The Simple Sales Script That Took This Lawn Care Company From 33% to 84% Close Rate

(upbeat music) Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the lawn care CEO podcast. My name is Dan Ralph, some of the head coach here at the lawn care CEO. And this is where lawn care guys learn to become leaders and on today's episode, we get to hear from the man himself, the lawn care CEO, the CEO of the lawn care CEO, Aaron Suttonfield, he's gonna talk about how his company has transitioned. I mean, these are pretty impressive numbers, from somewhere around 35, 33, 30 something percent to over 80 percent conversion rate on his calls, on those leads that are flowing through his business. So this is like something that to me is like the one of the very best things you can do at the top of the funnel. We hired the other day, Aaron, we hired a marketing agency for lawn care CEO. It was not a marketing agency, we're like marketing consultant. And the marketing consultant came to us and he said something that kind of surprised me because when you talk to him, this by the way, why I liked him is marketing agency because he said, hey, it's not, let's not start by fixing the number of leads you get. And I was like, that's what marketing is, getting the number of leads. He was like, no, no, no, no, no, let's start by improving your conversion rate and making sure that you have a really sound sales process so that any leads you do get, we're converting in a really high rate, which I think makes a really, really good sense because at the end of the day, the example is escaping me, but it's kind of like, man, if we can just fix this, the thing that we call the closest to cash, if you can get the thing closest to cash, fix first, and it's way easier to double or improve your conversion rate than to double or improve your leads and cheaper. And so it makes all the sense to do that. So Aaron, tell us a little bit of the background on this storyline, which is, hey, we struggled with a little bit with our conversion rate. - Yeah, it's, and yeah, it's controlled the things you control, right? And the thing that marketing frustrates, the thing that frustrates me the most in marketing is that it is such a gamble. It feels like that all the time. Like we're just, and probably a better word is, you're constantly testing and it's probably a more fair way of saying it. But it feels like a gamble and it feels like an unknown and as somebody that's, you know, likes to have control of things, then you've got to know me pretty well. Marketing's hard for me because I don't have control, right? And so, but I, - And that by the way is not just a, because Aaron's not good at it, it's literally, Google tomorrow could change everything and the game is different. - And Google did change things by the way. Like we, and we, we're learning more about this right now, but you know, I've become aware in the last week or two, Google made a major change in how they're, they're algorithm for service industries, you know, they're making changes in the reviews and how you can get reviews and what you can do in reviews with like your, your employees' names and them and things like that. So, so it's constantly changing. - Somebody told me this once they go, marketers ruin everything. (laughs) - This statement. - And the reason that is is because what, what Google is doing is, like I'm not mad at Google, Google's like, listen, I want relevant, I want, I want actual good reviews. And every time you, they change something, some marketer somewhere has a way of just tricking Google or hacking Google. And so, Google's like, well, you can't do that anymore 'cause I see how you're hacking us. They're smart and they change the game and they change the game and they change the game and that'll be true forever. - Yeah, so we, so a couple of things happened then. So, you know, I created a new company with you, the long-care CEO. And about the time I did that, I had a, if Shameless Plug, if you listened to our last podcast, Kyle Flanagan from Lawn Ace, was talking about how he had built a company around people and he saw a flaw in that and the flaw was that, when those people left, it hurt his company. And it's funny because I kind of had done the same thing and it's very easy for an entrepreneur to do this because people are the hardest part of our business, right? And at some point, every business is going to rely on people. We can say, oh, we want to about build seats and build systems and all this. But people are the engine of the business, right? They're the thing that really makes it seem. And so at some point, all of us are going to be dependent on a person and I was no different. - And this is my Brock Pertie example. Those of you who haven't heard my Brock Pertie example 'cause Brock Pertie was Mr. over-elevant in the NFL draft. He went to my San Francisco 49ers and then they went to Super Bowl. And everyone was like, he's a system quarterback. And there he's not like Brock Pertie. He went to high school down the road for me. Like, I'm a fan of his. But at the end of the day was Brock Pertie a good quarterback or was the system Kyle Shannon and system just really good? And the answer is yes. Like, in order to go to a Super Bowl, you got to have good people run in a great system. And if you don't, by the way, to have those two things in tandem, then you're not there. But good systems can make average people a good, good people a great and great people look like, all the famous. - Well, and so, in 2022, I start doing some consulting and by 2025, I'm completely out of my long-care business. And it didn't happen overnight. You've been around for the entire transition. I mean, it just kind of, it's like the, you know, you don't throw a frog in a bowling pot of water. You just let the water warm up around it, right? - The water is just a little warmer. - Yeah, and to your credit, it didn't fall apart. It didn't like, it didn't die on the vine. It kind of hummed along, right? That's by the way, one of the other reasons why great systems are awesome is that it can kind of hum along for periods of time for you. It was like two or three years. - The systems that we had really dialed in were operational. Like we were really strong on the operational side of things. I mean, we're not perfect, but the company was always on schedule, it produced good work. We had happy clients. Nothing on that side fell apart. And, you know, we grew the company by about 10% during those times, year of year. And so I mean, yeah, I'm not unhappy, but the thing that suffered the most with my exit was that the growth of the company, you know, you and I were in a leadership meeting with my company one day and at the end of it, we were at dinner and you said, you don't have a CEO. - Like you, you're a CEO. - Ironist, right? - Yeah, a company owned by the Lawn Care CEO. It doesn't have a CEO. - Yeah, it has a CEO. And so, but we also, in 2022, I've had a great relationship with Lori at our company has been with us now 16 years. It's funny when she came to work for me, her daughter was 15 and she, you know, she was like, "Aren't I gonna drop off at school?" And then I can come to work and then I got to pick her up after school and that's kind of how we started. And now, you know, her daughter has graduated high school, graduated