From Mowing to Growing: Jonathan Lloyd's Journey of Smith & Lloyd

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:36hey there welcome to this week's episode of epic entrepreneurs i am really excited i'm here with john lloyd of smith and lloyd landscaping and design and i can't wait to hear this story uh hi john hey how you doing i'm good tell us a little bit about Smith and Lloyd. What's the story there? Um, story, short story. I'll try to make it is, yeah, I moved here in 2015. Um, I became good friends with a guy named John Smith. And, uh, one of our friends was doing hardscaping. Um, his business was named the Yard Fathers and he was doing lawn care and hardscaping. And he decided, I just want to focus on hardscaping.

1:25So he asked us if we wanted to buy some of his residential lawn account. And my business partner, John, I know it's confusing. We're both named John. But yeah, he was like doing grounds maintenance for a big medical facility at the time. And I have a background. I have a degree in landscape architecture. So we figured, you know, we could build something here. And this is like a little place to start. So, yeah, we bought those accounts from him and we just, he had his dad's old trucks. We bought a trailer and we bought a walk behind mower and just started working. And, you know, over the years, it's grown a lot.

2:07We've kind of honed down our services. We used to kind of just do whatever people asked in the beginning. But now we primarily do full grounds maintenance. So people want their yard mowed, their mulch done, their hedging, their leaves cleaned up in the winter. We just kind of give them a whole package of what it's going to be for the year. And they sign up that way. And the same thing with commercial contracts. We do the big Amazon facility here in Asheville and a couple other big ones like that. But those are kind of our bread and butter. And then we also do landscape design and install, like patios, retaining walls, outdoor living in general, like outdoor places.

2:58is like community is really important to me so i i really love designing um outdoor spaces where people can get together hang out you know create memories and have fun yeah that's a nutshell yeah that's cool that's a that's a that's a great mission to create community and to enhance community and i think that's i think a lot of people end up in western north carolina are all about community yep yep yeah yeah that's that's cool well let's let's let's talk about business for a minute um like if you had to start over in business what would you do differently i would have taken a business class

3:47yeah neither one of us had ever taken a single class on business or or anything we just you know did all the paperwork to start the business and got a quickbooks account and um a cpa that worked on it once a year and that was we just started going you know without really knowing anything about business so yeah i would i would do a little research and find out you know best practices and kind of order of operations and where not to outstretch yourself and you know things like that yeah it's uh you know in any kind of school really i mean i don't you know dental school medical school landscape architecture engineering it doesn't really matter they don't you have to go get the business education so they're not it's not part of the curriculum so to speak so yeah that's that's that's great that's great advice so So you have learned some things over the years.

4:53What are some of the biggest learnings you've had as an owner and an employer?

5:00To – the first was to charge more. We didn't charge nearly enough when we started. For years, we didn't charge enough. We may still not charge quite enough. But we basically just took what we were both making hourly and kind of increased it by 50%. and charged that for our hourly rate, which was just, you know, and we ended up probably getting paid less than we were at our jobs before. Another big thing is just not saying yes to everything and trying to get a feel for if, you know, if a customer actually wants to spend money and if they're, you know, have a realistic expectation of what they want and how much that's going to cost and and um and i haven't run into this a lot but just some customers you meet and you just get a feeling they're gonna they're gonna be really hard to work with and it may the juice may not be worth the squeeze with it and being able to just walk away from that yeah that's okay because they'll probably work well with somebody else yeah yeah i mean it's an interesting one that the one about not saying yes to everything's big my I have a mentor named Paul Dunn, who's a great guy.

6:22And I don't know, he's probably close to, he's in his late 70s for sure, maybe 80, I don't know. But he's one of these really enthusiastic guys. And he said, Bill, you know, success is what you say no to. You know, and I'm like, well, he says it's what you say no to or who you say no to. So it's both of the same things you just said. Like not every client is a great client for you. Not every job is a great job for you. And in your business, you've got to have a great job and a great client to make it useful. So, yeah, it's all about fit. And it's okay if it's not a fit. That's a hard lesson to learn.

7:02So, what do you think some of the misconceptions are about running a business? I think, yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people probably think you get to take a lot of time off and have kind of an easy life that other people are doing all the hard work. um and i i think it's possible to get to a point where maybe you know i could have that but it's not it doesn't seem like i don't know i think i'm just kind of the kind of person who's gonna even if i delegate more and then i have less to do i'm just gonna take on more anyway sure yeah it's just working differently yeah and working smarter it's not working differently.

7:55It doesn't mean you don't work. You see some business owners that do a great job and they've got a team and the business more or less works without them. You know what? They worked their butt off to get there. It wasn't just handed to them.

