Why Saying "Yes" to the Wrong Client Costs You Thousands
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Why does saying “yes” to every job hurt lawn care profitability?
Hello and welcome to the Green Industry Podcast, your go-to guide for building a more profitable and thriving lawn care and landscaping business. Your host, Paul Jameson, is the author of five bestselling books, including Cut That Grass and Make That Cash, and his latest, Level Up Your Money. All available on Amazon and Audible. Now, get ready for more expert insights and practical strategies. Strategies to boost your business and level up your life. Here's Paul Jamison.
Welcome back to the Green Industry Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Jamison, down here in beautiful sunny Florida, where I'm loving life. And we are officially rolling into the spring. So the grass is waking up down here in Florida. Most people don't know this, but Florida's not all the same. So, like way down by Miami, it stays hot all year round. And I honestly am not too sure how the turf works down there, but up towards like Orlando and Tampa and more like central Florida, the grass still goes dormant uh in the winter. And and especially the golf course I play at, the the fairways and the rough, it it goes dormant there for a few weeks when it's kind of cold in January, February, but it has woken up now.
And uh The mowers are spinning on the golf course in the neighborhoods all over town. And if you've done your marketing right in your lawn care business, uh your phone should be ringing off the hook right now. So the problem is. that when you're just starting out in this business, you're hungry and You only say yes to everything. Can you do a one-time cleanup that's 25 minutes away? You're like, yes, of course. Yes, yes, yes. Maybe someone needs a massive mulch job that you you might not have the crew for. I remember my first 100-yard mulch job. You heard that right. 100 yards. Customer's like, hey, can you you do mulch? And I'm like, yes. And I'm calculating it's gonna be like a hundred yards. Okay, when can you do it?
Well, your boy has some decently sized arms and shoulders And with a helper or two, it still ain't gonna be doing no hundred yards of mulch, right? So my point is You can bite off more than you can chew really quickly if you're not careful. So today we're gonna talk about whyings. Today we're gonna talk about why. Saying um yes. Or y yeah, as some of y'all say. Proper thing is to say yes. But some of y'all say yes to the wrong jobs. And it will actually bankrupt your time. your business and affect your relationship. So today I'm gonna teach you exactly how to start saying no. So that you can build a highly profitable, tight route, the right customers, and have time for your family, your wife, your kids, your your your um hobbies.
So let's talk about Windshield time is destroying profits. So if you take a job that's just five miles outside of your core service area, you're gonna destroy your route density quickly. And you're not making money while you're driving your Chevy. Or you're Ford. Whatever you're driving. You really only make money while them blades are turning, right? Why while your mowers going, why the uh bushes are being trimmed, why the mulch is being spread. Like that's you you gotta be doing the work to be making the money. Just driving somewhere. Is not good. I want to shout out my friend Um Chris Gentry. He is in uh Charleston, South Carolina. He created something called my service area. We've had him on the podcast multiple times, but
Chris created this thing called my service area that that connects really simply to your website so that it can track when somebody types in. their address if it's in your service area or not. So you can quickly Um what's that word, Mr Producer? Drew Blake. If you know if someone's in your service range or not, ideal. Qualify? Yeah, that that'll work. Qualify will work. There's another fancy word for it. But basically determine is this a good fit or not. You you you you qualify or vet the customer ahead of time. So in business school they they teach you something called opportunity cost. So Essentially the Every time you say yes to a lay a low paying job or to an absolute headache of a job.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does saying “yes” to every job hurt lawn care profitability?
0:03–6:27
2
How does over‑extending on one‑off jobs drain your time and money?
6:27–11:15
3
What is the “windshield time” problem and how does it affect route density?
11:15–18:55
4
How can a geographic service‑area filter protect your profit margins?
18:55–24:17
5
What are the key service‑filter questions to qualify ideal clients?
24:17–30:39
6
How can automation (CallRail Voice Assist, Jobber) help you say no efficiently?
30:39–33:19
7
When should you use a high‑price “price‑out” strategy for massive jobs?
33:19–35:00
8
What final steps should you take to shrink your service area and focus on bread‑and‑butter jobs?
35:00–35:24
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Green Industry Podcast
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