[show notes transcribed using Trint]
Nicholle: [00:00:00] So you know the saying: “a jack of all trades is a master of none?” Do you know the rest of that? [00:00:05][4.5]
Jacob: [00:00:06] No, I don’t. [00:00:06][0.2]
Nicholle: [00:00:07] “…but oftentimes is better than a master of one.”. And a lot of people get hung up on that first part that a jack of all trades as a master of none. And a lot of times in our industry, I think we pigeonhole ourselves. We think we can only offer this one thing. And I know a lot of companies do lawn care *and* landscaping – that’s its own conversation that you should do both, especially if you’re growth-focused. But what about thinking outside the box? What about including home services? What about like we’re about to launch water feature installations, things like that that you just maybe didn’t start out doing. But each of those new services and things that you have the material to do, you have the know-how and you have the client base that want you to do it. Why wouldn’t you do it? So today we’re going to talk about launching a new service, how to do it. And also an interesting part about it is going to be how to drop a service. I think we’ve now in our time in business, we’ve launched a lot of new services. We’ve dropped at least one big service that we’re going to talk about, and there is a strategy and sort of science to doing it. And each of us have our own angles and specialties within launching a service. [00:01:20][73.5]
Jacob: [00:01:21] And especially with like the dropping a service, I feel like there’s maybe some tactful PR and tactful communication to do as an explanation -. [00:01:30][8.5]
Nicholle: [00:01:30] Why now you’re walking away from something that you were once probably marketing that you were really excited about, which I’m really excited to talk about because I have really cool strategies about how to do that. [00:01:38][8.5]
Nicholle: [00:01:39] I like the conversation because I feel like that’s your end of this conversation – marketing new services. Obviously, you’re end of this conversation, too, but like the creating and figuring out a new service – [00:01:49][10.6]
Nicholle: [00:01:51] that’s what I want to start with. Because this is something over and over time and time again, you have taken on where you become obsessed. We’ve talked about that before you become obsessed with learning about a new service, you see that it’s possible. You see that we have whatever we need in the manpower to already do it. So walk us through what you do when you start considering and learning all about, like what are the considerations of launching a new service? [00:02:14][23.8]
Nicholle: [00:02:15] So I want to talk about today, like a little story that you don’t even know about yet. That kind of leads me into this because we know a lot of things are based on, you know, just action, right? That’s what I want to lead into this with you. Of course, I get obsessed. Of course, I get all these things. But I was walking with Jace and Blake today. I do, you know, if I walk at home, I try to do around the block with him once because they’re always excited to do that. And we were I was trying to get him to say is, how do you say it? His “creed?” [00:02:43][27.4]
Nicholle: [00:02:44] His karate credo. [00:02:44][0.6]
Nicholle: [00:02:47] Yeah. And so he didn’t want to say it because he knows he doesn’t exactly have it down. And but so then I started explaining to him, It’s like, even if you don’t think you’ve got it right, you still have to. You still have to do it. How often does dad still try? And even if I fuck it up, I still try. And then I try again and I try again and explain like how me and the girls [in the office] – we’re working on scripts and we try and try and try each time you get a little bit better. And then he started doing it and we got it to where he is now saying “cub” by the way. We fixed some of it and he’s getting it. A lot of this is just getting out there and trying and trying and actually making movement because he is doing what a lot of people do and unfortunately that that where he acts right now is how a lot of people continue on for everything. “No, I’ll do it later.” So starting a new service is exactly that. It is figuring out, yeah, getting obsessed about it. Learn it – depends on how complicated it is. You know, putting in drainage, a little tiny drainage system, is much less complicated than learning how to spray lawns and knowing all the chemicals to spray lawns. So it all depends on what you’re going at. And that’s harder than also doing like foundation plantings like we’re making the the course for which is going to make that really show how easy that truly is. So you need to go in, you’ve got to figure out the basics of what is going on and then you’ve got to just start. You’ve got to just go for it. You’ve got to obviously, you’ve got to figure out the basis of how you’re going to price it and try to come up with like an estimate of time based off of probably information you’ve you’ve found from other people doing it. But I don’t want to – I don’t want to overcomplicate it and make it sound like it’s hard because I think people put so much emphasis on making things perfect rather than just doing it. And you’re going, even if you made it perfect, you’d still find out shit that was wrong and have to change it anyway. So, yeah, go in, get obsessed with something for a short amount of time to learn the basics of it and get started. [00:04:51][124.0]