college, married, has two kids, you know, and it's been so long she's been a part of our family. And now Lori came to me in 2022 and she said, "Hey, my daughter is expecting her first child and I'm gonna be a grandmother." And for me being a grandmother is gonna be being a part of their life. And so, I don't know what that looks like. I would love to help you part time. Is that possible?" And I was like, "Lord, and you know this, right? Like, we can say seats and things like that, but when you have a Lori or, you know, any one of our members, our team came to us and said, "Hey, I need to go part time." You figure out a way to keep those people apart of your team. They have so much institutional knowledge. She helped me build out our CRM. I mean, she was a part of this entire company and the growth of it and I said, "Sure, we'll figure it out." And so she went to two days a week. Well, what that meant is the process that we had really relied on a person for was answering the telephone, customer service, selling, we sell everything we do over the phone or through email. Just that, that facing person was gone overnight pretty much, right? Now, I knew, I had a half a year notice. And you were gone at the same time. So that happened at the same time. We both exited the company at the same time. So this is really, really crucial. And again, to your credit, the company, by no means, fell apart, but we lost these key people that were really good at customer service and sales. And so we leapt through that. And what happened was our close rate had traditionally been 50%. We were 48 to 54%. Some were not range all the time. To me, to me, I'd give like a BB plus. That's a great little close rate. If you're hitting 50%, I'm pretty happy with you. Well, somebody would also say that Dan, They don't want their clothes right higher than that because they want to push their price up and they think You know, there's a big lot of debates on the Facebook groups in the industry about clothes rate And if people are listening this I bet you're somebody going that's a that's a I would want my clothes rate higher than 50% Because you're leaving money on the table Yeah, yeah, I don't see what you thought let's pause on that for a minute because that is an interesting debate And I probably have even said that because it's true that the the conversion rate gives you some sense Of where your price point is in the market It is how like if I if I'm in a little farmer's market and I have a lemonade stand and my Lemonade's at a dollar and nobody seems to be buying it. I lower it to 50 cents Well, hey, my price was too high or the reverse is true if I at a dollar and everybody's buying it and I raise it to dollar 50 and now You know the net is better than I probably shouldn't can raise my price this a little bit But I Go ahead. I think so this is a I think it's you'll never hear me say Raise your prices Like just a blanket statement raise your prices and by the way I hear a lot of people that I respect a lot. I think are very smart say that and it and it I feel like it's a little irresponsible First of all, let me just say this for our for our audience if you go and raise your prices 10 15% across the board Here's what's gonna happen your most ex your best highest margin clients are going to go oh wait a minute That seems expensive. Let me get some quotes and you're gonna and they're gonna find someone cheaper I guarantee you that's this is gonna happen your cheapest like your lowest margin client is gonna be like It's still a good deal and they're gonna keep you and those in the middle are gonna probably be somewhere in between and and so You've actually hurt yourself if you do that if you're going to raise price it I'm a fan of raising prices, but here's how we raise prices we literally audit every client now We have 1400 now so we'll go through and we'll just one at a time take our time and we'll audit them and here's how we audit them We'll go what we'll measure the property again check the measurement because that fuels the price Make sure we didn't mismeasure make sure we're correct and then we'll compare it to the current price list Okay, so let's say that I'm a measure miss miss lawn measurements right and I look at her She's been with me 10 years and she's 50 bucks a visit from 10 years ago And we just hadn't really creeped her up enough and today she needs to be $65. I've got a decision to make right How much how aggressive are gonna be with her right and and so we'll say look if we're within 10% raise them 10% if you're over 10% You got to make a choice because if I go to raise a great client, you know, and miss miss miss been with me 10 years I you know, I'm still in by the way the pins on the service There's a lot of variables here that matters is why I hate the raise your price game because I can't say that to you if I don't know Let's say let's say one thing for who hasn't listened to all of our podcasts for that might be listening so if Like at the end of the day the way that we determine price what our standard for price should be What we should be charging for a service is we connect it to how expensive it is to produce the service in the first place That's the only measurement that matters. It's the only one if for whatever reason you figured out a way to moa at 7,000 square foot long for a dollar 50 You should charge three dollars and kill everyone else in the market But if it costs you $50 to moa a 7,000 square foot long you shouldn't charge 42 Okay, regardless of what you're what regardless of what the competitors are doing and so at the end of the day Like it's how much it costs to get one to determine whether or not what your price point should be So if my kids go to the market and they can now it doesn't mean we shouldn't push the limit on the on the top side But it's going to diminish or or lose our competitive advantage if we are cheaper in the production And let's talk about what that number should be like it's pretty easy if you're spending and and I don't care and I'll and you know Go back a year ago watch the podcast on Greg Crabtree. I think he's he nailed this You Greg Crabtree says that any business that can have a gross profit of 55% And what that means so this is layman's terms here because neither one of us are accountants We're not trying to play accounts here, but you know gross margin gross profit is just simply in his in his mind You know the labor in the field and the materials in the field to produce that dollar, right? So if we if we can spend you know 45 cents on material and labor and We can keep 55 cents on a dollar then that's a good business model It's a great business model in his mind. He says I don't care what business you're in if your gross margin can be 55% or better That's a great business and you know Wall Street would say the same thing right private equity is coming in and they're looking at that They're looking at businesses who can do those types of things right and so we say in our business in our in our industry We think that it should be about 35% We control right yeah, well and honestly mowing is well mowing - yeah, you really you really should be you know 65% gross margin in mowing or fertilization we control because it's it you can we know it we see it all day long, right? And so yeah, and so Ultimately, you know