8:12We didn't have any investors or anyone that loaned us money to start off. We just kind of built put them the ground up and and hearing people you know say stuff like oh it must be nice or like stuff like that you know when you get a new truck and it's it's just like man you have no idea like you know yeah yeah yeah no and it's you know and i mean you still got to pay for the truck right i mean it's not you know that's not it's not like if you go to work for somebody else and they have trucks, you get a truck. You don't have to pay for it. Somebody, you know, the company pays for it. So, I mean, you do earn it, but I mean, it's an interesting thing too.

8:58So what do you attribute your growth to?

9:03I think it was just going up and doing good work. Yeah. That was what someone gave us that advice in the beginning, and we were both just kind of those people. to begin with and you know most of it's grown from just word of mouth um we haven't really marketed it at all um i just did a video i had it produced that we'll put on uh facebook ads probably in the next couple weeks but that's the first time i've really created any type of advertising. Yeah, well, it makes sense. I mean, when you start out, you don't have a ton of money for marketing, so you invest time and invest in the work that it takes to meet people and get out there and make it happen and word of mouth.

10:04And then you can trade back some of your time with money once you get a little bit of cash flow. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's a good thing. so we talked about this a little bit but how do you balance like personal life and demands of running a business um very carefully

10:26i don't know i go in and out of being pretty good with that and then being not so good with it like it's spring right now you know i'll find myself uh working you know most of the day and then maybe going out to eat with some people my family and then um coming back home and just getting on the computer and doing some estimates for a couple hours at night and that's not what i normally you know do but just sometimes the work just calls for that and um i don't know i try to exercise and stuff i think that helps a lot with stress just like you know getting that anxiousness out of my body um things don't seem as overwhelming and stressful when that happens and i'd say perspective too like um you know i'll get in this mindset where if i just don't get these things done i don't get back to these people like everything's gonna fall apart and that's just not the reality of the the situation like there's stuff like there's stuff that i could just not get done and things will be fine.

11:36We haven't lost really many customers at all over the years. I think just picking up the phone, I went and looked at a place last week and the guy told me I was the only one who answered the phone and he called about 14 different landscaping companies. It is so simple. I promise you, it's so simple. Talk to people, answer the phone, I mean, everybody's busy right now. It's not like they're in plenty of work. And so, yeah, I mean, it always lasts when I hear that. I just answer the phone. I just talk to people. I just call them. I call people back, you know? Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm like, it's not that hard, guys.

12:23Just answer the phone. Talk to people. Yeah, talk to the people. So what do you look for in good employees? Like, what qualities do you look for when you're hiring team members?

12:39Well, it depends what area they're working in. You know, weed whacking in the summer and 90-degree weather, you know, not everyone's cut out for that. And it's hard to know whether someone's going to be able to handle that or not, you know, when they're applying and coming on to start. But the biggest thing I'll say is just showing up and being teachable. If people think they know everything and you can't really teach them anything, they're pretty much useless. If they don't show up, they're useless. I've, you know, hired people and just they don't show up the first day and they're just, uh, just the weirdest thing to someone and then have them twist you.

13:31Um, like you could just let me know, you know, um, I think those are the two biggest things, like just being open-minded and teachable to learn new things and just being there. Yeah. I like it. Show up and be teachable. I mean, it's good advice for any, you know, I, it's a, there's a rash of, and I don't understand it because I don't know what, what the deal is. I mean, you know, do what you say you're going to do essentially. I don't, I don't, I mean, if you don't want to work, fine, pick up the phone and call me and tell me you're not, you're not coming. Uh, I'm okay with that. I just, but you know, that's a terrible thing to just to, just to not show up and I've, and there's a rash of it.

14:14Yeah. I'll be there. Monday we'll start. boom not starting i'm not coming it's crazy it's crazy i've ever seen i've got it yeah yeah i don't even one of the people that are like kids these days you know and it's not kids i don't know what it is it's com i mean it's just lack of common courtesy and there's you know there's no excuse for bad manners i don't care if you don't want to work fine just but let someone know uh you you go go work for somebody else well but there The misconception is that there aren't people out there. There are plenty of people out there who want to work. You have to work a little harder than we did a few years ago, but right now there are still people out there.

14:53You just have to do the work. So let me give you some quick fire questions. EPIC is an acronym, and so just maybe a word or a sentence about each word. So the E is education. So what are your thoughts on education?

