The most important sales and marketing question you must answer for your snow and landscape company now ahead of next spring is who is your current hell yes customer and why should they buy from you instead of anyone else? Now, you've probably heard me ask you that question before, you probably heard me ask it in my podcast this time last year, and that's because it is one of the most essential questions you must answer because it impacts all of your marketing, your sales process and your profit. Which kind of customers are you actually taking on and are they the right customers? Things have changed, the economy has changed, inflation has definitely changed. If you do commercial landscaping in snow and you were targeting class A real estate, are the same buildings even open that were open four or five years ago that you were targeting? If you're in multi-year contracts, are they still good fits for you?
A lot of this can vary depending on where you are in the country, what your local economy is like and so much more. And that's why you as the owner and leader of your snow and landscape company need to get super clear on this key question now, before springtime so you have a profitable year. Check out today's podcast to see a clip from my keynote presentation of the Landscaper's Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing that I presented in Florida at the Landscape Show. Plus what happened when I asked three people from the same landscape company, who is your hell yes customer, in front of an entire audience of people.
1:41: Why You Need to Know Who Your Hell Yes Customer Is
Hey, everyone. Jack Jostes here, and welcome to the Landscaper's Guide podcast where we share sales, marketing and leadership inspiration for the Snow and Landscape industry. Answering who is your hell yes customer is a key part of my whole process at working at Ramblin Jackson, helping our clients dial in their marketing. It's a key concept from my book, The Tree of Good Fortune. And it seems simple and it is simple, but a lot of people don't get this right, or they build their website with a local web designer who doesn't know the answer to this question, or they have people on their team who don't know the answer to this question. So I've created a simple worksheet for you to fill out. You can print it out or download it from landscapersguide.com/hell yes, there's a link in the show notes. Check it out while you listen to today's episode so you can get super clear on your hell yes customer so you get more of them from your sales and marketing.
Now, today I'm going to share a clip from my presentation of the Landscaper's Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing, and we're picking up after I've introduced the key concept of The Tree of Good Fortune, and part of it is the foundational four. And part of the foundational four is your hell yes customer, so let's get into it. So The Tree of Good Fortune sounds simple. It is simple. I just told you the whole thing. You could go do it, but most people don't. I can tell you this, I've looked at thousands of websites even from companies that allegedly do marketing for landscapers and they just don't get it. They don't do it. Why don't they do it? I don't know. What I found is many people skip what I consider foundational elements. We're going to focus today on the foundational four because when you get your branding and differentiation, which is more than just, I love seeing logoed apparel and hats and vehicle wraps, that's part of branding, but it's deeper than that.
3:56: Introduction to The Foundational Four & How to Apply it To Your Website
It's why are you different? Why are you worth more money than somebody else, is really what I care about as a customer. And then communicating that through your website and getting found through SEO and having the reviews to prove it. When you get those four things solid, you can do the other things. I'm not saying you shouldn't do social media or online ads, but you've got to go in the right order. So starting with branding and differentiation, looking at your colors, looking at your logo, is it cohesive? But beyond that, your messaging and unique selling position, some people call this a USP. You probably hear other marketing people talk about this. But essentially it's why am I better than anyone in my marketplace that's serving my customer with my primary service. If you, the owner does not know that, what do you think your salespeople are telling customers?
4:58: How to Identify Your Hell Yes Customer
What is the person answering your phone or whoever's getting a bid, if they don't know this, it's the most important question. It's the most important question in any economy, but especially if there's a recession, is why should they buy from you instead of a competitor who charges less? And I'll go as far as to say, if there's not a real answer to that, they should hire the competitor who charges less. It has to be real. It has to be true. It's not some marketing thing. This is the real deal. Why would you pay more, why would I pay more for you? And a key part of that is who is buying? Who is buying is everything. Some people call this a target market. I call it a hell yes customer.
So a hell yes customer is when you get a lead through your website or you get a referral or your phone rings or you meet somebody at a trade show or whatever it is, however you're generating those leads, the answer is, "Hell yes, this is my client, I'm going to crush this project for them and they're going to hire me for five years." So I want you to take out that folder. We have the Hell Yes Customer worksheet. And are there any companies here that have more than one person from the company here? You two, okay. Oh, you've got three?
Audience Member:
Yes.
