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IM Landscape Growth Podcast

Date: April 14, 2024

“I like to charge like I’m the company that I want to be tomorrow. It’s about charging not just what you’re worth, but what you should be worth tomorrow, to be able to grow your business.” – Michael Pletz

TLDL 😉

Michael Pletz, from his beginnings in a stone yard to leading a successful hardscaping business and podcast, shares crucial insights on overcoming industry challenges such as hiring and pricing to enhance business operations.

Here’s what we discuss in today’s episode:

• Michael’s journey from working in a stone yard to establishing his own hardscaping business and developing the ‘How to Hardscape’ resources.
• Challenges in the hardscaping industry, especially hiring difficulties and the necessity of appropriate pricing to support business growth and manage unexpected expenses.
• Michael’s approach to effective pricing strategies, including labor rate recovery and overhead cost allocation.
• How proper pricing supports hiring competent staff, facilitating delegation and business expansion.

Actionable Key Takeaways:

Implement a Labor Rate Recovery Pricing Model:

Allocate overhead based on the percentage of time a project takes within your annual hours to ensure all costs are covered.

Invest in Employee Training and Onboarding:

Develop comprehensive training resources for new hires to boost their efficiency and integration into your business.

Utilize Technology for Efficient Operations:

Employ software tools like Michael’s to streamline processes such as quoting, job costing, and employee management.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

1. How to Hardscape Website and Podcast: Essential resources for hardscape business owners looking to expand their knowledge and skills.
2. Simple Numbers by Greg Crabtree: Recommended reading for understanding financial management in business.
3. The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber: Suggested for grasping the distinct roles of entrepreneur, manager, and technician in a growing business.
4. Michael’s Software Tool: A tool available through the How to Hardscape website for efficient management of hardscape business operations.

👍 If you liked this episode, please rate and review us on your favourite podcast platform, and be sure to hit the subscribe button! 🔔

Episode Transcript

Robert
00:00

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the I am landscape Growth podcast, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs grow faster, better, and stronger in the green industry, from leadership to sales to recruiting and operational excellence. We cover the topics holding entrepreneurs back and share how to get past those bottlenecks with the best in the industry. I’m your host, Rob Murray, co founder and CEO of Intrigue, a digital marketing company focused on helping landscape companies grow. So sit back and enjoy the show. All right, welcome back to another episode of the I am Landscape Growth podcast. Today I have an awesome guest, Michael Platz. Thank you for doing this, my man.

Michael
00:37
Hey, thanks for having me, Rob. I appreciate it.

Robert
00:41
Cool to have a fellow podcaster on this podcast. So, Michael Platz has been running how to hardscape for almost five years now, I think, right?

Michael
00:50
Yeah. Coming up on five this October.

Robert
00:52
So a seasoned veteran compared to what we’re at, we’re not even a year into doing this. So really appreciate you coming on the show. Michael’s also founder and owner of Ever after landscaping, and there’s a whole bunch of other stuff that Michael does, so I’m not sure how he sleeps at night, but we’ll get into all those things as we go through the conversation. But before we do, Michael, can you give a Cole’s note summary of kind of the last couple of years and how you ended up running your business and running the podcast and more?

Michael
01:20
Yeah, absolutely. So. Well, I started back in 2007 in this industry, and I was introduced by my manager at a grocery store, and she said that I should work at a stone yard. So I started working at a stone, worked for there for more than seven years, and eventually started doing side work. So that’s where I actually got to doing hands on stuff. side work, got too busy. I was making more on weekends than I was at a full time job at the stone yard. So it just made sense to start my own business. Started my own business, that’s going about five, six years. Six, probably six years now. and then started how to hardscape because I kind of saw a need for more and more information online in our space. And that started with the website because I’m.

Michael
02:07
I guess I’m a writer first and started the website, then started the Instagram with the podcast. Because a podcast is a great way for guys to be able to listen in their trucks on the way to the job site. And then YouTube channel started. So we’re kind of knocking down dominoes as we go.

Robert
02:23
Very cool. And what’s the core focus of the landscape business of ever after landscaping, just what you specialize in.