Nicholle: [00:04:51] You know, what I think is cool about launching a new service is – we just had this big grocery store open in Cape Coral called Farmer Joe’s, and the buzz around it has been huge for months. Everybody’s so excited. And like most storefront places, they did a soft launch the day before their actual opening. I mean, the cool thing about launching a new service is you get a soft launch it to your network. Yeah. So if you are collecting all of your clients and all of your leads, [00:05:22][30.7]
Jacob: [00:05:23] which if you’re not, I’m sorry, you’re doing it wrong. [00:05:24][1.5]
Nicholle: [00:05:25] Oh my God, you need to be because it’s so powerful for so many reasons. But let’s say you want to start pressure washing and you’ve had a couple of clients ask if you do it and you’ve maybe referred it out, or maybe just kind of wondered about it. And now you’re like, Dude, no, there’s no reason why we couldn’t start pressure washing. Then email your client base, start calling your client base. “Hey, we are now booking this service. Hey, you asked and we listened. We are now doing this, and it’s such a complementary service.” What’s cool about our industry? It’s almost like unlimited complementary services around us. You could build a completely custom company that does this, but not that. Just like we’ve done, you don’t have to stay in one little thing. And I mean, our company’s name is has “lawn care” in it. It doesn’t have pressure washing, gutter cleaning, home services. It doesn’t even have landscaping in it. Yeah. And that’s something else I want to touch on when we’re talking about the marketing. [00:06:17][52.3]
Jacob: [00:06:18] But was there anything else big that I didn’t hit on? Like I, I feel like I’ve overcomplicated it before, and I don’t. I think that that’s what I hate is I see people trying to make things so hard just because they feel like it should be hard. [00:06:29][11.4]
Nicholle: [00:06:29] You know what I think about? I think about how you did a video on how to start your and landscape business with nothing and a huge chunk of that was take inventory of what you have because even if you feel like you have nothing, you have so much. If you have a car, you’ve got a trunk that you can put bags of mulch in. If you’ve got a shovel and a rake in your garage, like you’ve got enough to do this and that, like, you’re so right that we overcomplicate things because people probably have all they need to start for a long time before they ever start. And it’s the same thing with launching a new service. You’ve probably already got employees, you’ve definitely got the client base. You’ve got probably like some sort of branding and marketing potential. All you have to do is, let’s say, pressure washing again, go buy a pressure washer and you’re set. But I think from like the only thing I would think of that’s out of my element is like pricing. You figure out if it’s profitable, like I know you’ve got you launched some services that are highly profitable. I mean, that’s, you know, very intentional. It’s easy to start. Why wouldn’t you start it? [00:07:34][65.0]
Jacob: [00:07:35] Yeah, yeah. I think that’s the success of a services is probably its profitability in general because the the better a service works out for your company and flows through your company and the happier you keep people, the more profitable you probably are. So that’s really the determining factor, and I think we found things that, you know, we’re constantly asking what sucks and what’s not working in our company. Because if it’s not profitable, we’re probably not serving our clients the best. So I think that that’s really how we we weigh what we’re going to can continue doing it. So, you know, that’s as easy as that. You never know, you know, might be the best service in the world. For you and then you get it and you get started, you figure it out, and you may find out that yes, I’m not really going to work out, never going to see a fun way to make this profitable or it’s a winner and we keep it forever. You know, or maybe you don’t like putting in just tons of all this thought process to it. You know, [00:08:36][61.4]
Nicholle: [00:08:36] you’re so right. It is just an action game because and like when you’re thinking about our industry and I know a lot in Illinois is like these services that we’ve already launched, but it’s like now we market ourselves as a lawn, landscape and home service company because now we do holiday lighting, gutter cleaning, pressure washing, you know, drain drainage, things like all these like we are home service company. We do interior painting and flooring in the winter. [00:09:00][23.6]
Jacob: [00:09:00] Like how, how and like the Christmas lighting is a perfect example of something that like, I was like, Man, there’s no way that’s ever going to be profitable. But it was about trying to keep our guys busy, you know? And all of a sudden this year without us being there, it all clicked and we did like. Almost $40,000 worth of Christmas light installs, and they were they were efficient. You know, it’s so, you know, it takes time and you don’t ever know for sure. You know, [00:09:29][28.8]
Nicholle: [00:09:29] that’s what was going to say, too. It’s I think it’s like if you’re considering it like, let’s say you’re getting 10 calls a week for a service that you don’t offer. So you’re sending all these leads to, you know, whoever you’re trusted recommendation is first of all, you should still be collecting every lead that calls, and that’s something we’ve talked about. But I’m going to mention again when the phone rings and they’re calling and asking you about a service that you don’t offer, you collect their information first and then you let them know that you have a great recommendation. And a lot of times we go the extra mile and we send them an email. They know we’ve collected your information. I’m going to email you over our trusted like our top three people that we recommend for this. And then you’ve emailed them, you’ve started a relationship and you’ve gone the extra mile to help them. [00:10:07][38.1]
