Why Most Landscapers Stay Stuck Owning a Job Instead of Building a Business

You get to choose your hard. You're either gonna choose it up front or it's gonna be chosen for you later when you have to make hard decisions that you don't wanna make. So that's a huge lesson I've learned so far.

Welcome to the Sales Made Simple podcast.

This podcast is dedicated to helping overwhelmed outdoor living professionals, landscapers, and hardscapers just like you increase your closing rate to over 75% without doubling your workload so you can build a seven-figure business that doesn't need you. I'm your host, Joshua Gillow. Let's dig in. Hello, everyone, and welcome back. This is your host, Joshua Gillow. And today, my guest is a successful entrepreneur and co-founder of GreenPow, an online platform that connects homeowners and local lawn care professionals. He's born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and he developed an early interest in entrepreneurship and started his first business at the age of 13. mowing lawns in the neighborhood. After completing high school, he continued to grow his landscaping business and eventually founding Peachtree, which he grew to be one of the largest landscaping companies in Tennessee. Under his leadership, Peachtree generated over $10 million a year in annual revenue. In 2013, Peachtree was acquired by a national company and one of the largest acquisitions in the landscaping industry. Following that acquisition, he turned his focus to a new venture called GreenPow. That's what we're going to learn about today. So since that founding, GreenPow has grown rapidly and now serves over 200,000 active users, completing thousands of transactions per day. The company has been recognized by several publications, including Entrepreneur Magazine, which dubbed it the Uber for Lawn Care. Moreover, GreenPal is entirely self-funded, a rare accomplishment in the startup world. The company has been profitable since the first year of operation and as of 2021 is reported to doing over 30 million in revenue. Definitely a remarkable achievement for a bootstrap startup. He is also an experienced public speaker and has given talks on topics such as entrepreneurship, marketing, small business growth at conferences and events across the United States. He's passionate about helping other entrepreneurs succeed and is known for his expertise in bootstrapping businesses from zero revenue to profitability and exit. Welcome to the show, Brian Clayton. Joshua, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely, man. So, wow, what a story. So, tell me a little bit about getting started at age 13. Like, what possessed you to start a business? Why not just go work, you know, on the side or something like that for somebody? Why start a business that young? What possessed you to do that?

Yeah, you know, I'd like to tell you that I was born some natural entrepreneur, some business owner, like just innately knew how to start a business. But the reality is I did it. I was actually forced into my first business by my dad. He got tired of watching me play Nintendo all day. And he said... And he interrupted a game of Super Mario Kart one day and said, hey, get off your butt. I got a gig for you. You're going to go mow the