Michael
02:33
We specifically do hardscaping, even though it does say landscaping in the name. That was perhaps, a bit too ambitious on my end, wanting to learn more about the soft scape side of things, the planting and everything, but I never got around to that with everything I’m doing. So we specifically do hardscaping.

Robert
02:49
Very cool. All right, sweet. So, theme of the show is all around understanding the primary growth constraint, holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry. So, you know, you’ve been in this space a long time, and. And so what do you see as the. As the main thing that’s kind of holding people back from taking their business to what they want to be as the next level?

Michael
03:07
Yeah, I think, like, the easiest thing would be hiring. Like, me, myself, I also struggle with that and being able to hand that off to somebody else, like your prized possession, like your baby. And I’m the one building these things. So being able to, like, hand that off to somebody and have them step into your role and for them to. For you to give them agency in your business and to take control of whatever vision you might have in your business, I think that’s, like, the most difficult thing to do. But beyond that, I think, is also what I try to address in this industry, and that’s being able to charge what you’re worth, but not just what you’re worth, what you.

Michael
03:44
What you want to be worth, what you should be worth tomorrow, to be able to grow your business so that you don’t have. If somebody makes a mistake in your business and it’s going to cost you a day, that day is not going to be a big chunk out of your livelihood, where you may need to. Your truck goes down tomorrow, and you need to buy a new truck. Hopefully, that money’s in your business there, as opposed to you having to reinvest into the business with your own money. And slowly, that starts to eat away at your business as you have more equipment, as you have more employees. That’s. That’s the biggest thing that I’m about, is making sure that you’re charging what you’re worth and incorporating those overhead expenses that eat away at a company, before they actually do for contractors.

Robert
04:29
Well, and it’s neat, too, the way you kind of parlayed the first one, about hiring and essentially letting go and giving people agency within your organization. and if. If you’re not charging enough that it’s difficult to pay enough to have somebody that comes in that you trust enough to let go, yeah, exactly. So it’s kind of, it kind of seems like, you know, that letting go peaks becomes easier if you’re earning enough to be able to hire great people. So then how do you figure this out? I know there’s lots of spreadsheets in the world and programs and stuff like that help people figure out estimates and pricing. So, like, how do you tackle that if you’re somebody trying to figure this out right now?

Michael
05:07
Yeah, I think it’s as simple as, like, I like a specific pricing methodology that is straightforward. It’s labor rate recovery. How many hours do you have in a season and how many hours is your project going to take you? It’s going to give you a percentage. So, for example, if you have a thousand hours to, in your season, in your year, and your project’s going to take you 100 hours, that’s 10% of your season. So you need to take 10% of your overhead expenses and apply it to that project. And it’s quite easy to sit down and be able to list out all your overhead expenses, everything that comes out of your business. It’s, there’s no such thing as, that’s just the cost of doing business.

Michael
05:45
Everything needs to be added into those business expenses and then whatever your equipment is and that depreciation on equipment and being able to figure that out to get to a nice round number for what your overhead is. And I consider overhead being business expenses plus equipment. And then you just add that 10% of that project. So those expenses into that project, plus your labor, plus whatever you pay your employees, and then plus your materials, and then add a healthy profit margin on top of that. It’s quite easy to be able to know that you’re charging what you’re worth with that formula there.

Robert
06:17
Okay, cool. So there’s, I mean, almost everybody probably, at least does labor cost and materials cost. And then you said something really neat about a simple way to look at how your overhead contribution per project works. And it almost seems like you almost have it per hour.

Michael
06:35
Yeah.

Robert
06:36
If you look at your, how many available hours do you have in the season? You take your overhead divided by your total available hours, and then that number is multiplied by the number of hours on any given project.

Michael
06:49
Yeah, exactly. So whatever that percentage is the percentage that you need to apply from your budgeted overhead for that season into it. So if your projects 10% of your season, you need 10% of your overhead expenses into that project.