if you're new in this game and you're like man I don't even know what is gross gross what I mean You don't need to understand that all you need to understand is how much money do you spend in labor and material? To do any service you're doing and if you're spending more than 35% or 35 cents on the dollar how are you gonna look at it? Then you probably are priced too low and you probably need to raise your price Mm-hmm. So so all we teach people how to do Dan is to build price matrix with that in mind and we've got a really cool Price matrix that we give away if you're you know if you've got a heralds rep They actually have access to it. They'll come teach you how to use it Heck send us an email say I want a pricing matrix. We'll give it to you for free info at lawncare CEO.com, right? Yeah, and I want the pricing matrix, but you know so We understood we understand the pricing right and and and as you're as you're talking about raising prices You're gonna use a pricing matrix that is set your pricing so that you are 65% or better On your gross margin and if that's the case then you're you're gonna look at your existing client list and go Are they close to that? Listen if that client's about 55% I'm not gonna mess with them a whole lot I'm not I'm not gonna poke the bear right and here's the reason that I am so I'm so bullish on this like you know don't raise prices, you know just across the board the value of a client it is like Having client count is probably one of the most important metrics like if I understand your pricing is good and you tell me you have 2003 thousand 4000 clients That's that's a big deal right and every single one of those clients matters and so you know We're working so hard. We're gonna talk today about close rate and marketing and some things like that We're working so hard to get these clients the last thing you need to go is be reckless with the clients you have right and It's almost back back to the original comment which was like hey closest to cash closest cash the guys in front of you The already giving you money and you want to be careful with them now Now we bumped into it. I'll probably the number one early mistake that long care businesses do make is they do under price their work And you got to be strategic and careful about the raise of price over time now if you're losing money on a client Like you're again, you're the cost you 50 and it's cost and you're paying 42 and you're getting 42 Well those clients are easy raised prices on because it's like what do I have to lose a little bit? But at the end of the day here's the spirit of what let's get back to kind of our topic for the day So when we talk about conversion rate one of the elements of conversion rate is price You can't deny it right an element of conversion rate is price and You did something this year that what you thought was interesting you said hey I want to go get aggressive and maybe this is maybe step one of this process is like you got to get your pricing right and then if you're if you're Struggling if the goal is growth and client acquisition we want to actually push the limit on the lower price rather than more So but the but the but there is a limit and we have to really really understand that limit And then we can push the price down a little bit if our goal is client acquisition and then like you said We can kind of like inch that back to a healthy spot over time But think about this. Let's imagine that I have a client who is 55 dollars But I can get the price within my cost of goods healthy range within my gross margin healthy range down to 49 dollars Well 49 dollars to an client heart in mind is gonna go. Oh, that's way cheaper than Even 55 like psychologically the four and when it starts with the four versus five is way different Well, if I can go get that client more often and maybe I push my I gross margin from 65% to 62%. Like, that's a strategic move I can make to help increase my conversion rate, is to lower the price. And this is the difference between a casual lawn care guy and a guy who's trying to grow a business. The difference is, I know the difference between 49 and 55. I know I'm strategically deciding with a spreadsheet in front of me, I'm doing 49, 97. You know what I mean? Like, it is, that's the thing that I think that people, I'm gonna get on a soapbox here for a minute, but that's the thing I think a lot of people miss, that we're talking 2%, 3%, we're talking 4%, but when you multiply that 4% across 1,000 clients, well, all of a sudden, you're in a cash flow crunch, if you're on the wrong side of that 4%, or if you make 2%, 4% mistakes, all of a sudden, you have an 8%, instead of 20% in a profit, you're 12% in a profit barely getting by. And so it does become about these little details in the pricing, specifically, that like companies that would die. I don't know, if you're not confident in your pricing, man, you should come talk to us tomorrow. Like you literally should go info at long here to you at.com, Dan, oh crap, I am not confident about my pricing, what do I do? Because it is a science, it's not an art, we can go figure it out, and then you can feel confident, and then you're ready to scale. - So I think we need to back up just a little bit though, because, all right, so Lori left, I left, and then we transitioned to trying to like backfill this position with a couple of different scenarios. And they didn't work, not because these solutions don't work, but because I wasn't there to train. We were missing that CEO, that person who, you know, three jobs at CEO, cast a vision, build the team, not run out of money. And I didn't have time to build the team properly, because I was building a team at the long-care CEO. In the same period, we've added nine employees at the long-care CEO, Dan, I mean, like, I am building a team over here as well, and I am, you're doing a great job with that as well. So the point being that we, you know, this transition, the other thing that I think is important, before I would go and try to scale, when you and I first started working together, we started kind of coming up with this idea, and I think it's very important to remind people this. I want to scale RDS long-care, because I can produce a dollar for almost 70 cents, I mean, for almost 30 cents on the dollar, so I have almost a 70% gross margin, okay? So by the way, our gross margin went from city to city. - Talk, talk, talk, dirty to me Aaron, talk dirty to me. 70% gross margin, holy. - Yeah, since I've been out of the business, the gross margin is going for about 63% to 70%. Okay? And so we got really good at what we do. And then also, our team, the people who do the work, are really happy and paid well, and get healthcare, and they've become career-minded jobs. We've also implemented some equipment that has reduced the walking. Our guys used to walk 24,000 steps a day. They're now below 10,000 steps a day, because of this equipment. I've got technicians that I used to have to hire, 20 year olds and early 30s would be the cap. I now have a 42 year old technician who is thriving in the job. So all these things, all these fundamental things in business matter before I go try to scale to the moves. Right? If I go take a rocket to the launch pad that doesn't have a good team, that doesn't have a good gross margin, that