Starting Lawn Care · 2020-09-27 · 20 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
26 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Building a recognizable brand in lawn care requires customers, friends, and family to know who you are and what you stand for - not just finding you through paid lead platforms. The host received a pitch from Angie's List, which positioned itself as a membership-based service for quality customers rather than a lead-generation platform like HomeAdvisor, Amazon Home Services, or Thumbtack. He rejected it, reasoning that customers already use Google, and that paying $300-400 monthly for 3-4 calls is essentially paying for leads under a different name. His actual growth strategy centers on dominating Google reviews (he has 102 reviews with only 1 negative), tracking where calls originate using Yard Book, and using door hangers and flyers to make repeated brand impressions in neighborhoods. He references the movie Focus to explain the psychology: when people see your name multiple times throughout the year, they're more likely to think of you first when they need service. This requires consistent marketing spend (which pays for itself within one landscape project), proper seasonal timing to maximize conversions, and a focus on organic referrals paired with strategic brand visibility.
He viewed it as paying for leads under a different name ($300-400/month for 3-4 calls), and doubted that customers in his area actually rely solely on Angie's List instead of Google. He also had negative experiences with similar platforms like Thumbtack, which sent customers outside his service territory.
He asks every inbound caller where they heard about his business, then tags that information in his Yard Book system. He's found that 90% of customers mention Google and his high review count as the primary reason they called.
He's increasing door hanger and flyer distribution in neighborhoods to make repeated brand impressions throughout the year, using the psychology principle that multiple exposures make people more likely to think of you first when they need service.
He estimates that $200-300 spent on marketing materials pays for itself within one landscape project ($300-400 profit job), making all subsequent customers from that impression pure profit.
He didn't market at the right time for fall aeration and overseeding services during the COVID period, missing customers because people were holding onto their money and he didn't make enough early impressions to convert them.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode is a 20-minute stream-of-consciousness monologue that circles the same basic idea - get reviews, ask customers how they found you, use door hangers - with very little novel content per minute. Long stretches are occupied by the Angie's List sales call recap and a Will Smith movie tangent, both of which yield almost no transferable insight for a B2B operator.
make sure you're continuing the market market market market all you can
i don't know if you guys ever seen that movie with uh i think it was will smith what was it called i think it was called focus or something
Every core idea - collect reviews, ask customers how they found you, door hangers build awareness, referrals are gold - is standard small business content with zero contrarian or first-principles framing. The movie analogy is the most creative moment but it is borrowed from someone else's work and the conclusion ('make impressions') is entirely conventional.
make those impressions each time and when they decide to choose who they're on a roll with they choose me
route density is a important piece to my business and my business growth
This is a solo monologue by a self-described second-year lawn care owner with 102 Google reviews and a small local route; there are no guests at all. The host is an authentic practitioner, which gives some credibility, but the scale is very limited and the depth of experience is correspondingly thin.
i made it my business within my first year of course it's like my second full year
as right now i have 102 reviews and i have one bad review
There are genuine numbers scattered through the episode - 102 reviews, 1 bad review, 50-60 reviews in year one, $300-400/month Angie's List cost, 90% of callers citing Google, a $400 job with under $100 in material - which is more concrete than many podcast conversations. However, all data points are small-scale personal anecdotes with no external validation.
90 of the people that call me they always say google you had a ton of reviews
that $400 project more than likely probably was less than a hundred bucks in material that was a $300 profit job
There is no host-guest dynamic to evaluate; the entire episode is an unstructured solo ramble with no prepared questions, no follow-up probing, and no productive friction. Even as a monologue the craft is weak - sentences trail off, ideas repeat without development, and the narrative loses the thread for minutes at a time.
um those are two two things that i feel like take your business to the next next level
i feel like i'll spend a x amount of out of pocket not to say i'm an entrepreneur and i don't mind you know investing in things that and diversify the way i invest
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Marketing & making impressions to future customers for your lawn care & landscape business is essential to your business growth. In my first & second year, more and more people call and tell me what they heard about my business. Listen for more details.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Hey guys, it's been a minute since I uploaded a podcast, but I want to go ahead and make one today to give you guys something to think about. And the topic I want to give this one is, do they know you? Do they know you like families, friends, your current customers, your future customers? Like, do they know you?
Do they know your reputation that you have for your business? Do they know about your business? um those are two two things that i feel like take your business to the next next level because the people that know about your business that talk about your business is the probably the more than likely the ones that appreciate what you do if you're doing a good job they're the one that share your business and help you grow your business so with that being said of course i'm circling it around of course you know got you know I love Google I feel like that's a resource that people utilize a lot for services and things of that nature I actually got a call yesterday I talked with this guy for about 30 minutes from Angie's List he said he was uh one of the guys of like one of the corporate offices and he noticed that I filled out a form back in January but I didn't complete it.
He wanted to see if he had any questions or anything that he can answer that can get me on board with, you know, signing up. And I was like, no, where I'm at with my business, I just want it to, I want to grow gradually. I don't want to grow as fast as, you know, the speed of light. And I don't feel like the service will be necessary for what I'm trying to do that's kind of what i was explaining to him of why i'd never completed it and um so this guy's sale point was he's like you got to understand our customers are they pay a membership to use angie's list so they're they're more than likely not really worried about what price your service cost they just want somebody who's reputable and from the looks of it you have more reviews than any of the lawn care landscape companies around besides true green he said this so i'm like okay so this this must mean he's focused in on my reputation as a business he looked at my website and uh so i'm like okay at this point he got my he got my attention so i'm like yeah i said um and that's kind of where i'm at right now i said uh i feel like uh i don't want to pay for leads just because I may attract the wrong type of customers I say and also he's like well we're not a a lead-based company I said well how does it work he's like well uh basically you get a few calls we send you a few calls a month and you pay a certain price point three to four hundred dollars per month you know that one customer you know can give you this that and a third but to me that was a little bit contradictory because he said I'm not paying for leads But yet the amount that I would actually pay for the service that he's offering would be around three to four hundred dollars per month if I'm looking to get three to four calls per week.