Robert
07:02
I love it. And it’s simple, which means it can be done without too much work, but a little bit of discipline. So then you mentioned the idea of healthy profit margin. So you figure out what your cost is. You’ve got your contribution to your overhead sorted, got your material, you got your stuff, and then a healthy profit on top. Tell me more about that.

Michael
07:24
A healthy profit on top is basically set by what I believe to be your market. So you can get carried away with your overhead expenses and you can add whatever you want into your overhead expenses. I like to say, I like to charge like that I’m the company that I want to be tomorrow. And basically what that is even though I don’t have specific types of equipment in my business, I may want them in a year, two years, three years, those into my budget to be able to start to accumulate that capital so that when I go to put a down payment on that equipment, that money’s there. I’ve already been charging like, I’m that company. And then it’s not a reinvestment into the company on my part or it’s not coming out of the profit in the business.

Michael
08:05
So you can get carried away with that, though. So then it becomes, okay, how much net profit do I add? How much net profit margin do I add to this project to ensure that I’m staying within that market based pricing for my market? And that just comes down to watching your close ratio or your close rate. Like, are you falling in a bad close rate and you are probably priced too high? Or it could be something in your sales process that you’re not demonstrating that you are that type of company that can charge that amount. Because even within a market, there’s market based pricing for other companies. And what perceived value can you add as a landscaping business?

Michael
08:46
And that’s what I’ve been focusing on in my business in the last few years or so to make sure that we can charge a little bit more than what the typical market rate is in our business.

Robert
08:59
Yeah. Okay, that’s great. So there’s two pieces that come out of that one around close rate as an indicator of pricing. And what does that look like then? What’s a healthy close rate from your perspective?

Michael
09:20
I like to be above about a 60%. And if I’m below that’s probably pretty bad. But it’s going to differ from company to company. And everybody wants blanket, this is where you should be at, but ultimately depends on the company because I qualify very much when it comes to somebody reaching out to me. I make sure if they reach out to me for a backyard patio. I make sure that they send me a photo of their space and give, tell me what you want done in your space and ideas that you may have. And if somebody doesn’t, you know, respond to that. Well, they, we never go out for a consultation. They never even fall into our close rate. And then we ask them for their budget.

Michael
10:01
If they’re not willing to give us a budget on the email, we will tell them, okay, based on what you’re telling us here and the projects that we’ve done in the past, you typically will fall between this amount and this amount. And then they’ll either say, that’s too much, or they’ll say, okay, let’s schedule a consultation. So they do have to jump through quite a few hoops to be able to even get us on site for that initial consultation. So our close ratio, I hope for it to be around 70% with all those hoops that they had to fall in. And that’s based on the proposals sent out to proposal declined or approved from that.

Robert
10:35
Do you charge for your proposals?

Michael
10:37
I do not. And I know that’s a lot of people do prefer to charge for proposals, but I just feel it’s another qualifying method to see if that client was even willing to give up a little bit of money to get there. I just don’t find it to be worth it for me with the hoops that I already have them to go through in the.

Robert
10:55
Yeah, well, I mean, you’re at 60, 70% close rate. I mean, that’s pretty solid. You’re not wasting your time on too many people if you’re visiting them and then closing them at that clip. So it’s interesting too, right? Because if you’re wickedly overpriced and your close rate is 10%, you could still be really happy with it, to your point, because there isn’t just a one size fits all close rate. But I can say with pretty certain confidence that if you’re closing 90% higher, you’re probably underpriced, right?

Michael
11:24
Exactly.

Robert
11:26
And so I guess the kicker is being intentional, how many projects do you want at what type of price point? And if you get that, then you’re in a good space for you. One of the things, though, you mentioned, too, in close rate, and I’m not sure if this is the case for Michael, but have you done any sales training before?

Michael
11:48
I have not. Luckily, I’ve got a podcast that I can have salespeople on, and I treat that as my sales training, I guess.

Robert
11:55
Sure it’s like, straight up consulting, right?

Michael
11:57
Yeah, exactly. I take advantage of that. So I would say that’s kind of my sales training that I go through on an ongoing basis.