Jack Jostes:
Okay. Here's what I need you to do. I need you to sit in different rows and we're going to take a minute and fill out the Hell Yes Customer worksheet. I'm going to invite you guys up here and see what your answer is, is it the same? So this is essential. So no peeking. If you're with other people, don't look at each other's answers because I might call on you too. So what are the services that you want them to buy? And I want you to list the number one service first. So if your number one thing is landscape maintenance, put that first. If it's design build, put that. And then go on through and write down at least three of the suburbs that you work on. My hell yes customer will invest. Now, if it's maintenance, how much are they going to spend in a year? And don't worry, this isn't a tax document or something like that. This is more of, we're getting it on paper of how much does my ideal customer spend in a year, let's say. And then what's their lifetime value?
7:33: How to Calculate the Lifetime Value of Your Hell Yes Customer
So rough math here, let's just pretend that they spent a hundred thousand dollars a year, it was some sort of client and they stayed five years. That would be a $500,000 lifetime value. If it's 10,000 and they do three years, you're at 30,000. So I'm just looking to get some rough math here of what's the lifetime value. I know that you're going to have your top 10% of clients who spend way more than the bottom, but on average, what are the customers? If you left here and got more of this customer, how much would they spend? And then similarly, on the other side, who is your hell no customer? What services do you not offer that people ask you, is it lawn care? Is it tree service? Do you do irrigation installation, or only repair? So whatever that service that people are coming to you and asking, "Hey, do you guys do this?" And the answer is no, write that on there. And what's a service area that you don't work in? Maybe it's too far. Maybe you're like, "I don't want to send my crews more than an hour," maybe it's two hours.
I met one guy who's thrilled to go four hours. I'm like, "You're crazy," but that's his... This isn't my hell yes customer, it's yours, so whatever it is. And then this is the most important question, what is your minimum? When is the budget too small? You need to write this down because we've got to get really good at saying, "Hey, thanks so much. We'd love to work with you on this. Our landscape maintenance starts at this price, this price right here." And I even recommend putting this on your website because here's what happens. You want to walk away with qualified leads. If they're not going to spend, what do you need to charge? Is it $300 a month? Is it 500? Whatever that number is, let people know. It'll actually help them not waste the time of contacting you, doing the phone and email dance to find out that it's not a fit. All right, so did one of you start the company?
Audience Member:
I own the company.
Jack Jostes:
Okay, cool. So Jesse, tell us your name and where are you guys?
Jesse:
We are Gill Garden Center + Landscape Co in Corpus Christi, Texas. I recently acquired the company two years ago. Ernesto is a landscape designer. Here, I'll pass it on.
Ernesto:
Yeah. I'm a landscape designer. I've been designing, second year now designing. I started off as an assistant and worked my way up.
Harry:
My name is Harry, and we do landscape design, project estimate, the management of the installation, and then also continuing management with the customers once the projects is complete.
Jack Jostes:
Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you guys for coming up here. What brought you to Florida from Texas?
Audience Member:
So maybe some cool weather?
Jesse:
It is a few degrees cooler here, that's nice. The education here at this show has been really good. I've been here for a couple of years and it's better than our state show if anyone from TNLA is here. Take note.
Jack Jostes:
Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I've presented at TNLA and they have a really good education system. They did, at least.
Jesse:
They did before COVID.
Jack Jostes:
I know. I'm sorry to hear that. Okay, I'll just let you guys pass this back and forth when you talk. So we'll actually start with Harry. So Harry, just read out loud, who is the hell yes customer, what are the services and the service areas? Just read through all of this, and I need you guys to help me take notes here with a critical mind, how similar or different are what they're saying.
Harry:
My hell yes customer is someone who wants to do a complete redesign of their front and backyard or even a commercial project, and that includes big planting beds, installing large palms and trees and incorporating some hardscaping as well. We're in Corpus Christi, Texas, but we typically service Rockport and Port A, which is about 30 to 60 miles roughly. Anything past that gets a little more problematic, but certainly can be done if you get your travel costs incorporated into your bid properly. My hell yes customer is somewhere in that 20,000 to $40,000 range. Those are very fun, comfortable projects to do and puts a smile on your face when they're done, the client's happy. And if you can do it profitably, then that's certainly a fun range to be working in.