Jacob: [00:10:08] Well, and I want to like just like what just happened today and why there was such a frantic rush before this podcast started to to make something happen, short order for someone. Another thing that I think you ought to be doing to grow your business is I like referring people, but even more. I’m starting to like subbing more and more and more because I have a relationship here in Cape Coral with two companies that I work pretty heavily with, you know, and they compliment me on the things that I can’t do, and I’m able to schedule them into our jobs pretty seamlessly and and facilitate that for our clients so they don’t even have to. They can call us. Yes, it’s going to cost something for us to handle it. But then they don’t have to deal with multiple other people. They just deal with us and we can make this stuff happen for them. [00:10:58][50.1]
Nicholle: [00:10:59] And on that note, related but not we use subcontractors for our maintenance division and our location in Illinois, and we have a very thorough contract that we’ve drawn up and we’ve actually added to as the relationships have grown with the subcontractors and that is available in the GROW Comm Facebook group files. So I know that subbing out for like a one time landscape project is a little different than the maintenance. But I don’t want to get too off topic with subcontracting because I do really want to talk about keeping it in-house, because that’s my whole thing. It’s like, So let’s say you’ve gotten 10 calls this week for that service that you’re like, Holy shit, like it just clicks for you. Like, I could be doing this. How many leads if I sent away now, 100 percent that I could have served, and I think it could honestly be as simple as that. It could be as simple as doing a landscape project. And in the middle of it, they ask if you could do a water feature. It’s like, Are you going to say no? [00:11:50][50.7]
Jacob: [00:11:51] Well, and and the only reason I brought up the subbing thing because I didn’t think about this enough at first, I always did the referrals, OK? And I want to try to take the focus here because we’re talking about this because you’re causing a lot of pain in your business by hand in those leads off all the time. It’s like God, another person that could have been a relationship that like, I can’t obviously say the person’s name, but I remember a lead in our system that years and years and years ago turned me down for my first hand drawn $3000 design. Well, we’ve got a $30000 retaining wall we’re putting up for him next month in Illinois, you know, so it’s like you don’t know the lifetime value of those people that you potentially just turned away and did a referral. So for one, that’s why you got to keep the information. But how what level could you serve them at? OK, so I could serve them even more if I handle it for them and I act as general contractor to a sub and as I’m trying to have the conversation, what we’re trying to have of adding services. If I sub something, each time I sub something, I potentially have the the ability to learn a little bit about it. OK. Not that I don’t want anything to do with the tree business, but I learned what the sub charges for the trees that were getting taken down. I could also co view and watch it happen. I could learn aspects, see how they do it. So, you know, if I really wanted some, some research on it, I could one be serving the client better, be learning how it’s done and just be a manager of it. This is a conversation I didn’t even expect to have it just because of what happened today. But I think that’s something to think about because I never used to think about that. I used to only think about handing it off and not trying to get a little piece for the company and go manage it and be a better to serve the client better. [00:13:38][107.1]
Nicholle: [00:13:38] And that’s exactly it from a client perspective. We have recently had a client in Florida who had, I remember you telling me they had their lawn care guy, they had their landscaping guy and then they had somebody doing irrigation and then they had somebody else doing lighting. That’s potentially for different companies they were working with. It was a total disorganized clusterfuck. It was probably stressful for the client. And it’s just a lot to manage because then you’re essentially becoming like the project manager over all of these things versus if you’re able to build a relationship with one person that, you know, trust that you can set up an account in their system, know that all billing is going to be taken care of, you know, the name of the people, the answer the phone for you. You recognize that. You you trust the experience and when you’re launching a new service and you’re able to serve your clients better, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You are serving your clients better. So a lot of people, you know, maybe you want to hold on to pressure washing, guy, I’m not going off of pressure washing that stupid. But like, what if the benefit is that you are not just increasing your revenue, but you’re serving your client better? You become you’re not a master of none. You know, you’re better than a master of one, because now they are you. You are the go to for them. And the relationship that you build is a lot stronger. [00:14:50][71.7]