Robert
12:05
Yeah. Well, I mean, even the idea of asking for budget, some people are pretty, like, sometimes they’re scared to ask for it. Or if someone says, I’m not sure what it is, I’m hoping you tell me, and then they go, okay, well, tell me what you want, and then they build this dream list that ends up being four times more than the person has. So it can’t go anywhere. So it’s just a very shitty situation. So that’s what kind of asks. Like, not many people specifically put budget as a qualifier in their sales process. And the fact that you have a sales process in itself usually says at some level, you’ve been exposed to training.

Robert
12:36
But I do find it interesting that every single landscape company I’ve ever worked with has operational training, whether it’s in house, whether it’s post secondary, if it’s, you know, certified colleges and schools, if it’s association training. It could even be supplier training, you know, where they come in and demo how to install stuff, whatever it is. Every single business does that. And, like, one in 50 trains their salespeople in a professional sales environment. The last time I checked, there’s no work to do if the sale doesn’t happen. I find it fascinating that people aren’t doing sales training. Can you help me understand what’s up with that?

Michael
13:16
There might be just, like, disassociation with that, where I think just the business owner thinks, like, okay, I can do this, somebody else can do this. And even if they’re not, a lot of business owners that I know, they don’t see themselves as salespeople. So they just know the industry, right? And they know what they love, and they can go out and talk passionately about it and sell, and they don’t see themselves as a salesperson because of that. And they think that, you know what? They can hire somebody to step in the same role, and they can do the same sort of thing without that sales training.

Michael
13:50
But when it comes to somebody else stepping in your own shoes and without that perspective, and perhaps without that industry knowledge, they may just, it may just be a blind spot that they don’t even know that they need to actually train these people up and give them that sort of training to step into the owner’s shoes in that sales role. I think my opinion.

Robert
14:13
It’s fascinating. I just think it’s fascinating. So for anybody listening right now? I think Sandler training. Sandler sales training is probably the best. I mean, I’ve been exposed to many, but I think that one’s the best if you’re taking notes and want to check one out. Sandler. So this idea of charging what you’re worth, you’re getting your margins where you need your close rates in a good spot, you’re starting to make some money, you’re pricing the way you want to be the company you want to be tomorrow. It’s a really cool mindset. Now I’m doing that. I’ve got some buffer. I’m making some money. I can hire some people from your experience, as well as an interviewer, talking to all these other entrepreneurs, what do you see as the main issue? Holding people back from letting go and giving people agency in their organizations?

Michael
14:55
Yeah, it’s, I come back to like, it’s our baby, and it’s tough to let go of certain things that is your baby. And if you are annoying yourself, like having some sort of self awareness, I know right now that personally I love building things. Like, that’s what gives me joy. And I want to be in the fields 100% of the time. So if I go out and I hire somebody, who am I looking for to take some of the responsibility from my business out of my hands? Well, in that case, it’s probably a salesperson. But do I want to have a salesperson stepping in my shoes and being the face of my business? Well, probably not. And probably not in five years when I probably get more and more backaches, and I don’t want to be in the field anymore.

Michael
15:45
So I also have to have that kind of self awareness of where my business is going, where I personally am going, and to in having that long term aspect of I want to be in this industry for the long term. For me to be in this industry for a long term, I need to hire somebody that’s going to be in the field and be going to be that experienced and skillful person.

Michael
16:04
And for that to happen, I need to give up that agency in my business and be able to give them a part of my vision that I see for that project and allow them to make mistakes and coming back to the numbers side of things, I need to have that buffer for them to make mistakes as well, that it’s not going to put pressure on me and I’m not going to take it out on them when they make a mistake. And that comes down to money and having that buffer of money is just going to allow somebody stepping into my shoes to make those mistakes, and I’m not going to get angry at them because you know what? I’ve got that buffer in my pocket. Yeah.

Robert
16:37
And so with all the people you’ve met over the years, from your perspective, do you see any common reasons why people just won’t let that happen? Like, I see there’s, you know, obviously there’s many different types of entrepreneurs, but if were to simplify categories, one is, if I want to do it right, I got to do it myself. And another one is, I’m going to trust people to go mess shit up, and together we’ll all grow, you know, just to oversimplify two categories. And I find there’s more on the former than there are on the latter. And I’m just curious, because you’ve had a unique, you have a unique perspective on the industry. Talking to so many people over the years, do you see a common trait or reason why people aren’t willing to let go?

