Investing In Tools For Landscaping Companies

Investing in tools for landscaping companies

Do you know one of the most common questions we heard at the HNA & Equip Expo show in Louisville, KY that we just got back from? Something along the lines of “How do you think about investing in tools for landscaping companies?”

I think my favorite part of the whole week was the evening networking event at Zeppa’s Greenhouse. We had around 150 people there from all over the country. The main part of the evening was the panel discussion we had with contractors well-known on social media. Evan Newcombe, Crux Lon, Craig Sheller, Josh Sutton, Richard Carroll, Jeremy Morales, Dan Preston, Caleb Auman, and Hunter Hutchinson.

We had one of those throw-around mics and threw it around to anyone who had a question for the panel.

If you could go back…

Another question was: “If you could go back to the beginning, what is one thing you would do differently?”

Every person’s answer was good. The two main ones that came up multiple times were

• know your numbers
• don’t miss time with family

Another question was something along the lines of “Is a tilt rotator really worth the price?”

In other words, the question I started out with: “How do you think about investing in tools for landscaping companies?”

And the discussion that followed was along the lines of: What are you paying attention to? The cost? Or the price?

I know, I know, this needs a little explanation…

But the idea was, are you looking at the price of the tilt rotator (or fill in the blank) or the cost of not having one?

The price tag is “expensive”, yes.

But so many times that’s where we stop evaluating in our thinking process. At the price tag.

What about the cost of not having one?

Continuing with thinking about investing in tools for landscaping companies, let’s think about what happens without doing so

• takes longer to do the job
• can’t do nearly as many tasks with the same machine without one
• may need another crew member on-site to make up for the lesser efficiency
• When you need another crew member, now that crew member needs recruited, managed, needs to show up on time, gets sick, etc etc.
• Getting less jobs done per year because of the lower efficiency.

What is the cost of all that on your business? More or less than the price tag?

Maybe you’re not a tilt rotator fan. 😜 So let me use another example.

What’s the price tag of a really nice website that actually gets you leads these days?

$10k-$30k

Big sticker price, right?

What’s the cost of not getting leads?

Without leads, you can’t sell jobs.

Without jobs, you can’t work.

Meaning you struggle to make any money or grow.

The cost of that is existential!

So, we don’t even blink about investing in the sticker price of a website that actually works.

What about the price tag of SynkedUP?

“Expensive”, right?

What’s more expensive?

The $400/mo?

Or losing the job because it took you too long messing with manual calcs, spreadsheets, notepads, and Word docs to get the proposal back to the customer?

Because it took so long, and you were busy working, it took you a couple evenings to finally get all the pricing from your vendors, calculate everything, and prep the proposal for the customer.

A week or two later you finally got the quote back, and they’d already signed with the other guy.

You saved the $400/mo.

But you lost the job.

Which is more “expensive?”

If you could get a quote done in minutes, not hours, and provide the (correctly priced) proposal to the client before you even leave their driveway, how would that affect your close rate?

Yep… We both know the answer…

Let’s talk about those time savings for a minute.

Is missing dinner with the family, so you could get a quote out, an all too regular occurence?

What’s the cost of your absence on your kids? Your spouse? Yourself….?

I think most of us would agree, that it’s priceless.

That’s why we’re in business to begin with!

To provide a life and freedom for the people that matter to us the most.

And so so easily, we get stuck in this quandary where the very thing that is supposed to give us the freedom and income to provide for our loved ones, is instead, robbing us, taking us away from our loved ones.

Instead of the business having a net positive effect on our lives, it becomes a net negative.

The keys out of this entrepreneurial prison is building systems and processes where people other than you as the owner, can do the task.

But man, building systems and processes is hard.

There are a lot of ways to expedite this

Get a mentor or coach

Hire an office admin

Buy tools to increase efficiency

Buy systems to build repeatable processes

All of those things have a price tag.

The question is… is the cost greater than the price tag?

The next time you eye something up, thinking how awesome it’d be to have it… until you see the price tag.

Stop and reflect for a moment on the cost vs the price.

Which one would you rather pay?

You’re going to pay one. For sure. Doing nothing doesn’t mean you pay nothing.

Doing nothing just means you pay the opportunity cost.

Make sure you pick the one that serves you and your team the best.

I know a few really great coaches, really great office admins, and really great accountants. They all help you not do the things you shouldn’t be spending your time on. Hit reply or comment if you want an introduction to any of them.

Or, if you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.

You want to know your numbers and fix that problem for once and for all.

If you want to plug in the “minutes-long” quote-building process into your business, instead of the “hours-long” manual process, then book a call with me or someone on our team.

We’ll show you how it works, how you can plug into it, and how you can free up hours a week for yourself.

Then you can decide… is the price tag worth the cost?

That’s your call to make.

Not mine.

P.S.

Come as you are. Don’t let embarrassment hold you back.

Everyone started from nothing.

We’ve seen it all. There’s no unfixable situation.

We can help you pick up the pieces of wherever you are, and get you started on your journey of thriving, not surviving.