15:11I think it's good to educate employees like our common practices and how we want things done because I can't be on every job I can't tell people like our standards and be there so having people looking at that and controlling that and just instilling that in each of our employees of like this is how we want a property to look when we're pulling away that keeps things pretty congruent and yeah that's what came to mind education perfect yeah so the P is planning what are your thoughts on planning planning oh man I wish I was better at planning

15:58really I didn't plan a whole we didn't plan you know planning wasn't part of our business model. Let me ask you a question. I think you're, I'm going to challenge you on that. Like if you were going to do a landscape, you're a landscape designer. You have to plan by definition. So you're, you are a good planner. The question is, you just never been taught to do the plan on the other side of the, on some other things. Yeah. As far as planning for growth and like structure and yeah, Yeah, like scaling the business. Like that is stuff that I'm all learning, you know, right now that I was, again, I never went to a business class.

16:43So I never even thought about that type of stuff. Perfect. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. We can end with that. What I, inspiration.

16:56Inspiration.

17:03I've gotten a lot of inspiration from people older than me in the trades and how they live how they treat their employees I've had really good bosses in the past who were great models as far as being a good boss I took a lot of that with me yeah i like it i like it how about c commitment

17:36um yeah i relate that to what we talked about earlier just showing up and doing good work i mean each contract we sign with somebody is a commitment to do what's what's in that contract so we commit to it and do that i love that i love that yeah that's great so what do you wish somebody had told you that you know now before you went into business?

18:09That it was going to be really, really, really hard for quite a while. I guess someone wouldn't have that insight without knowing my background. and having no background in business. But, yeah, I didn't know how much of a struggle it was going to be just to figure out how to do it. And I don't know that that deterred me either, though, to be honest. No, that wouldn't. I mean, there are some – I mean, I've said over time there's some things that I wouldn't have done and probably never would have if I'd known how hard they were going to be, but I'm glad I did them. And so there's a difference. But, yeah, I think you can make that across the board.

18:59If you talk to somebody who's been in business for years, you just say, hey, look, you're going to have to work hard. I mean, this is a journey. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes months and years. It doesn't take days and weeks. This is an ongoing marathon, really. It's not a sprint. So I love that. I love that. So what would you say to other business owners or entrepreneurs who are looking to grow?

19:34Probably do some research about it and figure out, you know, like in my example is my business. I mean, sure, getting a bunch of new accounts, you know, and growing, you know, the income is great. But if you're not ready to really scale and you don't have all these procedures in place of how the crews run, how they load up in the morning, what they do when they get back to the shop, upkeeping all the maintenance on the, you know, if you have double the mowers, that's double the maintenance, double the blade sharpening, double the weed eaters, double the supply you're going to need so it's easy to kind of go out and get more business but then if you're not ready for it all these big gaps are going to you know all these little holes in the business are going to get much bigger real quick if you're not ready for it yeah that's good advice so grow responsibly basically yeah prepare for it yeah Yeah, get in there.

20:46So this has been great. Anything else you'd like to say or add or tell us about your business? No, you know, the one thing when we were just talking about, like, advice we've gotten, I think the best advice we've gotten was just the option because it's the one thing you pay that pays you back. So, like, when I was in my 20s and stuff, I'd work for contractors. I just, you know, paid attention to how they were doing stuff. And now I have a general contracting business also. And, you know, just paying attention to people that knew what they were doing. You know, you can learn a lot and then make money doing those things that you've learned.

21:33Yeah, I love that. Pay attention. I love that. Yeah, be observant. You know, be a sponge. yeah you know one of my mentors i remember i was he said he said it doesn't matter what kind of job you get bill just be a sponge learn but learn as much as you can wherever you go and and and be a sponge and i and that's what you can take what you can and kind of leave the rest um if some people aren't going to be great models of like what to you know what to do but they may be they may really They know what they're doing in other areas. Yeah, they may be a model of what not to do. And so that's okay, too.

22:14You know, pay attention to that, too, because, hey, I don't want to do it that way, you know, as you're growing up. So how does someone get in touch with you if they want to get some landscaping done, have a maintenance, you know, get their yards taken care of? Or sounds like you do some general contracting, too. What do you do there? Tell us about that before we go. um what we've been doing a lot of is uh stuff after the storm after the hurricane so um a couple houses out in black mountain that were hit by trees that had the roof come in you know we're coming in and putting a new porch on a new roof on redoing all the drywall the flooring the trim the paint um we're mostly doing like remodel stuff at this point all right that's good to know because we sure do need it there are a lot of houses with blue tarps still on them.

23:07Oh, yeah. Yeah, and as far as getting a hold of me, smithandloy.com is our website. You can find us on Google, Smith and Lloyd Landscaping and Design. Send me an email, jonathan at smithandloy.com and our phone number is on our Google account, but it's 828-600-1030. I love it. I love it. That's great. Hey, this has been good. I really appreciate you being on here. Thanks for being. Again, there's a lot of good info here. Good. Thank you. It was a pleasure being on. Thanks for asking me to do it. And until next time, all the best. Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast. Here's three things that you can do.

23:53Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com.

24:39That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.