Michael
17:25
Yeah, I think some people come into this industry and they’re hardscapers, and some people come into this industry and they’re business owners first. And at some point, that hardscaper needs to become that business owner, and that might happen, that might not. It might be a pride thing in their work, and they want to be that hands on person and they can’t give anything up. but there’s just very obvious people that I’ve interviewed where they’re a business owner. Like, they have a business owner mindset. They know what they need to do and where they’re going in their business. They’ve got that long term vision. and then there’s other people that I interview, and it’s very obvious that they are a hard skipper. They love to be in the field.

Michael
18:05
And it comes down to, like, what they, when I’m interviewing somebody, it comes down to, like, what are they passionately talking about? If I start talking about sales with them, they’re typically, if they’re a hardscaper, they’re typically like, yeah, you know what? Sales. I don’t see myself as a salesperson. I just do beautiful work, and I get people signing up, and it’s great. And if they’re a business owner. Yeah, exactly. They’re artists. And if they’re a business owner, they love to dive into that sales process, and they love to talk about this leads to that and their close ratio and et cetera. So I just think it comes down to that mindset of are you a hardscaper first or are you a business owner first?

Michael
18:43
And if you are a hardscaper and you want to be a business owner, are you able to eventually just give up some of that sort of agency in your business?

Robert
18:54
Yeah, that’s cool. And so then I like the idea, too. Like, are you a hard skeeper first or business owner first? Are there any resources that you’ve ever come across that help, like, someone to find figure that out?

Michael
19:08
I think it comes down to the personally, because I would say books, but I’m an audiobook person. I’m a podcast person. I listen to audible and podcasts pretty much for the most part of the day. So listening to those, I know.

Robert
19:24
Is there anyone that comes to mind?

Michael
19:26
Yeah, like Michael E. Gerber, the e myth, if you want. That’s like an obvious one, right? Yeah, it is. And. But it’s also okay. I do want to say it’s also okay to be a hardscaper, too.

Robert
19:37
I’m just saying, if you’re a hardscaper and you want to have that mindset, like, if you want to try to make it happen, I was curious if you had a resource you’d recommend an EMA popped up.

Michael
19:44
And I just want to say, like, it’s definitely okay to be a hard team. Just be, like, self aware of what you’re doing in your business, that if you do want to have that business mindset and you do want to scale your business, but you have a hard scaper mindset, just be aware of that. And it’s totally okay to be a hardscaper in a bit and have a business. Just know what that leads to ten years down the road. Because it is a physical industry. It is a hard industry. And do you have some sort of exit plan with that or what are you going to grow your business to?

Michael
20:16
Because you do need that exit plan if you’re in such a physical industry, whether that’s growing a business and becoming that business owner or whether that’s, you know what, I just want to build cool stuff for the next ten years and then get out and service the industry in some other way, which is.

Robert
20:32
Super cool, I think that, you know, self awareness is a really key piece, right? Like, if I understand myself, my strengths, my blind spots, it’s going to be a lot easier to figure out how I want to design my life moving forward. I think your point, too, with Gerber and Emeth revisited, regardless of whether you are a business owner mindset or a hardscaper, as a business owner, you are a business owner and a manager and a doer. So knowing that and the different roles and how they relate to each other can be super helpful. So I think that was a good recommendation for a resource.

Robert
21:07
So then if you come back to this whole idea of charging what we’re worth, and we talked a bit about the costing and the pricing strategies, we haven’t really talked too much about this other, you know, endeavor that you’re a part of where you’ve essentially built a tool to help people do that. So can you just help us understand, like, what brought that to life and what is it?