doesn't have happy clients. Those things aren't figured out, and we go put rocket fuel in that, and we light it, everybody gets hurt. Well, and consequently, if you do have a rocket that's built that way, and then it's gonna start growing. It just kinda has a natural result. And so instead of a race to a bunch of new clients, it should be a race to building a really great business. It's a race to build great foundation, right? People. And then the foundational piece that was missing was we really didn't have a good office system and process. And so, and the people, we didn't have the right people in seats, and so we fumbled through that. We did, we're big fans of the VA, Philippine VA. We help people find those. I did that, I went that route. Let me tell you, don't hire a VA if you're not prepared to train. The VA can't train themselves. - Sure. - Because I was not there, by the way, I didn't hire someone saying, well, I'm not gonna train them. We hired someone and I got really busy and I couldn't train them. And so that didn't work well. That person or position didn't work well for us because we didn't train them. We set them up to fail. I tried a call center. Like call center would flip calls to a salesperson. Also during this time, my father, who was retired had been sitting in the sales seat. And that position, he was ready to fully retire. And so there's just a lot of transition. - Your dad was selling, I remember that. That's great, yeah. So you had everybody, basically everybody, I showed a lot of. - I showed a lot of. - Yeah, and so here's the transition we made. So one in September, we said, okay, we need to get a CEO. Right? You can't have a business that's, you know, we'll do 1.5 million this year and fertilization we control. You can't run a business like that without a leader. And I wasn't able to be the leader anymore. And so in September, my wife left her assistant principal job in gas and county schools and came to join RDS Longcare to lead. We've, Laurie has been a part of our team. She works Mondays and Wednesdays and occasionally she'll do a Friday and so that position was there. And then my son had joined the team, you know, two years ago, after high school, he decided he wanted to learn entrepreneurship, be a part of our company. And so he had been kind of floating in the business learning the game, right? You know, we took it slow with him, let him kind of learn the game. And so, you know, we realized about last June, man, I think why it, my son, would really be great at sales. And actually he came to me and said, "Dad, I'd like to sit in that seat if I could." And so we started testing that. And we realized that, you know, that was a great move. Now, that was part of the half the battle, right? You gotta have a team, you gotta have people in place. And so then the work began. We then dug in and said, our sales process kind of is antiquated. We've kind of been doing the same thing since 2012. Like the same forms, the same, you know, and it had worked. And honestly, you know, if you're a business owner, you got like, you know, I don't know, 200 things on your list to do. And you're just like every day, and you're living in this now, right? It's like, which one? - 15 extra minutes to do them on a Sunday morning. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's busy. - So, you know, if something's not broken in business, it's really easy to say, just not gonna dig into that. Let's just let it keep doing it. And that's kind of what we had done with ourselves. - But your conversion rate started to slide. It started to be broken, right? Where it's like, hey, we're at 33, 34% in a particular month. - And it just didn't make sense. And another thing happened too, back to this pricing thing, Dan. Like I think there's a lot of, like, by the way, guys in business, it's never one thing that wins, it's never one thing that makes us lose. - Fair, right? Like it's not just like, oh, that happened. Let me just stop doing that. It's a combination of things that probably-- - In my head, I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm definitely confident that it's not one thing that makes you win. I know that's not true. I'm like, there are a few things, the one things that could make you lose. - There's some out there. - For sure. - There are a few of those. But for the most part, when you're diagnosing a problem, it might be again, but 3% here, 4% there, 10% there. And if we fix all of those things, then we get these big results. - So what happened is we had people that changed, right? So we took this really solid, Lori, who answered every call and had conversations with people. She has a great Southern accent. We're in Charlotte, North Carolina. She's got a great Southern accent. And so people that called in just felt like-- - She sounds like she should be on a cooking show where I'm making cinnamon rolls. - Yeah. - So I mean, and then we switched to a call center first, which really was the worst. It was really painful. And I love the idea, and I love some of the people that are trying to figure out the call center thing. It's just tough. It's tough to have a call center answer your calls. I'm not a fan. And I understand a spirit of love. of where call centers think they're filling the gap, but it's just really difficult for that person to help. And by the way, the biggest pushback we get from our clients, they hate call centers. They know when they've been flipped to one and they just don't like it. They'll tell us, "I don't like your call center." And they just, I mean, it's not the people, it's just they don't feel like they're talking to the people. They know when they're there. - Feels robotic a little bit. - Yeah. And then the VA, we switched to VA. That was great at first because we had consistency. By the way, what I love about the VA is there's consistency there. They're Johnny on the spot with things. They're very talented. They can help you. You put a VA in the right scenario. It's amazing. - Yeah, so let's talk about this first step. Let me try to put a button on it. So step one is, I need somebody, like if we're talking about how to make the conversion rate work, when we take away a good consistent person that answers the phone every time and has a great way of talking to the client, - Knowledgeable, that's product. - Very problematic, right, to our conversion rate. At the same time, if I don't have anyone picking up the phone, answering the phone consistently, a good first step is a Filipino virtual assistant. We're gonna teach you in a minute how to get to that, convert, how to give them a really killer script that they can answer very simply. And that, again, if you're not answering the phone, your conversion rate is 0%. And so for us to get to 30 or 40%, we can do that with a Filipino VA who's well trained. And so that can be a great next step. You're probably not getting to 80% conversion rate with a Filipino VA, but I will take 40 or 50% over 0% because I'm not answering the phone. - Sure. - Right? Yeah, and so we shifted to that. Had we had Paris, my wife in the CEO seat, that would have worked great because she would have trained that person, we'd have been listening to phone calls, we'd been, and by the way, the Filipino, I've yet to work with any of them that don't wanna get great at their job. Like