Real People.
Real Stories.
Real Success.

THE PROBLEM 

Over the years, Steve jumped at every opportunity to take a big account or contract. He promised to do everything for his customers - lawn care, maintenance, landscape, pruning, mulch, trimming, plowing snow...you get the picture. And in order to fulfill all those requests, Steve took on $50,000 of new debt every year...for seven years…

STEVE'S BIG DECISION 

Run away to Alaska to hide, just like all the best fugitives do.

He just needed to figure out how to tell his wife they were going into hiding.

BACKGROUND 

Steve started his lawn care and landscape business, American Landscape and Lawn Science in 1992.  Based in Norwich, CT, he used a spare room in his home as an office and managed the day-to-day operations right out of his backyard. It was an ideal setup - low pressure, easy to manage, and he earned enough to support his family.

Over four years, he doubled his revenue, added two full-time employees and one summer employee. He lived a very comfortable lifestyle. He was building his dream business.

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS

By 2001, Steve had tripled his revenue, and now had twenty field employees: a four-man lawn application department, a four-person landscape crew and four, multiple three-person mowing crews. In addition, he had two managers, a lawn care manager and a landscape manager.

He wasn’t living a dream. He was living a nightmare.

The managers he hired weren’t qualified to be managers. His company was bleeding to death. His pay had not increased in over seven years. As a matter of fact, he had to take on debt to pay himself a salary - the salary that was no longer enough to support his family.

With over $250,000 in debt, which was unsecured, not leveraged debt tied to equipment like trucks and mowers, his dread and worry had worn him down.

THE HARDEST PART

He hadn’t shared any of this with his wife Katrina. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t told anyone. He was carrying all of this debt, guilt, and worry alone.

Steve kept hoping if he just kept grinding out the work, things would work themselves out.

THE REALITY

But nothing had worked out, and things were getting worse. Steve had to figure out how to tell his wife and their two children that they needed to move thousands of miles away to hide in the wilderness. And he had to tell them it was because he screwed up.

He was so ashamed. He had an economics degree with a minor in business. How could he, of all people, not be able to figure out how to make ends meet?

Steve knew he had tried his best. He had thought he was doing what was right for so long. And he felt like he should have been able to navigate his way through this situation.

THE VOW 

With a vow to do whatever it took to turn his business around, Steve decided to find outside help. He found a professional business group that specialized in business triage.

Scrounging up his last $3,000 of credit card debt, he joined the group. 

CUTTING EXPENSES

By the end of the week he had laid off his lawn care manager, his lawn maintenance manager, and his landscape designer. He actually cut over $150,000 in overhead in ONE DAY!

Steve wrote letters to his vendors, letting them know he was unable to pay them, but he would do his best to keep his obligations as soon as the money was available. He had been digging a hole for seven years, robbing Peter to pay Paul. But all he was doing was creating a bigger cycle of debt. 

LISTENING TO THE NUMBERS

Over the next few years, Steve really struggled forward. He didn’t know how to read his business numbers, and he didn’t know what they were telling him when he did. 

With the help of his accountant, Steve started to realize many of his “full-service package” customers were costing him big time. As a matter of fact, it would have been cheaper for him to just write them a check at the beginning of every year.

“We would do their business, their home services. All-inclusive service contracts, you name it. We took care of everything for them. Lawn care, pruning, mulch, trimming, landscape, and snow. Those were the ones that we were literally doing the plowing for free. The all-inclusive contracts were killing my business because we weren’t tracking it.”

Steve’s managers were coming up with thirty-four dollars an hour for mowing because they had the wrong crew size. He was running a three-man crew when he should have been using one to two. Adding one extra person can drop your profit margin by 15%.

Because he was focused on growing business, he just kept adding services, adding customers, and adding employees. He ended up buried in debt.

This is the Survival Trap.

If you’re getting stuck in the Survival Trap, chasing top-line revenue similar to Steve, you’re likely getting nowhere, FAST!

Once Steve realized he was there, he saw a way forward. His numbers could tell him what he needed to do to save his business. The path just wasn’t as fast as he thought it would be.

TAKING THE LONG WAY 'ROUND

The road was long and hard for Steve to pay off his debt. He worked 12 to 14 hour days for seven years - Monday through Saturday and then seven hours on Sundays. He had no choice, he had laid off his managers. If he was going to work his way out of debt, he was going to have to do it himself.

Over time, he paid back every penny to his vendors.

He worked with a consulting company for 10 years, digging himself out of his financial hole. He felt grateful and relieved, but his “profits” were still underwhelming. The thing he couldn’t shake was his highest profit since “right-sizing.” It was 4.5% to 6% net profit. And none of the consultants he was working with said it should look any different.

They also didn’t tell him there were faster ways to get out of debt. A path that wouldn’t require him to put in all the hours, all by himself.

When he pointed out his highest profit margin to his consultants, they said, “yeah, you’re right.” But then they failed to take any action to help him improve those numbers.

He had sacrificed years of time with his family to get to this lackluster profit number. Shouldn’t he have been able to move the needle to 15% to 18%? How much time would that have saved him of the back-breaking work and long hours away from what he loved to do?

Steve was pissed.

TIME FOR A SHORT-CUT TO BIG PROFIT NUMBERS

That’s when he grabbed the book Simple Numbers Big Profit by Greg Crabtree, which helped him move his numbers to 9% in one year. And the following year, he was able to get to 17%. Which ended up causing a huge, unexpected tax bill.

Good problem to have? Maybe. But an unexpected bill was still a bill.

And then he found The Pumpkin Plan and Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. He and his team implemented the Profit First system and ended up with 20% profit, with taxes managed...all in one year. With these strategies in hand, Steve and team implemented strategies to target their best customers with their most profitable services.

They found out they didn’t need a million dollars in heavy equipment to generate high profit margins in a lawn care and landscaping business. They learned that all they needed was general use tools and right-sized tractors. 

With our Scalable Growth Business Model Steve was able to calculate the amount of money they would get back from every dollar they spent on investments.

“I wouldn’t have been ready for Profit First if I didn’t trust that the numbers matter.” 

He used to think that if he knew all about plants, soils, and selling and which equipment to buy, that would make his business successful. Steve found out it takes profit to generate growth.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Steve had a long and winding journey to get to profitability. He took baby steps forward. And that means he sacrificed a lot of his time with his family and extra money he could have used to live a life he enjoyed. But you don’t have to take the long way ‘round. If you’re ready to follow the Profit First system, you can take the shortcut to big profit numbers. And you can forgo the unexpected tax bill in the end.

Are you ready for the most direct route to profit?

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