Michael
21:29
Yeah. So when I started the how to hardscape back in 2019, by 2020, it was very obvious to me that contractors struggle with that, knowing your numbers kind of portion side of the business and knowing what to charge and charging what they’re worth. I was at a small conference, and there was a contractor doing a presentation at the front, and they showed them a spreadsheet of how they quote a project. And 90% of these contractors whipped out their phones and started taking pictures of it. So I was like, oh, man, nobody seems to know exactly what to charge if they’re taking pictures of other people’s numbers that they don’t know how they came about that. Right, right.

Michael
22:11
So then I had already created something in my business, which was like a spreadsheet that did exactly what I talked about there with that labor rate recovery of their overhead, and being able to quote from that spreadsheet. And we had hundreds of people inside the industry and outside the industry buy that spreadsheet. And I wanted to continue to update that spreadsheet and add more features to it. But it just gets to a point with the spreadsheet where it’s inefficient. Time tracking would have been, like the next thing we added to it, but you can’t do that really efficiently with a spreadsheet. So software was the next step up from that. So we discontinued the spreadsheet. We started the software. Software is the headquarters how to hardscape headquarters software. And it does the same thing.

Michael
22:52
It allows you to budget, estimate job cost, time, track schedule, employee management. So we also created training resources that’s interlocking concrete pavement installation, segmental retaining, wall installation, fire features, like a bunch of installation courses. And the whole purpose of that is not necessarily for somebody just getting into the industry, but it’s for onboarding your employees, because with my exit interviews with my employees, like, consistently, I would get. Mike, it was great to work with you. Like, it’s not necessarily the industry for me, but would have been really great that I don’t know this industry at all coming into it. It would have been great to have some sort of training before I hopped on a job site just to like know what a screed bar is.

Robert
23:36
Just an orientation at some level.

Michael
23:37
Yeah, exactly. And I didn’t do that. And I know tons of people that don’t do that. It’s just, hey, if you have a warm body that actually shows up to that first day, the win. Right. But, but what if you can, before that first day, say, hey, I’m going to pay you do these courses. This is your onboarding course. So we created those training resources for that and those are in the software. You can assign them to your employees and set that onboarding course up for them before they even start on their first day. And that’s the whole goal with the software, is to create more. So, like a central area for your business to be able to, quote, estimate job costs, do all that stuff in employee management and so on. Yeah.

Robert
24:16
So like, essentially, you know, figure out what to charge, get the bid, and then do the work. Exactly. That’s huge. So then how does someone check it out?

Michael
24:25
You can just go to members dot howtohardscape.com. That’s the webpage there right now that you can see our courses there. You can see a little bit about the software. Eventually we’ll have like a good landing page for it. But honestly, anywhere you can find us how to hardscape. I am a hardscaper on YouTube, and you can just reach out to me and start that conversation there. Right now we’re growing with the features. We’ve got all hands on deck on development, not so much on other aspects. So I’m the salesperson in that as well. I’m the support person in that. So you have direct access to me. So anywhere you can find us how to hardscape, shoot me a message, very cool.

Robert
25:01
And just give people that are listening, what’s the average price point for this thing on a monthly basis or whatever? How does it work?

Michael
25:08
So right now it’s 199 a month. And what we’re doing is as we add more features, that price point increases for new users. So basically, if you sign up, you’re locked in at that price point. Eventually, with the features that we’re going to continue to add, we’ll get closer to that $500 a month mark. So it’s kind of an incentive to jump on early for those early users and get in there. And so we have people signed up at $100 a month, which are locked in there. And that’s kind of the goal. It’s a featured tier pricing structure there.

Robert
25:41
Yeah, that’s cool. Super cool. And then so what do you see in this year, right. You know, the day of recording, we’re looking at April 4, 2024. You knowing your numbers is never going to go away. So people having to figure that out is definitely a core part. I mean, last time I checked, money is the language of business. And if we don’t know our numbers, which is all money and percentages of our costs and the money that we make, then we’re in a pretty tough spot in terms of, to design a company that’s going to support our lives the way we want, which then gives us the opportunity, if we figure it out, to get right people in and all this good stuff. Those themes are pretty timeless.

Robert
26:17
But in today’s environment, what are you seeing as somebody interviewing all these folks as well as being in the field yourself and with the software, you’re talking to the industry. You have a pretty cool perspective. What do see going on right now.

