210. How this 24-year-old built a $1.5M/year business

0:00At 12 years old, most kids are thinking about video games, sports, or hanging out with friends. But Chase Gallagher was knocking on doors with a stack of flyers determined to earn more than the$85 he scraped together that first season. By 13, he sold his dirt bike to buy a trailer, mowing lawns on weekends while telling himself over and over that he'd make it big one day. Fast forward a decade, and that small hustle has grown into a landscaping company generating over$1.5 million a year, that is$1.5 million a year, with multiple ventures pushing nearly $2 million a year in total revenue. He's been featured in Fortune, Fox Business.

0:34Chase has built more than just a business. He's built proof that mindset, sacrifice, and relentless action can turn humble beginnings into something extraordinary. This is your host, Ryan Atkinson, and your listening to a book podcast, where we uncover the secrets of building and running successful businesses. I am excited to welcome Chase to the podcast to tell us more about his story, getting to this incredible number of$2 million a year. I know people are going to love that. So Chase, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Ryan, thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about my story and see how we can help others.

1:03Yeah, well, I'm excited to hear your story. And an important part of your story is really starting at 12 years old. I mean, I was playing video games when I was 12 years old. But at 12 years old, you were passing out flyers. What exactly were you doing? What did those early days of entrepreneurship look like for Chase Gallagher? I was just out to dinner the other night with my buddy Nate O 'Brien, who's big on YouTube, and we were conversating. And we were watching the same people on YouTube when we were 12, 13, he was 15, 16. There was these two guys, Geek2Freak and Keith Kelfis. And I remember sitting there at 12 or 13 years old and my mom would be on car rides and I would study these guys.

1:38They both had landscaping and lawn care companies. And so that would be where I got my juice from, so to speak, where I got my energy, my thoughts, my ideas. And I was like, listen, if these guys can do it, I definitely can. and let me just go right into it. So long story short, I emailed Geek2Freak. He put his email in the description in his videos at the time. He sent me his flyer in a Word document. I put my company, Buzzcut Lawn Care, at the time on the flyer, and that's really how I got started. That was over the winter months. My mom worked a corporate job. She would print out thousands of these flyers.

2:10She would stay late and print out thousands of flyers at her job, and I would rubber band them up, put them in bags all winter long so we were ready for the spring. oh man well take me into like the brain up there like i mean your mom's working a corporate gig like why were you so entrepreneurial like so young like i said in the opener and like myself i was legit playing like madden 12 when i was like 12 years old like why were you so like entrepreneurial did you have like role models or like what did that look like besides the geek free of course i don't know ryan ever since i was a kid like even you know i'm a kid at 12 13 you know but like even back then i was doing chores for money i was cooking my family's dinners for money.

2:46Like I would do anything. I was just wanting to make money. So I don't know where it comes from. A lot of people ask me that. I have no idea. Oh, interesting. So why landscaping? I would say, I know you're watching the YouTube videos, but like why landscaping? Why didn't you do anything else? Like what attracted you to like a landscaping space? I think it was just something at the time where I knew how to do it. Like I was, you know, I was mowing my own lawn. I was watching these guys. So I was like, why not just do landscaping? I mean, I asked myself that question to this day for sure. because there's probably a lot of others, you know, very easier to scale businesses out there.

3:17But, you know, I've been doing this for now 10, 11 years. I love it. Well, progressing on your story there, take us to the dirt bike at 13 because, you know, take us to this story. You buy your first trailer. I mean, that's a huge sacrifice. I would not give that up at such a young age. I mean, talk to us about like why you sold your dirt bike at 13 to buy a trailer and like what that allowed you to do. I was just, you know, I saved up all this money over these years, like from gifts, chores for this dirt bike. And I was really keen on starting this business and I wanted to make a lot of money and all this kind of stuff.

3:47I had big vision. So I sold the bike, got 1300 bucks for that. I believe it was in bike trailer with some attachments was like 800. And then I had some cash left over to put towards a zero turn. So that was the thoughts. It was like, I needed this type of equipment to kind of get started in the business. Super interesting. And I do want to make it actual because as my intro alluded to me and you're doing 1.5 million a year and listeners like stay tuned for that. Cause we are going to talk about like how you scaled to like get there though. But like what you know of landscaping now, if you could recommend some low cost equipment to like get started, like what would you recommend to our listeners?

