Garden Maintenance Business: From Operator to Owner

Key takeaways

• Many garden maintenance and landscaping owners are working as operators when they should be working as owners. The day to day swallows them, and nobody is growing the business.
• Small, low-value jobs starve a business of cash. Higher-ticket work is what lets you pay for ads and for a proper operations hire.
• Before you decide whether you can afford a strong hire, ask how much more you could make with your time back, and work out the best, worst and most likely case.

The business owner in this article has been anonymised to protect their privacy.

At a recent event, I brought the owner of a garden maintenance and landscaping business up into the hotseat.

He's an entrepreneur who has done really well. The business is on track for around £300,000 in revenue this year, roughly £25,000 to £30,000 a month, and it has grown massively on the year before.

But growth has come at a cost. He told me leadership was a big hurdle, along with fixing the problems that come up every day. In his words, “There's a lot of things that only I can solve.” Nothing had stayed the same from one month to the next, so it was hard to build any systems. His day was spinning plates, and the stress was building up.

Twelve months from now, he wanted systems, structure and a process he could repeat. He wanted to be off the tools and focused on the business side, with more time for the things he loves outside work.

What is the difference between an operator and an owner?

An operator runs the day to day: the jobs, the problems, the staff and the firefighting. An owner builds the business: the strategy, the offer, the marketing and the people who run the operation. Many owners start out as operators, and keep working that way long after the business needs an owner.

As I told him on stage:

“You're not an operator, you're an owner. But the problem is you're working as an operator, and it's not your strength.”

He was so transfixed by day-to-day operations that it was very difficult for him to get out and actually impact the rest of the business. And I was clear with him: “You haven't even done anything wrong. You're just at the transitional point.”

What he needed to learn was how to buy back his time properly, how to buy in the skills he didn't have, and how to use money as leverage to accelerate growth.

Why do small jobs hold a garden maintenance business back?

Because a small job takes almost as much effort to win and deliver as a big one, but brings in a fraction of the cash. If most of your work is low-value, cash flow stays sporadic, and you can't afford to invest properly in marketing or operations. The business stays busy without ever getting ahead.

When I asked about his clients, the answer was “anyone”, and the jobs ranged from a basic maintenance visit to much larger landscaping work. Without a clearly defined client and offer, nothing could become repeatable.

“You still got to go round there. You still got to have the conversation with them... It's the same exact process to get somebody to give you five grand.”

Imagine you're acquiring £5,000 jobs. You can spend £500 on ads to win one and still have £4,500. You can't spend £500 on ads to win a £32 lawn mow, because it's cash flow negative. You could be waiting something like 18 weeks just to get your ad spend back.

So he had two problems: an operating problem, because he was holding everything together day to day, and a strategic problem, because his mix of clients and offers wasn't producing the cash to fund growth.

Who should a landscaping business owner hire first?

Hire a genuinely strong person to take over the operation: someone who owns the problems, the issues, the training and everything happening day to day. Don't hire cheap help to save money. In a small business, paying cheap often means paying twice, and you end up back in the operation yourself.

A lot of people running a small business recruit cheap, and end up paying twice.

“What you actually need is you need somebody really good.”

That person might cost £40,000 or £50,000 a year. Here's how to decide whether that's worth it.

How do you decide whether a strong operations hire is worth the money?

Compare the monthly cost of the hire with what you could make if you had all your time back. Work out a best case, a worst case and a most likely case. If even your realistic case beats the cost of the hire, you're losing money by doing the operational work yourself.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Will they own the whole operation? The right person will own the problems, the issues and the training, not just help out.
2. What does it cost a month? I asked him to imagine paying someone £40,000 a year. That's roughly £3,500 a month.
3. Could you make more than that with your time back? As I put it, this is “the question that makes a decision.” His first answer was that he could at least double it, conservatively.
4. What's the best case? He said around £30,000 a month, which is double the revenue of the business.
5. What's the worst case, and the most likely case? Even if we went with £15,000 a month, that's far more than the hire would cost.

Right now, he's his own worst enemy. “If you redeployed your work, you could double the revenue of your business.”

Working on the tools vs running the business: what changes?

On the tools, you solve every problem yourself, take on any job from anyone and never have the cash to invest. Running the business, a strong hire owns the day to day, you go after high-ticket work from a defined dream client, and the bigger jobs fund the ads and the operation.

Here's the side-by-side for this business:

• Day-to-day problems: “only I can solve” → a strong hire owns the problems, the issues and the training.
• Clients: “anyone” → a clearly defined dream client.
• The offer: a mix from basic maintenance visits to bigger jobs → much more focus on high-ticket work.
• Marketing: hard to invest in, because cash flow is sporadic → brand towards the dream client and run ads at them.
• His time: spinning plates all day → redeployed to work that could double the revenue.

5 steps to get off the tools in a garden maintenance business

1. Admit you're the operator. If you're solving every problem yourself, nobody is building the business.
2. Check your average order value. If most of your jobs are small, work out what it would take to win more of the bigger ones.
3. Define your dream client and offer. Brand towards them and run your ads at them, so your ad spend pays back quickly.
4. Run the time-back maths. Write down the monthly cost of a strong hire, then your best, worst and most likely case for what you'd make with your time back.
5. Hire someone really good. Let them own the operation, including the problems and the training, and step into the owner's role.

He didn't need to work harder on the tools. He needed to step into the owner's role, and that took about twelve minutes to work out.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get off the tools in my landscaping business?

Hire a strong person to take over the day-to-day operation, including the problems, the issues and the training. Make sure your offer brings in enough cash to pay for them by focusing on higher-ticket work rather than lots of small jobs.

Why is my garden maintenance business always busy but short of cash?

Usually because too much of the work is low-value. Small jobs take nearly as much effort to win and deliver as big ones, so cash flow stays sporadic, and there's little left to invest in marketing or operations.

Should a small business hire a cheap operations manager to save money?

Adam Stott's advice is no. Paying cheap often means paying twice, because the owner ends up back in the operation fixing problems. Hire someone really good.

How do I decide if I can afford a senior hire?

Work out the monthly cost of the hire, then ask how much more you could make with all your time back. Look at the best case, the worst case and the most likely case. If the likely case beats the cost, the hire makes sense.

About Adam Stott

Adam Stott is the founder of Big Business Entrepreneurs and a business growth expert. He has built three eight-figure businesses and helps business owners scale through events, training and coaching.

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