they want you to train them. They want to be coached. And so-- - I had the best story of a Filipino VA, just a side note. So I had, so one of the things we do at Long Curses is we will help you find a Filipino VA, we'll help you get a list of candidates with videos and you can kind of like go through and choose one and hire one. We teach you how to hire and do all that stuff. So we've done that for one of our clients and the client came to me and said, "Hey, one of our Filipino VA's wants to quit." And that I hadn't heard of before. I was like, man, I feel so bad. I'm so sorry, we'll help you find another one. Well, then she said, let me tell you the story of why she wants to quit. And I said, okay, okay. She said there was a flood in Manila. The flood affected her home and her first floor of her house was underwater. Now she was prepared because she does Filipino VA work and she had a generator and a way of accessing the internet and she was sitting on the roof of her house, trying to do work. And she felt bad that her work was maybe not quite up to par and so rather than continue to move forward, she was gonna quit. - That's like what? - What? Like, yeah, we have guys not shown up to work because they had to much to drink last night. It's like, what? - Yeah. - Man, yeah. - They're amazing. They really are. I highly recommend that route. And by the way, Dan, I think we're gonna probably add a Filipino VA to the long-care company next year. And so as we tell the story, you'll kind of understand where we went. So we didn't have that person straight away. - Step one, get your person. If your person can be you, let it be you. If you can't be you, let it be a Filipino VA. If you can't afford a full-time person. If you can afford a full-time person, you're that size of company, then let it be a full-time person. US States is the best result. So the close rate had dropped into the mid-30s. And it was crazy. Now also, the reason I said it's not one thing, the thing that probably impacted this a lot was we lost Lori and that consistency in my dad, who itself and that team went away and replacing that team was difficult. So that hurt the close rate. But at the same time, we went from, when Lori was jamming and selling, we had a six-round program, six visits for fertilization we control. Well, in the midst of like from 2020 to 2023, a couple of things happened, right? Well, from 2019, 2018, we started doing this in 2013, but let's just go 2018 to 2024, Tom Frem, okay? In that Tom Frem, we went from a six-round program to as your lowest program. Oh, we had a six-round program and we upsold services, okay? Yep. And so, for example, like we were fast-grewed to our product product in our market and we do these fungicide treatments. And so we would treat the yard six times a year for the basic plan, that was the fertilization we control. And then we would upsell these four additional visits, right, so that's 10 visits a year to do the fungicides that the yards needed. And so the elite program would have been like 10 visits and it would have had all the fertility we control and the fungicides, right? But we'd have to upsell that, okay? Also, we would upsell like aeration seating in the fall. It's a big deal for us here. We do a lot with that. So, but Lori would lead with this one program, six rounds, and you know, close rate was great on that. Half, you know, half 40s, low 50s, you know, great job. All right. COVID hits and around that time we realized, six visits isn't great for a full time job. We want a transition to furt only and we're like, it's gonna be difficult to take six visits and create, you know, a full time year long job. And we also found that we were missing six visits, we had breaks in our, in our weed control. So we're going back to people's yards for free and taking care of weeds. And it just, we just didn't have enough visits to control the weeds. And so we decided, let's go to eight rounds. And eight rounds is much better schedule. It controls the weeds better. It spaces out, you know, the jobs for our team gets a little bit longer duration for the year, keeps them a full time job longer. And then also during COVID, the prices of our products went through the roof. So everybody starts raising prices, right? Back to our price top. And we did too, you had to raise prices. It was crazy. The price of nitrogen went through the roof. And it just, me fertilizer went from $16 a bag to $25 a bag. It was just crazy, right? And you just, and you know, we just couldn't adjust fastest. So what's happening during all this is, I as a business I'm going, we need to do more for our team. We need more visits for our team. We need, 'cause we talk about the three-legged store, right? It's got to be good for the client. It's got to be good for your employees. It's got to be good for the business. And it wasn't good for our team, because they need to work full time. And by the way, you might be sitting here going, well, that's not really good for your client. Yeah, it is good for my client. If I hire better people that shop to their house, in a roundabout way, that is good for my client. And so we got a balance. And we're taking better care of their lawn with more rounds, more visits, right? It's not like we're just charging a money, not doing anything. But what happened is I studied this, I studied this big time, this winter. And I found out that the close rate was impacted by the people that we lost. But at the same time, we told the community, we do eight visits now when you buy from us, not six. So two more visits. And we raised our prices. And we kind of raised prices emotionally, not based on the way we teach people raised prices now, right? We look at our costs. We have a really good understanding of where that line is, right? And so what happened is, so close rate dipped into the mid-30s. And our close rate, to this year, is, we've hit as high as 84.8%. And on average, we are at 69.25%. So let me tell you what we did. What we changed, okay? Let's do it. So just to lay the foundation of everything else. So a couple of things that are foundational here. One is price product makeup and the second is team we've talked about. And what we're probably going to talk about, how you made those changes around those things. - So when I studied the close rate, it dawned on me. And I actually leveraged AI for this a little bit. And this was pretty cool. AI told me, I kind of threw all this stuff in there. And AI said, "Hey, this is exactly what it said to me." It said, "You got more complex and more expensive, and your client got less informed, or is less informed, or is not informed." Right? And so all I told my client, or the leads that were calling me, "Hey, we're expensive, and we have this eight-round program." By the way, the national companies didn't change their programs. They're still offering a six-round program. Right? And so, you know, the reason the closure probably dropped is much as anything is we changed how we sold it. Lori's great. And if I can have a world of front lines or a world of front lines, but if I gave Lori eight rounds and more expensive pricing, Kirkclose rate would have dropped as well. And so here's what we changed. We said, OK, we are going to offer three programs. We were just offering this one program at the time. We're going to