To me, that's paying for leads in a different just not phrasing it in that sense. they have other service like services like that like home advisor uh amazon or thumbtack there's many services out there that offer this type of uh service service to probably get you leads and try to grow your business um for me that that's just not how i want to grow um i feel like i'll spend a x amount of out of pocket not to say i'm an entrepreneur and i don't mind you know investing in things that and diversify the way i invest but in the same token i would think uh i would be more out of pocket more out of pocket with paying for leads um that may not be a long-term customer or no no telling what type of people that they they're gonna give you i know from my experience with i think i tried out like thumbtack or something but they send out various different customers in different areas not my type of area and that hasn't worked for me route density is a important piece to my business and my business growth so sending me customers that's way out and you know not in within my area doesn't help me so in that sense like that service didn't work for me but hey who's to say it doesn't work for everyone else so further along we're we're talking and uh the guy was basically telling me uh it's like you gotta understand there's people that don't even use google they just go straight to angie list and that where they they use angie list for all of their services meaning whatever they need done that where they go They don look up online or nothing like that So you pretty much going to have a loyal quality customer And not to say I shouldn't believe the guy.
He may be right, because if you think about it, if somebody is paying for a membership, why wouldn't they utilize everything within their membership to get their services completed? but my thought process as well i seriously seriously doubt my objection to that was i seriously doubt that someone is not utilizing google i say i said for instance if you need something right now i say are you guys going to go to angeles or everything no people like to diversify where they're looking for stuff and they don't look on angeles list or just yoke they don't just shop those platforms that's just my opinion people look multiple places before they make a decision and that's where i was and the guy was like no i well i have to object with you it just doesn't work like that with us all the majority of all of our customers are reoccurring disjointed and a third i'm like okay guy he's pretty uh a hard salesman and uh i i admired that because God didn't let up.
He didn't let up fast on trying to answer any type of objections I would have with moving forward with their service. Which kind of brings me to my next thought process is like, do people know you? Like, like do people know you? Like that's what, what made me think like, like, dude, I don't, none of my family or friends use Angie's List.
So what type of customer base that we have just because my family and friends don't get me wrong just because they don't use it doesn't mean that there's not a large uh customer base that do use it so i was like my thought process was well i don't know anybody who uses angeles like like you're saying so what's the likelihood of the average person to be using it i don't feel like there's a that's just my opinion it's not a lot a large amount of people that's going to be using within the area that i'm currently located so it's like well well uh we have more uh more work than uh landscapers uh to actually complete the work right now and to me every time i get a call from anyone whether it's home advisor or whoever trying to get me sold on their services uh it doesn't work for me just because they all have that same thing oh we have so much work and not enough landscapers like you understand i hear that from every last one of you guys um which also in a sense i i don't just hear that like well this is their sales pitch whether that may be true but i don't really want them to find me just through you you know what i mean that's why we have facebook that's how you have sites like yelp where you can get citations with your your business name your your phone number and your operational out all those things that's why we have all those different platforms google my business listing to kind of put your business out there now once you're out there online and stuff like that like of course what people say about you is a big deal because people look at reputable companies um i i made it my business within my first year of course it's like my second full year i made it my business to to crunch down and get more reviews than any other company i'm micro focused on it because it's a big deal to me um i'm not perfect i know there's gonna come down this road where i'm gonna get somebody maybe somebody random or whatever somebody's gonna leave me a bad review but the thing is i got so much momentum built that who's gonna look at the bad reviews when you got well over you only have i only have one bad review right now one bad review and i tried to amend it with that customer i tried to call him and it was it was kind of crazy it was the dude had a party that he was throwing and he wanted me to come there and stall mulch like the next day like dude i'm it's the peak of the season this june july like i just can't run over to what what you got going on and install mulch on this short base i need like a week to plan this thing out but yet and so i told the dude i'll be there and sure enough i caught the flu so i've actually missed all my customers for like a whole week or two and that caused me to get that bad review from that one customer and i feel like it shouldn't have happened because i should have communicated i could have prevented what happened by just communicating but you know it happened you know I got a bad review and I tried to mend it with the customer He moved on said I ghosted all the customers And but yet he didn't understand my situation.
I feel like there's no excuses by making excuses. So I should have gave him excuses. I should have just gave him the reality of what was going on. Him being a human should have understand.
Hey, OK, Roberts has the flu. He shows up every time on schedule. usually you know i dropped the ball one time he threw me under the bus it's just what it is i accept it for what it is but as right now i have 102 reviews and i have one bad review and so uh i got momentum built the average potential person potential customer future customer they're gonna look at all the good yes they're gonna want to know the bad or the bad things that like they know I'm not perfect, but let alone I'm controlling the narrative of my story by having good relationships with customers, doing good work and making sure those people are telling other people about me by just leaving a review, review on Facebook, Google, every platform.
I'm trying to make sure that people know me and they have a perspective.
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