna share some of that some of Matt's best best things that he's learned over the years we up sell everything that no hedges and eration tree work landscape work everything we can upsell no water client will pay you know what our clients will allow us to do how far we can push them I was turning all that money I had saved up into actual equipment I was going on a spending spree to point my parents actually said if money pretty good huh I'm good thanks Matt now you said you started cut short landscaping when you were 11 but that's not what you really started it wasn't I started before about when I was around 8 years old I got a job with a family friend of mine whom a nursery I worked with him on weekends and after school doing tree transplants installs rowing machines on the nursery or other fun stuff volunteering my services for educational purposes but the point is is you're gaining valuable experience that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise right oh yes that is correct so you had three years of work underneath your belt when you hit 11 what changed were moving away and my family helped me get a lawn tractor that they had that they were not reading with them I got few neighbors to let me lower their wall three weeks I forgot the I went to Home Depot wanted a trimmer and backpack floor and a push mower and I just worked the whole summer on weekends pretty much mowing the grass for several people okay we're gonna stop right there Matt because I want to focus on the fact that in your case you specifically did get financial help from your parents to get started oh yes that would be correct okay what was that they gave me around two grand I believe it was to try to buy that a tractor well we always had to pay back everything we borrowed for them in order to get the loan I had to make a case for them we're using the slide shows and other things to prove that they were investing in the initial investment would be returned to them in a rather quick time Matt you're talking at 11 years old you had to make a slideshow presentation on why you were a safe investment to your own parents yes okay a lot of the guys what a lot of guys and gals watching this they don't have that ability they don't have anybody to borrow on money don't fret there is actually at us a couple really cool ways that I've discovered that you can start a lawn care landscaping business with zero absolute zero dollars and I'm gonna make another video later on down the road showing that I'm gonna break in right here because not everybody wants to be in landscaping all of their life and that's fine but you can start out in landscaping and use the money you make in that business to invest in something else down the line now back to your regularly scheduled program although you had two thousand dollars to invest there's ways to start with absolutely nothing now you have you borrowed any other money along the way because you now have trucks dump trucks skid loaders trailers you run multiple crews am i right Matt oh yes when I first got into it in a large-scale fire rounds run on 17 or so my parents helped me get a truck and the way we did that was I had to pay but I gave them the money and they didn't offer their name and been insurance so so I can get better rates and not be completely killed by insurance costs for the vehicle that's a that's a very realistic way to do it so if you have if you are fortunate enough to have parents help you along the way it does make life a lot easier although I'm guessing that you would have still purchased that truck no matter what you had to do yeah that is correct did the business take an upturn when you were 17 Matt I tried to keep it small so I could still focus on schoolwork and other things that I knew were important for my future well right around my hit's 16 17 years old got the driver's license I was able to spread out a little more and that helped so when not time rolled around and I got the truck and everything I started to do some more selling you try to fill my whole pretty much after school calendar and my weekends with all lawn care work then when I graduated high school I actually I completely filled everything I had six days of work on week for two nights so you started when you were 11 just mowing lawns is that is that how you got originally started Matt mowing lawns and weeding and then at the end of the summer I purchased the small snow plow for from the tractor and I drivers continuing with long bond and times around 17 years old I started getting more into landscape sign that the viewers should take notice throughout this whole time I tried to save as much money as I possibly could in order for later down the road I can vest heavily in the business with the money saved we that first year when you were 11 years old what do you think you made that year three is six grand somewhere in there whoops okay so three to six grand gross as an eleven year old than twelve thirteen he kind of run us through how the company grew well what one of the things I've had is lucky enough to have neighbors and other people who have allowed me to mow their lawns over the years okay just nice especially because my area my market is completely saturated with people who come into business in order stand how places are so they underbid everything just to get jobs they don't last very long means they're not making any money but they're killing everyone else so having a higher prices as I do is really hard to the jobs so I was lucky because I have neighbors and everyone else who were wanting to pay that money in order to help me out did you think that being 11 12 13 years old was more difficult to gain work or was that actually an advantage where people would go oh yeah let's let's help out the 11 year old or 12 year old I'd say it was more difficult miss money because my area the lawns are fairly large two to four ages each everyone would think that the 11 year old kid with his mower wouldn't be able to and I'm talking about I just haven't living the smack center of an area that a large company has on complete lockdown okay so any jobs in there unless you have like a family relation hook or your neighbor doesn't sound like that is extremely hard so how did you do it I I would go around every year about two to three times a year knock on all the doors or to all the neighbors introduce myself and explain that I have a smaller lawn service and the interesting being the lawn a lot of the people knew me from growing up and as the years went on and he