offer three programs. We're going to have an elite program. And it's going to be the 10 round program that I described earlier with all the fungicides in it. Also, people in my market upcharge fungicides. So let's say I'm charging $100 per visit for a regular visit. They'll charge $150 for the fungicide visit. So now my client is seeing an extra $50. And they don't know what fungicides are. They don't care what fungicides are. All they know is you charge me $50 more. The other thing is that people who try to upsell these things-- this is why I'm not a big fan of the upsell add-on-- is the client doesn't give you time to educate them and they don't care. And they're never going to care. And if they think they care, you're kidding yourself. That's not a big deal. And the guys who care, you don't want his client. Oh, yeah. I don't want that guy. And so I get that-- and by the way, at the same time, then, the cost of fungicides have reduced significantly to where they're more in line with a regular visit anyways. So what we said is we're going to make this really easy. We're no longer going to sign you up. By the way, only 35% of our clients would take the fungicide package. I'll give you the example of the upsell. I'll give you the example of the upsell that makes a really good sense to me. And you probably have this experience before too. I go to the dentist. They do a bunch of work, and charge me a bunch of money. They literally poke and prod me, and I don't enjoy it at all. And then they say, would you like fluoride? It's an extra $40. Yes, what, dude? I had no idea how much I was spending when I walked in. I honestly-- I had no idea. And so if you would have just said, and we do fluoride, for free, I would be like, man, this place does fluoride. For free. No, they don't. They charge me 40 bucks in the bill. But I just-- they just lend it in there. But I would think my dentist just does fluoride for free. I'm not educated enough about dentistry to know the difference. And what I really want is I want you to take really good care of my teeth and then send me the bill. That's what I want. Now, I know that some of your clients are going to be price-conscious. And that's why you have three programs, right? Is because there are some people that are like, I can't afford the fluoride. Yeah, this is important, though, because when we were trying to upsell, we were pretty good at it. We got about 30, 35% of our clients to take the upsell. We needed a large percentage of them to get this, because we lose grass in the summer months because of fungus. And our yards were bad, right? And what would happen is the ones who would take it would start questioning us when we started coming to do it because the treatment was more expensive. They don't remember signing up for it. And they would stop halfway through the summer, a percentage of them would say, just, I don't want to do that anymore, just do the regular stuff. And so we would lose some of that, right? So now what we said is, we're just going to combine all that into a 10-round program. They're all the same price per visit. And you're just on the elite program. And now, over almost 60% of our clients, fish-reclients, get the 10-round program, OK? Because they're getting the elite stuff, and it's the same price. By the way, 100% of them stay on it through the summer. They don't stop unless they stop because they don't want to do anything anymore, right? I mean, obviously that's going to happen. But they're not stopping because they're on the elite program, right? Whereas people were stopping because they're like, I don't really want the fungicity. I've got a little regret on that program or whatever. So now, but the way we sell this, I think, is important. So we know that there's two ways people come to us, right? They either come to us through a web form or they pick up the phone and call us, right? It's one of those two. And so if they come to us through a web form, we're going to try to call them. The goal is to talk to these people as much as you can. So everybody, every web form that comes in, we're going to try to get the phone to call them. If the phone rings, we need to answer it live. If you're not answering the phone live, I don't think people leave voicemails anymore. Do you have a target as far as how long? It should take from the time that that email hits your box to the time that I'm ringing the phone. - Oh, I mean, as quickly. If you can do that immediately, you probably have a better chance of getting that person on the phone, right? 'Cause they probably just send it. They're probably in that. - I like, like, you should picture as soon as that ping comes through, 'cause most of you have a way for them to get an instant quote or whatever any website. As soon as that ping comes through, I want you to picture them at their desk. They have a little notebook of a to-do list. And one other to do is to get long-care services or some kind of another. They've just submitted. They've just done the thing where they check the box. Can they check the box that it's done? No, right? They can't complete that task. So there's the possibility they go, maybe I'll just send out a few quotes, 'cause I don't know if these guys are gonna get back to me. So literally, from the time that you, they click submit, the time that they go back to the website to submit another, that's how much time you have. It should be like, ring, ring, hey, Mrs. Johnson, we're ready. - Yeah, and I think if you're calling within 30 minutes to an hour, I think you're probably okay. But again, if someone's submitting a web form, they're probably more patient. They're probably like, I'm gonna get something back. - Okay. - Right. Now, our rule is we try to call them, and I'll go into the whole web form. - But for the record, if I have a salesperson or a VA, I'm telling them that story is told and saying you have 30 seconds, man, go. - The quicker the better, always, in this game, the sales game. Now, if they call our office and the phone rings, we're gonna answer that live, and we are prepared to sell them at that point, okay? And so that's gonna look something like this. Client calls in the office, phone rings, we answer it. - It's missing it. - So let's go be this stuff. - Let's open this up. - I'll be, I'll be, Smith, hello. (laughing) Mrs. Duffer. - Mrs. Duffer. (laughing) - I would do that. - So maybe you could be Mr. Thompson. - So I won't offend all the women in the audience. Ring, ring. Ring, ring. - Yeah, RDS, I'll look here, how can I help you? - I won't do it, I won't do it. Yeah, calling 'cause I need to, I think I need to get my yard treated. - Yeah, thanks for calling. What type of grass do you have? - I don't know, the green kind, I think. - Okay, cool. I'm gonna pull up your property and measure it. Give me your dress, you give me your dress, I'm gonna measure the property. While Dan's, you know, while I'm talking to Dan on the phone, I'm gonna measure the property, right? And we're gonna look at that measurement. And typically Dan, our team can tell what type of grass the neighborhood has by looking at the area, we can pretty much tell, not always, but we can kind of get that. So I'll say, Dan, it looks like your home is about 7,000 square feet of fish you turf. And I wanna tell you a little bit about how we're gonna