4:18Yeah, if I were to redo it again, Ryan, I would totally not do any lawn mowing. And you can actually get started with less capital with the route that I'm speaking about, which is just doing project-based landscaping. All you need is a truck, right? Which you would need anyways to all around your lawnmower trailer. And I would start selling project-based projects. So that could be anything from like ripping out shrubs, installing a couple of new ones, doing mulching projects, doing basic drainage projects. And a lot of time for most of those services, all you need is hand tools and a wheelbarrow and the bigger stuff you can rent.

4:51That's what I suggest. And that's what I coach. I actually have a coaching platform now and I teach my students exactly how to do it. From that as well, what pays the most? What's going to make the most money for people? What makes the most money? I'm going to ask two questions here. What makes the most money and what's like the best like money to time slash like saving your back ratio out there if you get what i'm trying to say there yeah 100 so what type of services provide me the best profit or money would be drainage work my top profitable service is drainage work it depends on the type of drainage project and a lot of times when you're doing those types of projects you're not like you're using a piece of equipment right so it's equipment work grading work and then you're gonna you know, use your arms to hand rake stuff and then you're done.

5:32So I love drainage work. We do drainage work, hardscaping, landscape lighting, large planting installs and ripouts. So those are like my core services. I guess one down from drainage would be planting projects because, you know, again, we're using equipment to rip these shrubs out. We're using equipment to increase or decrease the garden bed size. So it's really, it can be extremely profitable. Super, super cool there. Okay. Kind of give us the fast forward. Cause I asked those questions and we left off at like 13, but like what are the next few years look like after that? It's just like a one man show until you're 18 and then you hire a bunch of people.

6:07What is like that progression look like at like a super high level, how you got to$1.5 million a year, which is just insane. So from 13 to 16, I always had someone working for me or with me, right? I didn't have a driver's license. So in the beginning, it was my brother. In the beginning after that, it was my brother's buddies. Cause you know what I mean? So, and then at certain times where mom didn't have a job, So she would drive my truck around for me and just sit there and wait. You know, I love my mom. And then, you know, I had an older buddy in my class that was like a year older than everyone for some reason.

6:39So then I hired him the second I could do it. But then fast forward to 16 and a half, two weeks before I was going to start my 11th grade year in high school. I, you know, had my permit for six months. I got my license August 15th. I was doing some reading and research. I found out that my high school was allowing to do online high school. And so I convinced my mom at the time. I said, mom, you know, I was a competitive trap shooter at the time. I was always traveling. So I convinced my mom, I said, mom, with all the traveling I'm going to do this year, like I would be more present and better results if I did online high school.

7:10So I convinced her to let me do that within those two weeks before school started. And that's really when like my business, my life, my money, everything took off because the benefit of this was there was no clock in clock out. I could do my schoolwork at that point. I literally went to work two, three days a week for another landscaper at that time. And then I would work in my business the rest of the week and my business, everything just took off because I could just work all day. Most people spend months, sometimes years, just thinking about starting a business. But what if you could do it in just 10 days?

7:41That's exactly what the 10-day business launch plan is designed for. It's a step-by-step roadmap that takes you from idea to real operational business in just 10 days. click the link in the description below and get ready with your business. Oh man, that is a super interesting. Yeah. So what did that moment like change for you? Are you able to take on more projects? What did revenue look like leading up to that moment? What did it look like, like after that moment as well? So revenue before that moment was like, we were doing, you know, 25 grand, right? Like 25 a year. Yeah, exactly. A year, like 25, 30 grand.

8:15My first year, I think I did 12 to 15. That was when I was 13. And then 14, I probably, Yeah. So 13, it was like 12 to 15, 14. It was about the same. It kind of stayed the same for a little bit. 15, it might've been like 20. And then 16, it was probably like the 30 to 50K. And then 17 is when I was easily 85, 90. And then by the time I was graduating high school, I was like 18 and I did like 125 or something like that. Oh my gosh. That's a lot of money at 18 years old to make it 125 ,000. That's a lot of money to be making like even 30 or for some people. I mean, what was that like for you? Are you kind of like, yeah, like what was that like?

