Trevor

@dylthorn @pestctrlguy As someone who does both I can guarantee there are many more times the landscape operator will need to take a deep controlled exhale in their truck after getting off a job site

@pestctrlguy Good Post. landscaping is an absolute nightmare compared to pest control. It’s like 100 times more complicated needs 100 times the labor 100 times the training 100 times more things can go wrong and it’s seasonal.

I respect Shawn but he’s dead wrong. -Pest control is recession resistant. Landscaping less so - especially the big projects. -Customers are much stickier. -Operations are so simple (nearly) anyone can do the job and you don’t need management until real scale. Even then, you don’t need a seasoned vet to manage the crew. We just promoted a 23 year old to management with 3 years experience. - Multiples are higher for a reason. There are currently 0 pest control businesses for sale on bizbuysell in CO, UT, NM, KS. There are dozens of landscaping companies for sale in CO alone. - project work is huge is pest control. Termites, wildlife, birds. A friend just landed some 6 figure projects with apartments complexes and has a bid out for over half a million annually. - margins are simply better in pest control. We’ve grown 100% per year for 4 years and will do so again and EBITDA margins have never been below 42.5%. - There are a million upsell opportunities like mosquito, insulation, crawlspace encapsulation, etc. which can be $10k+ each. Commercial landscaping is a fine business! It’s not the same as pest control.

@Michaelfiore @RoryTyer Is there a home owner friendly, ready to use, prodiamine product? IMO, there’s a small portion of the population who would trust and buy from a YouTube account. The rest would buy whatever is the cheapest product in front of them because they assume all products are the same.

@RoryTyer We have done a lot of that too, but struggling to find a liquid pre-emergent that is retail friendly for smaller lawns.

I don’t know if I’m supposed to post this, because it has wholesale price information, but screw it: This is the reality of owning a business that competes directly with big box stores. I go to a buying show, find a product I like and want to carry in my store. My wholesale supplier tells me it will cost me $37.61 per bottle, but the MSRP $63.99. Ok, decent markup. It’s a good product, wait let me just check something real quick. Lowe’s sells this exact same product for $5 LESS than what my wholesale distributor wants to sell it to me for! That’s right, if I tried to price match Lowe’s I’d be LOSING $5 per every bottle sold. I can try to squeeze my distributor and get a few bucks taken off per bottle, but even still, I have to make a markup on the products I sell or else I go out of business. So if I do decide to carry this product and sell it for more than what Lowe’s does people will accuse me of price gouging customers. Lose lose situation. This is why we focus so much on carrying products that big box stores do not carry, but that gets harder every single year. I could keep going, but this is long enough already. I’ll cover more topics in the future. Rant over.

@StumpGuyTy Soft ground with mud stuck to tires/ tracks or no dust?

Rain when grinding stumps: My least favorite weather. Rain when not grinding stumps: My favorite weather. (In doses of course. I couldn’t live in the Pacific Northwest)

@theseoguy_ Currently dealing with some sort of extortion attempt. Anything you would recommend besides reporting their 7 reviews as fake?

AI reading reviews on behalf of consumers is going to be crazy. “Hey Siri, I’m looking into this contractor to do a home addition. I’ll likely pay him a few hundred grand. Can you scavenge the internet and see if you can find anything bad?” And then it spits back and says “I found 7 reviews that said the contractor refused to come back after he messed a detail up and zero reviews mentioning him ever going above and beyond. He seems to be good but you’ll have to pray he gets it right the first time around”

Planted these from seed a couple months ago. They’re jumpin! #grandmatwitter

@LocalSEO_Guy Hi

I checked more than 40 home service keywords last week. And I found one clear pattern. Google AI Overview is using the same few sites again and again for its citations. If your business is listed on those sites, you’ll get a small boost over your competitors. Right now, very few people know this. If you start early, you’ll get better results later. Want the list and full guide? Comment Hi and I’ll DM you.

@garrettwestholt @garrettgreens Write this chart on scratch paper as soon as you sit down. Triple check hydraulic section work and you’re good to go.

#backtoschool @garrettgreens rocking for his Texas Irrigators License…who needs a new irrigation system!?

@pestctrlguy Fieldroutes scheduling page is just penwheeling. Borderline glad a tech called in sick haha

It’s all fun and games until Amazon AWS has an outage and your CRM won’t load some functions and you get an email from your fuel card company that has cards might not work for a while. We live in such a fragile society.

These limelight hydrangeas were planted at the same time in late August. The one on the bottom catches a breeze from the crawl space fan. Is it simply the slight difference in temperature that caused this massive difference in vigor?

Cleaned the motor court part of this home up nicely! Star Jasmine trained to wire we installed along with boxwood plantings.

My guys stabilized and installed these planter stands today in an attempt to make the most of a tight space and block an alley view. Always fun coming up with creative solutions!

Best way for a client to understand what size of patio Eagleston Holly they are getting.

We knocked this bed work earlier this week. Looks great! Adams needle and the variegated variety should be used more!

A long time client purchased this home so I did an initial walk yesterday. Huge lot with lots of potential. Dallas has a reputation as being a bit bland but there are 100% cool properties tucked in here and there

@michaelfiore Are you seeing less boxwood purchases? I try to push clients towards yaupons at this point and I know others do too, some people are very hung up on boxwoods though.

I’m a sucker for tightly trimmed hedges. These are Dwarf Yaupon. A native shrub to the southeastern US. It’s also my best selling shrub of all time.

Chasing a few pieces of Bermuda with fusilade/ recognition. The zeon is doing great this year. We dethatched and topdressed heavily late spring and there is no sign of sand!

Wrapped up an install today. It’s awesome to be able to create such change in a few days of work. Our team worked hard and pushed through some tough stump removals and a couple of hot afternoons. Looking forward to this new landscape to grow in!

It’s raining in Dallas this morning so we’re knocking off maintenance items. When weather is good and we’re rolling, so many of these crucial “small things” can fall to the side. Making use of our time is a must to ensure we don’t hit a snag on a jobsite!

Demo day of an old landscape, hoping to get the install rolling tomorrow!

St. Augustine sod slapped in today. Azoxystrobin is a must for any sod that we install. In our region theres a fine line between underwatering and the sod drying out, and overwatering which ends in grey leaf spot/ brown patch. Bring on the cooler temps!