Why Your Bank Account is Lower Than You Think: Lawn Care's Top 10 Money Leaks
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Why does my bank account balance feel lower after a good week of work?
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 best-selling 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 to boost your business and level up your life. Here's Paul Jameson.
Welcome back to the Green Industry Podcast. I'm Paul Jamison down here in Florida. And I got a question for you. Have you ever worked hard, had a had a good day, maybe a good week, and you open up your bank account balance. Your you maybe you got a little appy app, a little app on your phone, or maybe you check it on the desktop, and you open it up. And then you're looking at the balance, and you're like, I thought I had more money in there than I have. What is going on? Is there. Something ain't right. And you start digging through. The expenses and you're like, Oh yeah, I remember that came out. Oh yeah, I remember. Remember I had that expense and then the next thing you know, we're like, Well, maybe this balance is correct after all.
And your heart like sunk 'cause you thought you had more money in your bank account. Well that's happened to me before and running a business There's a lot of expenses that come out of our business. And as the business owner, we need to know with clarity where every single dollar is going. Where every single penny is going. We need to understand our numbers, understand our business. So in today's program, I'm going to uh do a countdown, the top 10 expenses. that are eating our margins alive. So if you wanna stop guessing where your money's going, we uh we need to start uh paying attention to all the expenditures so we know what's coming out of our business. And ultimately at the end of the day, I think that's going to help us to really feel confident in our pricing so that we price jobs at a profitable rate.
So here we are. My top ten uh lawn care expenses. And I did a program uh a few weeks ago or actually uh last week. About The one crew system versus multiple crew systems, because there's a big kind of renaissance in the the landscaping industry where a lot of folks are are migrating back to that one crew system. They just find more peace of mind, it's more profitable, it's easier on their schedule, yada yada yada. Um, so anyway, um The expenses though are Or Pretty much the same for a a single crew or multi crew, except this one, which I'm gonna ha which I have at the top of my list. And that is labor. So The number one expense In most lawn care businesses. Is the wages. If you're doing it right. You gotta pay your worker as an employee.
What are the top 10 expenses that drain profit margins in a lawn‑care business?
Then there's payroll taxes for your worker, there's workers compensation. And it's not all that common in the lawn care industry, but if you are gonna have employee benefits, there's those as well. So The biggest expense for most lawn care businesses Is Waber. Hey. Your worker. The guy, the gal. Who's out there mowing edge and trimming blowing, flinging the mulch, doing the work? Paying them. is a gigantic expense. So that's number one on the top of my list. Number two. Is The Uh few. So gas. Diesel. I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone last night. They just got a Bucky's gas station in their town. And I was like, Have you been to Bucky's yet? 'Cause they had the grand opening. And they're like, No, why would I why would I why are you so excited about gas station?
I was like, Bucky's is awesome. But um Anyway. Between You know, filling up your gas tank. Um, if you're using gas mowers, um your your fleet of trucks, whatever whatever you got, fuel costs can sneak up and can really decimate profits quickly if you're not careful. Now There's a lot of folks switching equipment to battery powered equipment. Shout outs to our friends at Crest Commercial. And there's expenditures on that too, right? You got to buy the batteries. So at the end of the day, power ain't free. Whether we're we're we're powering our vehicles or powering our equipment, whether it's gas, diesel or battery,
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Why does my bank account balance feel lower after a good week of work?
0:03–3:24
2
What are the top 10 expenses that drain profit margins in a lawn‑care business?
3:24–10:31
3
Why is labor the biggest money leak for most lawn‑care companies?
10:31–13:23
4
How do fuel, gas, diesel, and battery costs impact my bottom line?
13:23–17:25
5
What equipment costs (purchase, maintenance, repairs) should I be tracking?
17:25–22:34
6
How much does insurance (general liability, commercial auto, workers’ comp) really cost?
22:34–26:06
7
What should I consider when buying a truck or financing a vehicle for my crew?
26:06–34:34
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Green Industry Podcast
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