8:53I feel like that's gotta be like a weird psychological. Ryan, to be honest with you, I felt rich back then. I felt like the wealthiest person in Chester County, Pennsylvania, you know, because I was 18 years old. I had this money. You know, my buddies were all going to school. I was working, you know what I mean? It was crazy time of life. I was, I'm a blessed individual. dude i uh i absolutely love that so kudos to you on that so how did you keep progressing this thing you know you're doing 125 000 after high school that's an insane number and that's 10x growth right there like what were some of the levers that you pulled to grow there and i would get actual for our listeners here like okay i'm interested in landscaping that is something i can do like like chase gallagher how the heck do i scale this thing so how did you scale from like 125 yeah so one of the biggest switches i made in my business is i got out of lawn mowing and went into project-based landscaping.

9:43So at the age of 18, 19, I graduated high school. I kept listening to my mentors. They always talked crap on lawn mowing, all this kind of stuff. So I just went for it. I said, screw it. I'm going to try it. Now would be the time to try it versus when I'm 30 years old. So I switched the name to CMG Landscaping like you see now. And I just started selling project-based landscaping. I remember that first year I was 19. I hadn't sold any project bigger than like three, 5 ,000 bucks. And I remember this amazing couple, They're still my clients to this day. It was early spring. It was like early March.

10:14And I like sold an$11 ,000 job. I was like, they emailed me like, oh, we want to go forward. I got happy, but I didn't start talking about it. And then I went there that evening to pick up the deposit check. And once I did that, I called my mom. I was like, mom, you're not going to believe this. Like it's going to work out. Like I got this deposit check. And so basically, long story short, Ryan, when we're selling landscaping services, my average ticket today is about$14 ,000,$15 ,000 if you were to take all of our projects and average it out, right? When you're lawnmowing, your average lawnmow is$50,$60.

10:44And so when Chase goes out on site, do any estimate, it's at least a couple thousand, right? When my guys show up with their$100 ,000,$150 ,000 set up to the job site, we're doing eight, 10,$50 ,000 jobs now. So that's how you can basically make a switch in your business and really increase your revenue, focus on what you're selling, which is higher ticket projects. That's a really good takeaway there. But obviously there's a different strategy. I know this from my own experience of running a video marketing agency, it's a lot different selling a$3 ,000 video compared to a$16 ,000 video. So I'm curious, customer acquisition to get these $15 ,000,$14 ,000 projects, what does that look like?

11:21Are you guys doing door knocking? Are you calling people, paid ads? Yeah. What does that look like to land a$16 ,000 deal? We have a couple of different marketing angles, Ryan, but the main focus for us is our Google business profile. We are the highest and most rated landscape construction company in the Philadelphia mainline, we have 274 five-star reviews and we really focus on five-star client experiences, right? And so a lot of times before we even ask the clients are leaving reviews on our Google profile with the pictures and everything. And then obviously we have a strong website with SEO.

11:52We're doing social media, extremely heavy. You guys can check it out at CMG underscore landscape on Instagram. If you check it out, we're constantly posting on Instagram, Facebook, Tik TOK. I'm huge about social media. And then we do some paid advertising. That's kind of seasonal. That's kind of like hit or miss, you know, give or take. And then a lot of it, Ryan, is what I teach my students and my coaching platform about how you speak to people when you arrive, right? How you speak to these potential clients when you're on site and certain things you say, how you say it, are you arriving on time?

12:23What is your communication style like? All these different things, a client, a buyer can tell you apart from any competition. And that's what sells in my business. Oh man, so good. Well, take us through that kind of workflow? How do you talk to clients in a way that they're going to make them buy? Is it being super professional? I know this is in your coaching program, so I don't want to have you give away maybe all the secrets, but give us a few secrets here. If you're door knocking, approaching clients' estimates, how does that work? A lot of it helps with having the right software. We use a software called Jobber.

12:54Basically, before I even arrive on site, when someone calls my company, I have an office manager, Corey. Her job is to answer every phone call. We're not 90 % of our competitors that aren't even answering their phones. We're going to answer. We're going to take down the information that we need. We have like six or seven things that we need to take down. And then from there, you're going to get scheduled for an estimate usually within 24 to 48 hours, myself or one of my team members. And so you can see there's speed involved in that and that subconsciously showing that we respect the client and they're not going to get this type of level of service anywhere else, at least in my market.

