The Worst Lawn Customer I've had 4K

my worst Lawn Care customer also happened to be one of my very first Lawn Care customers this is that story when the phone rang I was told that their past lawn care company had quit on them and that they were desperate to find somebody new that should have been my first red flag and to give you an idea of just how bad they had let their lawn go I didn't mow my entire lawn for four months [Music] thank you when I got there I realized that they hadn't picked up the yard they just threw everything deeper into the weeds and between all of the Hidden obstacles and the bugs I had myself a challenge it wasn't the yard that was a problem that was actually the fun part it was the people and there were eight little words that were said to me by this guy that I will never forget to this day and I will tell you what those are in just a minute [Music] actually pretty excited to tackle this project the yard was overgrown but it really wasn't crazy and it was one of our very first mowing accounts so I had a point to prove fine pair of Rusty 21 inch knives so an agreement was made that I would do a complete yard makeover and then do weekly maintenance after that that's where my second red flag came in because I was actually asked to do bi-weekly maintenance to save on money that should have told me something was up [Music] even though this is my own yard I did set it up and let it go so you guys could just see how nasty this guy's yard had gotten [Music] he had champagne taste but he had a beer budget he wanted his yard to be perfect he just didn't want to pay for perfection [Music] [Applause] [Music] so we decided to divide and conquer one guy took a push mower another guy took the weed whip and a third guy went through and just started cleaning up everything that he could find [Music] now my guys are hard workers I'm blessed to have a great crew of people to work with and they were working like dogs on one part of the yard while I was busy working on a different part of the yard and that's when things started to go south I'll tell you about that in just a moment [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] for the first cut we decided to do what we call a quint cut we mowed it five different times in different directions with two different mowers just to make sure that we've gotten all of the excess grass mulched up and cleaned up but it wasn't just grass we were mowing he had areas of his lawn that just were overtaken by other stuff [Music] thank you [Music] foreign some Lawns we like to weed whip at the beginning of the job other Lawns we'd like to weed whip at the end of the job this lawn we needed to weed whip throughout the entire job we weren't there to do any major Landscaping it was just a yard makeover clean up the overgrowth [Music] oh but while you're here could you just do this that's a customer's way of asking you to do extra work without charging them an extra price foreign [Music] [Applause] but do you remember when I was telling you about eight words that I never forgot but while one of my guys was down on his hands and knees busy trying to clean up this guy's yard he stood over one of my guys and said eight words yup the stupider you are the harder you work [Music] I was in shock I never actually had a customer dare talk to any one of my crew members that way in my entire life and I didn't even know how to respond to that foreign it was a moment that I regret because I didn't know how to respond to a customer looking over one of my crew members shoulders and telling him that the stupider you are the harder you work and I always said if I could go back in time I would have handled that situation differently well the same situation came up again about 15 years later and I'll tell you what I did all right if you have clear spots circular spots like these in your yard don't fret I'll show you what it's from it's from these Japanese beetles love new sod so if you've just laid new sodden or getting those weird round circles in your yard it's from The larva of these things just get some insecticide and treat them and it'll go away [Music] than this way [Music] now it's hard to walk away from one of your very first paying customers the writing was on the wall the way he had treated my guys was an indication of the way he had treated people in general and there's more to this story that I'll tell you in just a moment [Music] now what I've learned since then is if a customer tells me that the contractor walked out on them or quit on them I might want to look deeper into that customer because I don't know if it's a bad contractor or a bad customer but either way if I am getting into a bad situation we finished the mo that day and did an excellent job and we actually went back three more times and mowed this customer's lock but it was on that four small that he finally showed his true colors oh [Music] we mailed him an invoice for that initial work but we never got mail to check fast and then when we followed up with phone calls and told them we would pick up a check when we came out to do the follow-up Mo we wouldn't find the check there and it didn't take us very long to realize that he was ghosting us and trying to get free labor out of us one way or another our work came to a stop and then it became a battle of wills it wasn't a lot of money he owed us but it was the principle that he owed us that money [Music] I think it's cutting better so before I started my own company I happened to be a debt collector so I knew the laws regarding how many times I could call a customer how often I could call in all of the different techniques that I could legally use at my disposal to collect on a debt that was owed me and I leveraged everything in my toolbox to collect that money I think we finally met its match this stuff I became the squeaky squeaky imagine I'd be I became a thorn in this guy's side I was going to collect that money just based on principle alone and I went so far as to pay my receptionist to make phone calls when I couldn't do it in my head I did the mental math and it might have cost me more to have my receptionist help me follow up on this customer then I was going to collect from the customer but he wasn't going to get away with it right it took about two months of daily phone calls for me to finally be able to collect on this customer he threatened to sue me and I told him in his right and I told him my rights and I said as long as I had a debt a valid debt I have a right to call and pursue that valid debt and just like that our lawnmower adventure comes to an end [Music] thank you so I'd love to hear a story from you about a bad customer that you may have had to deal with and I got a question for you would you guys like to hear the story about the creepiest contractor I've ever worked for let me know and as always God bless and go get them catch you guys on the next one [Music]