Michael
26:29
From your point of view, in terms of where we’re at? I think that things are just reverting back to before 2020 in terms of demand. So now people are, you know what? I need to focus on my marketing. And I was hitting that drum throughout the pandemic because people stopped marketing and said, hey, I don’t need a market. Like, I don’t need a website. I don’t need to update my website. I don’t need to focus on social media. And they weren’t looking ahead to. Okay, when do things return back to normal? And I actually have to go out and get more and more leads into my business. But as you know, a website is better to start earlier as opposed to when you actually need it.

Robert
27:13
Yeah. When they say the best day to plant a tree is 25 years ago, second best day is today.

Michael
27:17
Yes, exactly. And I tried to hit that drum because I also love the website building process and SEO and all that. So I think that you’re seeing a lot of people, and I, unfortunately get a lot of people. No, not unfortunately. I get a lot of people reaching out to me. Unfortunately, they’re reaching out to me because they need work and because, like, through our instagram, through our podcast, we have enough reach where we’re getting a good variety of people from the well established companies that have already focused on their marketing but if you’re more so reaching out to me, it’s usually because you’re either installation side of things, you got a question or you want to learn more, or it’s because of that marketing aspect that you need to now start to build a website.

Michael
28:06
You need to now focus more on social media. And all these things would have been best started when you didn’t had the work. Yeah. When you didn’t need it. Right. Yeah. And, and it’s hard to do that because you’re all hands on deck at that point with the clients that you’re already servicing. But you need to carve out that time for that marketing, because it’s an ongoing thing.

Robert
28:28
So essentially what you’re saying then is like demand is softening and we need to be more strategic in how we’re going to market.

Michael
28:33
Yeah, exactly. I like for, to give you myself, an ex as an example. these past few years, I doubled down on the SEO for my landscaping website because I had focused so much on how to hardscape and the SEO for that. And I dropped the ball on my ever after website. So I doubled down on that. And I also doubled down on creating a YouTube channel. And that’s huge because everything that I do online has to support what I do offline with my how to hardscape. It needs to support ever after landscaping. So with my YouTube channel, it’s installation based videos. And I use that to attract leads to come into my business. So we’re at a point where we’re actually getting leads into our business from the YouTube channel. And they see the person talking about installation as an authority in that.

Michael
29:20
And they specifically want me to quote their project and only me because of that. And they see my face and they get to know me and all that. But also I use those videos in my proposals. So when I send them a scope of work of how we’re going to build their patio, it’s got hyperlinks into each of those because I’ve got it.

Robert
29:38
That’s sweet.

Michael
29:40
So it’s there for them and they get to see exactly what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it. And they see my face in it.

Robert
29:47
Very, very cool. I don’t think anybody’s ever said that they use their installation videos and their proposals. That’s really cool idea. Not that anybody’s listening is going to take the idea because they’d actually have to be the discipline to execute on said idea. But that’s really cool, man. I think a lot of people too. Forget that. You know, I’ve heard people say, well, YouTube, it’d be like people watching me in Arkansas, what do I care about that? Which is true, and there’s some point to that, but at the same time, you’re still getting hired locally by people that are around here that find you. So can you speak a little bit to that whole, like, international perspective and using YouTube but actually does turn in revenue locally for you?

Michael
30:22
Yeah. So for me with YouTube, I don’t know if it has anything to do with it, but I, you choose your category and I chose education. And then after you choose education, it asks you where you are. So you choose Canada. And I don’t know if that pushes you out to more so of a canadian audience. And especially they know your ip address, they know you’re local. Where do they start with? Do they start local and expand you elsewhere? If you start to nail it with your local clicks onto your video and the watch time with that might have something to do with it, I don’t know. But ultimately, the way I saw YouTube was a way to support my online business and my offline business.

Michael
30:58
And with that, I knew that there would be some small segment of local traffic coming into that, whatever that may have been. But ultimately it was to serve both sides of my business. And ultimately I knew eventually that ads would be running on it, so I’d being paid to actually market myself, which is also a benefit.