Jacob: [00:14:51] 100 percent [00:14:51][0.3]
Nicholle: [00:14:53] marketing. So the first thing I want to touch on is when we’re talking about this from like our industry perspective, is that our name in the beginning, you started a lawn care business, you called it Scooters Lawn Care – hindsight’s 20/20. Maybe we should have called it Scooter’s Landscaping. Maybe we should just call it Scooter’s and dropped everything else because we have people think we [00:15:13][19.9]
Jacob: [00:15:13] should do that. I think we should do that, too. I don’t know how that works because the websites say Scooter’s Lawn Care, but I like it just being “Scooter’s.” So I think the branding is cleaner. Well, our logo, really, that’s how it is. I mean, that way everywhere. But. [00:15:25][11.8]
Nicholle: [00:15:25] So here’s the thing. And if you could stop deeply breathing into the microphone, I will get to it when it comes to marketing. We’ve never and will never market services with our name in it. So I see a lot of people like Whoever’s Lawn Care, Joe’s Lawn Care – marketing, spending a lot of money, and I don’t know how much money, but spending money on ads promoting their mowing. And to me, that’s a huge waste of time because it takes me half of a second to see that you offer lawn care. What I don’t know is that you also would do landscape installation. So right now, I need a landscaper. I’ll probably need a lawn care guy. I’m not even going to go to you because now I don’t even know that you did. Like when the time comes, I didn’t even know you did landscaping. Invest your social media, posts your ads to the things that don’t have your name on it. We don’t have to tell anybody that we mow lawns. We do have to tell people that we do landscapes, that we build outdoor living spaces in Illinois, that we do pool services here. That’s what we put our money into marketing. And that may seem like common sense. But the next time you want to posts like maybe a picture of grass, maybe don’t do that because everybody knows what you do. Post a really cool landscape or post, how could we better serve you? In Florida, we do lawn care, landscaping and pool services. And a lot of people have a pool company. They have a lawn guy and then they have somebody that trims their trees and their hedges and stuff. Three separate companies. So it’s our duty to educate them that we do all of that and you can just work with us, and it’s super easy. So I would say invest your energy in your marketing and to the total education of what you’re doing and when you launch a new service like post all about it. Be proud of that because people probably wouldn’t assume we do pressure washing. People probably wouldn’t assume we hang Christmas lights. So then we were going to market that season ahead all the time and like, be super loud about that. So what about dropping a service? Do you want to tell the snow plowing service story? Because this maybe feels really dirty, maybe feels really wrong, it’s like, yeah, I’ve been serving you in this way, and now I’m going to take it away. And it may even feel and here’s my recommendation, and this person does a lot of other services that I also do like. It can feel really wrong to drop a service. But we did it in a really big way. [00:18:01][155.4]
Jacob: [00:18:02] Yeah, I mean, obviously. I think the especially something like that in Springfield like. We didn’t do a ton of it in the relation to other people who do snow plowing, so that made it easier, but it was still like a bigger, more important service that, like typically your provider offers that if they mow grass, they plow in the winter. I think the big thing is is really your reasons for stuff. You know, our reason for stuff was this was it’s just not a right fit for our company. You know, it didn’t fit the culture of our company. It wasn’t like and every time I talked to people about and ask, Well, how do you not do that or why don’t you do that? And it’s like, Well, I have three little kids. All my team has kids. I don’t want to plow snow. I don’t think they should have to plow snow, either. It doesn’t give them enough work to actually keep them busy. Like, this is the one thing when you know when you really get down to the nitty gritty. We never really announced it this way, but there is no real value we’re bringing into the client with this. This is really it just does not fit the culture of our company, and we just don’t want to do it, you know, like we don’t it doesn’t make sense for us. And but then on the flip side, here again, because of that, here’s where the actual value does come for the company. We’re not the best suited to serve you at it. You know, there’s people that have invested more than us who do it better than us who, who, who care and liked to do it. [00:19:24][81.6]
Nicholle: [00:19:25] They like to do it. And that’s the difference. [00:19:26][1.1]
Jacob: [00:19:26] You want people doing the services that you need done. If I start to think you want people needing the services that you want done that actually want to do the services, you know, like think about the last time you saw employees out on a property doing anything and they were complaining about working like, was that a fun thing for you? Like, think about, you know, there’s all this liability that goes into snow plowing itself. So we realized it did not fit our culture and what we were trying to build and didn’t. We kind of announce this, and we talked about the value. I’m sure we probably I don’t even remember it’s been so long, but I got to imagine we positioned it in the direction of, Hey, you know, we’re not the best fit for this and then gave people really good resources and then tried to manage that as well. [00:20:13][46.8]