treat that. So I recommend, by the way, Dan, do you have an irrigation system? - I do, mm-hmm. - Okay, I'll put it in the last time. - Awesome, yeah. - Great, great, great. So cool, so thing that we know in our market, in Charlotte, North Carolina, fish you turf is susceptible to fungus. Fungus actually comes from the high humidity that we experience and water being present. So you have an irrigation system, water's gonna be present, and humidity's always gonna be present. So fungus is gonna be happening in your lawn. So I recommend our elite program, our elite program takes care of all the fungus, fungicides that your fungus protection that you need, all the fertility, all the weed control that you need. And for your lawn, it's $68.97 of visit for us to come out. We'll come out 10 times a year. No contract, you can cancel anytime you like. I can actually get your schedule to the next three days. All I need from you right now is a credit card, which would you like to go forward with that service? And we shut up, okay? Some form of that. - No, I was pausing for emphasis that you just shut up. I know that's how you do it. - All right, yeah, I guess that sounds good. - Great, let me get your credit card. - So by the way, like this is the thing that I think is so brilliant about that. What could I be calling for other than I want tall grass short or yellow grass green? Green and weed free, that's what I want. Hey Mr. Thompson, we're gonna make your green grass, the greenest on the block and weed free. I'm gonna make sure I come out 10 visits, 68 dollars. That was a sound. That's pretty much all you need to say. I don't even, as a non-long carry guy, I don't know enough to know what, I don't even know if I dare admit this, but I didn't know the grass ever got fungus. I didn't know that. I was like a no-grants that I'm in Arizona. I don't really have grass, but it's like, "Graske, it's fungus, that's a thing." Like I didn't know that. So like, I think the brilliant part of that little script you just gave us is it's so simple. The simpler, the better. There's an old saying that says, the confused mind never buys. And so you want simplicity. You want one option. You want one thing you're selling to one client and for it to be very straightforward, you're gonna give them what they want. 'Cause the psychology of the buyer is, I have to have confidence that I'm making a good decision. And I can't have confidence if you're asking me to make decisions about things I know nothing about. - Now, so we lead with the elite program. That's the program we want people on. That's the program we're gonna make there you're the healthiest and look the best. That's the program that gives our guys the most stops every year. And by the way, we actually have priced it so that the elite program is the cheapest by a few dollars per visit. Okay? So I'll get into this here in a second. - And by the way, so you lead with that, and you just like you did. - You lead with that. - And you shut up. - Hey, we've been scheduled. - And there's a decision that's being made right there. And you mentioned it just now. But I think it's important that our audience understand this. Okay? This person probably has like three conference calls today. They gotta get their kid to their soccer practice after school. They're maybe one of their kids is sick today. Their husband's out of town. Their wife's out of town, whatever. They're gonna grandparent that's in the hospital. They need to get their hard taking care of. They are not, they do not have time to go do this 10 different times. They don't want to do it 10 other times. They want their yard treated, or their yard mode, or their yard trend, whatever, right? And I know you're gonna sit and go, "Well, yeah, I've got clients who they'll call 10 people. "Great, that's not my deal, client." - I'll dress your yellow dress green. - Yeah. And so they're making a decision at that point. Like you said, Dan, like 6897 sounds pretty reasonable. I can check this off my list and go on to the next thing. If you think they care about the fungicide that you use as oxystrowman and purple condosol and your fungicide makes, you're fooling yourself. Stop it. - What you're actually doing is confusing the buyer, making them think, man, this is maybe more complicated than I thought it was. Maybe I need to do a little bit more research. I need to go figure it out. Whereas if I just showed up and said, "Hey, you want your tall dress short and your yellow dress green?" Yes, that's what I want. Okay, we'll take care of that. And the reason-- - Express. - That we, the reason I only gave you one option is I'm trying to close you right now. Because I don't need my sales team following up with 100 people a week and trying to, you know, I need to deal with you right now and get to the next call and close this and get this thing scheduled, right? And so when, if I were to give you three options on the phone call, you would go, "Ah, sounds great, Aaron. Let me think about these and I'll call you back." Well, you know, the sale goes to diet right there, right? Like, if we're a sale goes to diet. The whole goal is confidence, right? The whole goal is giving them clarity and confidence so that they can make a buying decision. And the more friction you add, the worse it gets. - There's a reason that, you know, use car salesmen don't want you to leave the lot. Like, there's a high percentage of people that never come back and buy that car. And they know that, you know, it's, you know, RCA used to call it the puppy dog sale. Like, "Hey, why don't, Dan, "why don't you take that color TV home "and see how you like it?" Man, you put it in your, yes, it's in the '60s, when you're 50s, when you could probably, you know, do that with honest people. But, you know, that TV never came back, right? Once you take the dog home to the kids, you don't take it back to the, you know, wherever you get the dogs from. I don't know if you're from the-- - Listeram Monster. - Yeah. So, it's the puppy dog, and they know that, right? That's why car salesmen don't want you leaving the lot. Like, what do we need to do, Dan, to get you in this car today, right? Now, I'm not over here being pushy car salesmen, guy, I don't really like that. But, you did call me for something. I'm giving you a price, and I need to get your yard treated for you, 'cause you obviously need your yard treated, 'cause, or you wouldn't have called me. And so, I'm giving you what you need and what you want. - So, for our audience, next time you have a sales call, I want you just to test it, just test it. If you sell a simple service, and you know that the result, 99% of the people want the same result, green and wood-free, tall grass short, clean and edged. Just say those words. When I come to the dentist, I don't want the dentist saying, "So, how do you want me to take care of your teeth today?" No, you're the dentist. You should know how to take care of my teeth. That's why I'm hiring you. So, what I want you to do is do the dentist thing and make my teeth really great. That's, I don't know what the dentist thing is, but I want my teeth white and cavity-free. Can we make that happen and stay in my mouth for a long time? Can we do that? And so, I might talk. - Oh, by the way, also, could you talk to me while you're in my mouth, and