Robert
31:19
More marketing.

Michael
31:21
Yes, exactly. And I mean, I would say like, Instagram’s probably a better way to be able to target your local market because you can specifically search your city and see people posting with your city and you can go into those accounts and obviously the right ones, like are they an adult and are they posting in your area? And can you go in and like a few of their photos so that they see, oh, ever after landscaping. That’s interesting. I was looking for landscaping. So like, Instagram, I think is really good for that local market if you’re not looking to pay for marketing and you’re just looking to invest your time into it. But YouTube, I think is like, is the best. I love YouTube.

Robert
32:04
Yeah, that’s cool. And like in the last twelve months, can you draw dollars in revenue from YouTube into your business?

Michael
32:11
I haven’t. I know how much I’ve made from YouTube.

Robert
32:14
Yeah, but if you were to think off the cuff, like, based on people saying, hey, I saw your YouTube channel and they hired you, is it like a couple thousand bucks? Tens of thousands of dollars?

Michael
32:22
Yeah, it’s like, it’s probably below 250,000. It’s probably above about 175,000.

Robert
32:29
Yeah, like, that’s nothing, right? Yeah, like, we’re not talking about chump change.

Michael
32:33
Yeah, exactly.

Robert
32:34
So YouTube, definitely worthwhile checking out, and getting over the fear of being on camera because you want to share your expertise, right? So you mentioned Emyth, one of the. One of the one last thing. And you mentioned audible and podcasts. What. What’s one resource you want to share with people if they want to, you know, learn about business, leadership themselves, the craft, whatever, you know, what’s something that you’d recommend to the audience outside of how to hardscape as a podcast? Because we have to obviously know that’s a great podcast you should check out. But what’s something else?

Michael
33:01
Okay, I guess I can’t use how to hardscape.

Robert
33:04
You can’t.

Michael
33:05
I’m just kidding. There’s a lot of great industry podcasts like this podcast yourself. Just selfishly, I do have another podcast with two other landscapers. We sit down once a week for 2 hours and we release a podcast that’s more like unfiltered. Like, this is the crap that we go through in this industry.

Robert
33:26
What’s it called?

Michael
33:28
It’s called not our finest hour. And so it’s also two on three of us are Ontario based. So if you’re looking for, like, a very real unfiltered. This is the crap that we go through in this industry, from clients to everything that we go through on site. I gotta put that small little plug in there. But there’s also great industry podcasts as well. Like I said, this one. and then, like, I’m an audiobook person as well. And I’m just kind of flipping through my audiobooks. when it comes to numbers, simple numbers by Greg Crabtree is incredible.

Robert
34:03
That’s a good.

Michael
34:04
Yeah. And he’s also got simple numbers 2.0. we’ve had Greg Crabtree on the. On the podcast, like three times. He’s incredible. Let’s see here. I could kind of scroll through and give you some other ones, but when it comes to. Since this, we’ve talked a bit about knowing your numbers. That’s a good one. Like Alex Hormozi. I’m sure you’ve heard of him, but his YouTube channel is incredible. And he’s got $100 million leads and $100 million offers. Those are great books to get into as well. Yeah, I would. I would stop there because that’s a lot. You could keep going.

Robert
34:42
Awesome. And if someone wants to reach out to you, what’s the best way to get ahold of Michael Platts?

Michael
34:48
How to hardscape. Wherever you can find me. If you are an email person, just go to the website and you’ll find the email. Contact us, Instagram, wherever you can find us. How to hardscape? It’s I’m a hardscaper is my personal brand. So that’s where you’ll find our YouTube and all that. So anything like personal based I am a hardscaper. Anything community based, podcast, articles, things like that. How to hardscape.

Robert
35:11
Very, very cool, man. Well, I appreciate you doing this. Thanks so much for coming on.

Michael
35:15
Rob, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Robert
35:16
Okay, thanks for listening, everybody. See ya. The I am landscape growth podcast brought to you by intrigue, where passionate marketing meets predictable results for entrepreneurs. Remember to like and subscribe the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode. And if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please visit intriguemedia.com and click on podcasts.