Nicholle: [00:20:14] Well, we told a story. [00:20:15][1.0]
Jacob: [00:20:17] It’s been so long. I can’t even remember it. [00:20:18][1.2]
Nicholle: [00:20:18] I’ll take over from here, sir. So it was actually a big group effort. Starting the summer before the winter, we dropped it – like we started in summer. We made the decision and we started talking about it in summer. Like I remember, it was like midsummer and we sent out this email, and I don’t think many people were really thinking like whatever, but we had great recommendations. So first of all, we weren’t like “Good luck” in the middle of winter. I do want to say – it just wasn’t the right fit for us. And getting rid of snow plowing was the right fit for us. But so many people can do what we’ve done and like, maybe juggle both or keep it and thrive with it. And their team does love it and it can work for so many people. So especially when we post it on YouTube, I know we’ll get a lot of comments that are like, You’re wrong, but for us, this was the right move. And it’s it’s a great example of a way to to do it like from a PR standpoint of dropping a service. So that was exactly it. First of all, clients never care about why it benefits you. Yeah. So like, yes, anything. [00:21:29][70.7]
Jacob: [00:21:30] So like if we’re talking about and we’re talking about marketing, realize anything you ever do in your company – I’m going to go off and a little bit of a tangent here so far because it drives me nuts. I see people talk about the credit card processing or this or that, and I’m going to do this because I don’t get paid or I or whatever. Talking about the convenience for the company or we don’t do that because it just it’s not the it’s not the best thing for our company. Like, I don’t give a shit if it’s not the best thing for your company, you pose marketing as the value to the client because the client doesn’t give a shit about your – I mean, they care about your company – [00:22:06][36.7]
Nicholle: [00:22:08] but they care about themselves more [00:22:09][0.7]
Jacob: [00:22:10] It’s about serving the client. Yeah. So all phrasing whether or not internally fits that structure, it is about serving the client. [00:22:22][11.4]
Nicholle: [00:22:22] It is a PR is a skill. PR is a career, PR is a job and it takes skill and it takes strategy to look at a situation, even a bad review – and not to get off topic, but even a bad review to be able to look at that and spin that in a way that positively accentuates your company, but also is positive for any future clients. And there is always a way to do that. So when we’re telling the story of why we’re dropping snow plowing like “we hope you stick with us for all the other services that we offer, but we’re dropping this one major one and you’re going to we recommend this lawn care company.” I mean, that’s kind of a bold move, right? So yes, we talked about how the company that we’re building, that’s no longer fits our culture. That is a huge part of it. That is a fact. That is part of the reason why we’re dropping it. And no, we’re not the best fit for you for this service, but instead we have found a way to serve you even better. And just to have that hook of your dropping the service and “I have to do this work to find a new provider, how could you possibly be serving me better?” Yeah, you turn it into the greatest thing that’s ever happened. “We’re launching an interior service division.” This solves our problem of snow plowing not fitting with our culture, because now we’ve got a consistent work schedule for our team leaders year round. It’s helping us. You are helping us continue to grow and so you can continue seeing the same familiar faces. Keep your company, the company that you love in business. But now look at all these projects around your house. Look at all these things [00:23:52][89.6]
Jacob: [00:23:53] and people want to help [00:23:53][0.6]
Nicholle: [00:23:53] people. Exactly. And but they still care about themselves more. So here’s my thing you start you hiring a contractor. [00:24:00][7.1]
Jacob: [00:24:02] Can I say something? Yeah, help people because it makes people feel good and that’s what they care about themself most. That’s why they like helping because they want to feel good. They want to know they did that good deed. [00:24:12][10.0]
Nicholle: [00:24:12] So hiring a contractor is hard because a lot are unreliable. Maybe they’re not licensed, maybe they’re shady or they’re you, you know, whatever. It’s hard to find a good contractor. So many people are always looking for one. “Holy shit. Now, my lawn and landscape company is a contractor that these people that I see all year outside that I love and I trust, and I take them out snacks and water, and I see the same faces week after week after week. Like, yes, come inside and paint this bedroom because it’s needed painted for five years and I’ve never done it or my bathroom needs a remodel. Clean out my garage. Do this small level remodel that our guys are experienced and knowledgeable in,” like it was such a win win for both of us, both sides of us – but the key here is that we start talking about it all summer, and we started getting giving quotes all summer and all fall. And the plan was like on the days we can’t work outside, this is when we’ll schedule your project. At first, you know, and I think it just took that kind of strategy and it worked. I mean, it went really well. It’s still like we’re still thriving with that [00:25:16][64.0]