started noticing that I'm really in this for a long run they started hiring anymore I'm guessing that from the age of 11 to 17 you had almost a zero marketing budget oh yes other than Flyers and business cards I got this the print I had not so but you saved up every year you were adding into your your pool of funds to save up to really because and so when it came to turning 17 and school that up for you you could go all-in by the time I hit 17 18 years old I was turning all that money I had saved up into actual equipment I was going on a spending spree to park my parents actually said if you want to live in our house you can't you have to go through us for every purchase and make if you are going on a spending spree of purchasing equipment yes not racecars not gold cards not four-wheelers no you couldn't all equipment into them into the business I had two crews running and all the song that all us equipment I knew factories snow plows two trucks look tons of leaf blowers mowers and everything you can possibly get I thought that was it that's all I'm going to get for the next few years then I had an opportunity to purchase a business I said this is where I'm going to make my turn and burn you still always and yeah your big turn is now you're grossing 1.2 million a year's a 19 year old that would be correct how many crews do you have running right now Matt we currently have two crews and we're planning on actually adding another two fries within or between now and next spring and the two crews you have do they do both hardscaping do they do maintenance or what are your two crews focus on along moly mainly because mowing brings a good deal of money in though it's also it's a necessary thing you have to borrow in order to get into properties in order to sell more work we have a month were we're having a hard time selling landscape of hard scape jobs the Moline keeps us going it keeps all guys working and it keeps revenue coming in compared to everything just stops and cents so mowing leads to upselling yes exactly we upsell everything little hedges and eration tree work landscape work everything we can upsell no water clients will pay we know what our clients will allow us to do how far we can push them and we even know our clients on name basis so if we go to the yard will go how are you mr. and mrs. Smith how are your kids doing at college how's the new car and all this other stuff and this really helps us to be able to sell more because the clients feel a more personal way um what is it a personal connection between us and the clients we're not just a company we're more or I want to say family or someone our relationship without a partner and their property thank you that's that's a good one Francie and Matt you just hit the nail on the head to success and I can't tell you how important making that connection is in fact with my own crew leaders I tell them every day spent 20 minutes with a customer and they look at me and I do hardscaping bigger jobs they look at me and I look at that as an investment into that project not a loss of time and our leaders do that same thing too when I actually first took over a company he sat on the matter previous on our emerging companies a lot of customers call us and said hey are these guys staying on is this guy's thing not and we said yes through everything used when I purchase the company my biggest thing was keep all the guys on and keep all the accounts we can and we even still have the owner on payroll working as a manager with us for the next two years so there can be a nice smooth transition the clients won't really notice it because he'll slowly get out and I'll slowly come in nice good strategy Matt you got a lot of guys out there a lot of gals looking at starting their own business you've done it now you're 19 you're doing 1.2 million what kind of advice would you give them just getting started number one quality over quantity any day you gotta have good quality work if you're just going out there and getting as many yards as you can and charging cheap prices for them you're not really gonna get anywhere that you're just gonna shoot yourself in the foot and gonna get stuck in a kind of rotation where every year you're kind of stuck in the same thing you can't really grow but you can't get any smaller and eventually you get to a point where you're spending so much money you need all this new equipment in order to stay in the size of want or get bigger but you're not bringing that much money in a lot of business well first thing is definitely make sure you have your quality down have correct prices on that quality because we are some yards I think I showed you I sent you a picture of it us then of the art we do and I called the one smallest nerd it literally 4x4 box blacks nice come in and they just trim that little thing and block to drive million Road and that's it and we're charging fifty bucks for that and we're doing that because the time it takes us to get all the guys in the truck drive the truck there do that little section and drive to next thing is time and money and then to add to that you have to know all your numbers that's the second biggest one when we do Bates where there was something laws to bids for huge man Steve Jobs we have every one of our numbers all the numbers are in including workers comp or insurance or simple truck insurance how much is it gonna cost for a truck to sit on that job every little thing that's going through that job is put into that bag and that's so we don't use any money on some fees you are guys that come up and you know your water on the yard and they'll go 50 bucks they don't know how long that's gonna take them they're not have a decent idea but they don't know and that's the issue you got to know every one of your numbers and have them down pat I got charts in the offices all the guys are out pricing jobs have binders and they have charts in the binders and show how much each piece of equipment done to a shuttle cost on a job through wear and tear insurance maintenance and all that stuff is added in so we're not losing any money we also have good relationships with our nurseries our suppliers for everything and that way we buy so much from certain one place or two places that the Annis end up giving us breaks on saw Matt absolutely rock-solid advice I'm very impressed everything that you said are things that I scream over and over again quality over quantity when you have when you focus on quality your margins are also higher so I want to say thank you for all