I can't talk back to you? - Yes. Oh man, dentist is the right least favorite thing. But at the end of the day, right? Like, that's, like we can make it that simple. And I think the fear that bubbles up is a fear that somehow I'm gonna lose the sale. And so, because we're so afraid of losing the sale, in the movie "Hitch with Will Smith," there's this beautiful scene in "Hitch" is this ladies' way in the butt of Rick. But originally, he's not a ladies' man. He's this nerdy guy kid who has a girlfriend. He just is overly possessive of her. And he finds this girlfriend with another guy. And he's knocking on the window. He's like, "What are you doing? Why are you doing this?" Like, "What did I do to not to lose you?" Because he was smothering her. And the guy who's making out with his girlfriend is like, "Dude, you're doing it right now. You're doing it right now." And basically, the message is this, sometimes we are so concerned about losing the sale that we smother it. We kill it. And so, like, just to understand, any simple services, we're not talking projects necessarily, simple services, something I can sell over the phone. We want it is not a complex sale. It is so simple. And that's probably, so we have to summarize, 'cause I gotta get to call. So, summarizing, here are three things. - Oh no, we're a little quick. We're missing the whole point. Like, if they don't, close. - Okay, yeah, finish, finish, finish, finish. Then, we sell down to the other program. So, if Dan didn't take the elite program, then I say, "Help," Dan says, "I need to think about this. I gotta talk to my spouse about this," whatever. I'll say, "Well, Dan, let me make you aware, I've got two other programs. I've got a basic program." It doesn't handle the disease control. We just take that off. We come eight times. It's 71.97, I visit. It's a little bit, about $2.3 more visit. It does all your week control, all of your fertilization, and we do free callbacks in both of these programs. So, you're yards gonna be taking care of it at high level. And then, I've got this little starter program. It's six visits. It competes with a lot of the national companies. Be honest with you. It's just a real foundational program. We don't do free callbacks in that one. And, you know, it's actually 72.97 a visit. It's a little bit more. Here's the thing. I'm gonna send all these to you, Dan. What I want you to do, review them. And decide which one best fits your needs and budget and get back to us. Now, here's the thing. I said that I get to talk to about 50% of the people. So, I get to do what we just described, 50% of the time. The other 50% don't wanna talk to me. We don't ever get to talk to them. And so, we email them three options. Because I don't know who they are, what their needs are, what they want. And so, and the reason our close rate has gone up, is we are getting, there are people. And you might be saying, well, you know what? I don't want those six round people. And you know what? We don't either. But we've put them in a classification that tells them we're not gonna treat you the same. We're not coming back. We're not gonna promise you the moon on this program. And, but I don't wanna lose that opportunity with that client because I don't have it. And what we've seen is the increase in our close rate, Dan, has been because we have that option. We're getting people on that. Now, it's not a large percentage. The majority of people are signing up for the 10 round, which is great. - Like, like 60% something like that? - Yeah, 60% of our Fescue clients get the 10 round now. Remember that's up from 35%. So that's a huge difference. So we have better loans, healthier loans, greener loans, more visits, happier clients, right? Now, those people that are on the six round, our close rate, I think, would probably would have been closer to 50, 50, low 50% if we didn't offer the six round. Which would be fine, but we're at 60, almost 70% because we've added those people and we're massaging those people up to the eight round. If I didn't have that program, I would not have a relationship with those people. And by the way, they're paying me to have a relationship with them. Like, I'm not losing money on these people. Like, it's a good client. And listen, if they're happy, we're happy. If they're unhappy, they'll tell us and we'll say, "Oh, remember when you signed up, you took the cheaper program. You're really ought to do the eight round." But if I don't sign you up, I don't ever get to have that conversation. And so here's the deal. At the end of the day, Dan, I've got a company that has a 68% gross margin last year. I have 1,400 clients. I've hired a CEO and invested in, you know, building a team. I want 5,000 clients. I'm not gonna get 5,000 clients, Dan. If I'm the most expensive and I have this limited program and I only talk to a small segment of the community, I'm gonna have a nice little small profitable business, but I'm not gonna scale a business. And so if you have dreams of scaling a business, you have to adopt something like, or some mindset like what we're talking about here, where I am talking to all the people, and I'm working with all the people to move them through my company. And that's what I think we've learned here through this, right, we talk about lessons learned. The lesson I've learned through this whole process is, you gotta have a great team, right? You've got to have a great product. You've gotta have a great sales team and field team, right? Not just, you know what I said, team, I'm talking about both. I've gotta have a company we're scaling. So I gotta have something that produces and is profitable. And then I better have a really good sales process that talks to as many people in the audience as possible, right? Because if they're calling you to get a quote, they won't, they're y'all are treated. I mean, they dream of having their y'all treated. I don't know, maybe they don't know if they can afford it or not. But so we should be able to, like, and listen, here's the interesting thing, Dan, we know as a company scale. So let me tell you this, we're quick. The value of my company, if I go from 1,400 clients to 2,000, 2,500 clients, the value of my company goes up $4 million. That's truth, okay? The value of my company with 1,000 clients of growth at the scale we're at right now, the value of my company goes up significantly. So now when you think about that, now I can't lose any clients. I'm protecting these are gold, right? Client count matters a lot at scale. By the way, Client count matters a lot if you got 100 and you're trying to get 500. Client count always matters. And if you're quite different. - But not client, but not client count and expense of profitability. But client count matters for sure. And that's why this conversion rate matters so much. We're super stoked for RDS, for figuring this out, for Wyatt, shout out to Wyatt if he ever listens to this to like, for leading out of that. 'Cause that was kind of his invention, right? It was like, hey man, I'm just gonna make it easier and simpler and somehow that had a little magic in it. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to the lawn care CEO podcast. Again, we love our tens of tens of listeners. Go do more good. Thanks guys. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)