13:27So automatically, before I even show up, we're separating ourself. Before I even show up that day when I'm headed to their house, I click a couple of buttons and it tells the client my ETA. It shows them my ETA. And so all the way from there to being on site or pointing things out, right? A lot of guys would get on site and say, Hey, Ryan, what would you like in your yard? And Ryan's a marketing guy. Ryan doesn't know what needs to be in his backyard, right? So we come on site as the professional and say, Hey, Ryan, you got a drainage problem right here. Your plantings are dying over here. Here's what I'm going to suggest here and here.

14:00And that's how we do it. Interesting. I love that last piece there. And listeners, I'd encourage you to listen back on that and really comprehend what you're saying. You go in it with a consultative approach, essentially. Basically, the best way to get a lead or close a deal is be consultative and don't go up there. What do you need? It's saying, hey, this is what we're seeing. This is how you can address it. Here's how we can help. And I feel like that's what you guys are doing right there as well then. 100%. And the last piece I'll add to that for my landscapers contractors is we have a sales process and we have a sales guideline.

14:31So if the project needs a design, right, we have designers, we're going to focus on selling the client a design, the first consultation, right? Some projects need a design, but what that does, if Ryan wants a hundred thousand dollar backyard, or that's the words that are coming out of his mouth for his backyard, I'm going to start selling him and explaining my design process because that's how those projects become one, right? So it really varies. If you're going to sell high ticket stuff, Ryan's going to want to see a visual of what that looks like in his backyard before he writes you a $50 ,000 check to get started.

15:02So that's another key takeaway is a lot of guys don't want to get into design work, but it can really separate yourself. Nice. So that I'm writing our takeaways and listeners stay tuned for the last episode. I will have our three main takeaways. And so far, I have like focus on high ticket stuff and to design work. So that's like putting together, I want$100 ,000 backyard and you guys are actually designing. Here's what$100 ,000 looks like. That's what you guys are doing then exactly one thing that i love about the home service industry is that like truly i feel like a lot of it is just like provide great service and like show up on time and answer the phone call i mean that's some of the stuff you were taking there but i'd love for you like to expand on that because like i think it's so true it's such an easy way to stand out in this industry oh my gosh i love that you said that like it's probably why me at 24 years old is doing you know double of what these older gentlemen are doing in my space because you know whether they're burnt out, whether they don't want to adapt to software, whether they don't want to just have the discipline that it takes to answer your phone, get right back to your clients, provide them solutions, right?

16:02Like guys, if you're listening, you're a young buck and you have a lot of energy and you have a lot of wants as far as growth, you're going to crush it in home services. Cause like Ryan just said, all you have to do is show up on time, get right back to people and answer your phone. And you're going to be better than 70%. And, and the longer you can do that, right? Like, you know, year one, year two, all right. But by year five, you can do that consistently. Your business is going to grow very quickly. I think like it's literally such an advantage right now. Anyone can start a business in home services, but like being the young buck, the young hustler, that's not afraid to do some grassroots like marketing and like just show up on time and, you know, have a clean shaven, beautiful face like you do Chase.

16:42Like, I think it says like a great opportunity there. I do want to talk about grassroots ways of like landing your first customer of like everything you know now, you know, okay, you know, I'm 26. I'm going to go start a home services company. You know what? I'm going to do landscaping. How do I go get my first customer? Uh, my suggestion would be get on Facebook and start friend requesting local people. You can even like, let's say your mom's local to that area. You could go on your mom's Facebook page, go friend request all of her friends that she's friends with. You can have up to 5 ,000 friends in your personal Facebook page from there, Ryan, I would, you know, do my first project or two or post about landscaping on my personal Facebook page.

17:21Cause then you have an audience of 5 ,000 local people on top of that. I would go join all my local Facebook groups guys. Like I could look at my software and tell you, Ryan, like$65 ,000 of my completed revenue over the past 30 days has came from Facebook group recommendations. Wow. And I can say that because I have the software. We track every single call that comes in. So Facebook groups are going to be huge. Maybe getting a team together on the side that you could send that group posting when someone's looking for landscaping to maybe get five, six, eight people that'll comment your business on that post.

17:57And then once you've done your couple projects, you have a couple grand in your bank account, you need to invest in a website. You need to get a Google profile. And my whole thing, Ryan, is a lot of these guys want to run out and buy the new truck, buy the new skid steer. I tell my students every day, buy the website, invest into the marketing first. That's phase one. Once you've done that properly, then you should have a bunch of projects on your schedule. And then once you have a couple of deposits and projects, then you go out and either rent or buy the right equipment. These guys are doing it in reverse, and I understand, but you got to buy the marketing first that produces the lead.

18:33The leads then turn into a project. Yeah. I was just talking to, he's fresh out of college. He's in post-grad right now. He is starting, basically he's doing dropshipping and he's going to do like dog, like hygienic, like shampoo or something like that. We'll just leave it at that. He was walking me through it literally like two days ago. He's like, Hey, like I might like my website up, like, like, what do I do next? I'm just like, like kind of like, you know what? Like get the website up. Like screw that. Like go get like customers and stuff. Like, don't worry about like fulfilling this at all.

18:57Just so like go try and get your first customer. I feel like that's what you're saying there is get the customer first and then invest in like all the trucking and everything that you need after that. But you know, get out of drop shipping and go start a plumbing company or something. Yeah, literally. But seriously, I feel like some of these online spaces are very tough now. You know, people want to be setters and closers. And I have those people on my team and they're great. But a lot of times you can just go out and start a home service company and get dirty, put on a pair of boots and you'll make more money than the guy on Wall Street with a suit.

19:26It is great. That's why I think that it is such like a good opportunity right now in home services. So listeners, I hope you guys are being excited for this as well here. But landscaping, like, let's just call it how it is. It's tough physically. Like I can imagine what your body feels like after a week of work. You truly, Lee Bryce, belong to like the drinking class, if you know that song. But anyways, physical, like you face health setbacks as well. Like talks to us about like mentally, like what it takes to like get through landscaping, not get through, but like keep your body alive. But let's put it at that.

19:55Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Ryan, there's a list of things I could talk about. I keep a bottle tying all in my truck and I use it almost every day. But, and I'm not even like, I don't even work like my guys do. But sometimes in the spring, I'll hop in, help the guys out or weekends. If I have them working, I'll work alongside. But what it takes to get through, man, you got to focus on, you know, your sleep, number one. And it's very tough because, you know, I get up at five o 'clock every morning. So you got to go to bed on time. I focus on trying to eat healthy meal prepped meals. And then a lot of times sunscreen, right?

20:26We wear bigger hats to kind of protect our faces. There's a number of different things. And to be honest with you, most of my crews have a machine on their job site. So it's not like we're all just wheelbarrows and shovels. Like it's not all just like, all right, men, go dig these 84 holes. Like we have a mini X that's doing a lot of this stuff and it's very tough. I'll be honest with you. Huge respect to my Spanish speaking team members. They want to work more than I do. And I think I'm a machine and I'm not even doing the physical work. So I like it. I want to ask about like fulfilling this work as well.

20:58So someone's like getting started in this as well. Do you recommend them doing it first? And then, I mean, like, what do you guys, are you guys like contracting it out? What does that like currently look like to actually fulfill this work then? We have in-house team members, certain portions of our projects, pergolas, decks, that gets subbed out, electrical work, right? That gets subbed out. But if you're just getting started, I guess what I would say, if Chase were to start with zero today, I would go out and try to sell basic mulching projects where I'm like cleaning up the garden beds, edging the beds and mulching it.

21:27It just so happens to be like, That's probably one of my favorite things to do in my life, regardless of traveling. I could just mulch garden beds my entire life. There you go. I would start with that, get my first couple reviews, my first couple clients, my first couple grand, and then I would move into being on site of those homeowners and saying, hey, well, what about this? What about this? And at the same time, you have to grow your network, right? Because what I'm about to tell you is I'd go from selling a$4 ,000 mulch job to go selling a$45 ,000 retaining wall. Well, Chase can't do that by himself.

21:58And so that's where you would go into different markets or different networks and say, all right, well, who can I subcontract out to do this wall? Or do I know team members or potential team members I can hire now? It kind of depends on the person on the market, all that kind of stuff. Nice. I love that. Just like a question that comes to mind. I mean, you've been now doing this for like a decade, essentially 24 now. Sorry, we went 12, a little over a decade. I'm curious, like, how has your mindset shifted from a leadership perspective from, you know, let's keep it from like 16 to like 18, 19 to whatever, 22, then like 23, like where you are now.