And if I'm working with those same kinds of clients over X amount of years, maybe accruing $150,000 worth of sales with them. Services I'm not interested in doing are mowing, little small resod jobs where someone calls down to our office and says, "Hey, can you install half a pallet of grass for us?" It's not something we're interested in. Also, small rock removal stuff. Areas we do not service are Beeville, Victoria, Riviera. Just further out, two and a half hour trips. It just gets a little bit tougher to service people further out.
Jack Jostes:
Awesome. And how long have you worked at this company?
Harry:
About five and a half years now.
Jack Jostes:
Okay. It sounded like... I was like, "This is pretty thorough." Okay, good. So thanks for sharing. And go ahead.
Ernesto:
All right.
My hell yes customers want to do the full redesign of the yard, lighting, hardscaping, irrigation. Areas that we service on the island are Calallen, Portland. My hell yes customer will invest 20 to 40,000. I would say 40 would be really great. Lifetime investment, I would say a hundred thousand. Services I do not offer is ponds, fountains. It just never worked out, and too many issues with them. Areas that do not service if it's an hour and a half away, I typically don't want to... It costs too much. We can't really compete with that price. Budgets that are too small, it's something like 5,000 or less. Really not worth the time to put the effort into it.
Jack Jostes:
Cool. Awesome. Thank you. That was good.
Jesse:
I'm so proud that we're on the same page guys. This is good. Hell yes customers, lots of planting, full construction overhaul, lots of large trees, lots of design elements like Harry said, like Ernest said. Service areas are the affluent areas in our region, which would be Ocean Drive, North Corpus, Southside, and Port Aransas, Rockport.
Jack Jostes:
Awesome.
Jesse:
Hell yes customer, this is where we diverge a little bit. I'd say at least 50,000 and I'd say over their lifetime, 1 million because I want to work with them longer.
Jack Jostes:
Do they have multiple properties or do they do their front yard?
Jesse:
Right. Maybe we work in phases. Maybe they have multiple properties, maybe we work with them for 20 years. Services we do not offer, grass only, grading only, ponds. Areas I do not service beyond an hour and a half and budgets that are too small, 5,000.
Jack Jostes:
Awesome. Well, you can hang on to that. So I think you guys-
Jack Jostes:
... what did you say?
Audience:
I wrote the exact same thing.
15:44: What Happens If Your Team Isn’t Clear On Your Hell Yes Customer
Jack Jostes:
Okay. You wrote the same thing, so you have the same hell yes customer, but you're not in Corpus Christi, Texas, are you? Awesome. Cool. Well, good job guys. So this is what I like to see, and this is so important that the three of you are on the same page because I want to tell you guys a story. One time I was starting a project with a big landscape company. They had a vice president of sales, a marketing director and the CEO. And we're starting this project and this is the first step is like, "Hey, who is your hell yes customer? We all need to be really clear about who we are marketing to and why would they buy, and why would they buy from us instead of somebody else?" And the marketing person had one answer, the VP of Sales had his answer, and the CEO had a different answer.
And more importantly, the CEO didn't care that the other two had a different answer and wanted to just hurry it along and, "Hey, why don't you just build the website?" And it's like you guys are hiring us to solve this sales and marketing problem and you can't even agree on who is your hell yes customer. So you've got a full-time, senior level person in sales, a full-time, senior level person in marketing, and now you're going to hire another marketing company and you don't think they should know. We ended up stopping there. I was like, "This isn't going to work. This is a disaster. You guys need to get clear on this." So good job. Did anybody here fill this out and have different answers? Did anyone, I'm curious, have you shared your results?
Audience Member:
We're on the same page.
17:19: Why Knowing Your Hell Yes Customer Helps Serve Them Better
Jack Jostes:
You're on the same page. Well, that's good. So what needs to happen is this information, I joke about it being this powerful technology because it is, because whoever's answering your phone... I want to share a story. One time I was hosting a mastermind at one of these conferences, and the owner of the company was driving over an hour to do initial consultations with people who were not qualified. He would spend an hour getting there and an hour talking to them to find out that they had a budget that was too small, and he was too nice to do that over the phone. He thought that that was helping the customer. Now, the customer's waiting, you know when you have somebody come in like, "Oh, I've got to get my house ready and all this stuff," so they're waiting. It's not a service to your customer to let them know this information any sooner than you could.
It really serves your customer to say, "Hey look, our project start at $5,000. Typically, clients are spending north of 50." And you can put this on your website, you can put it all over the place and it'll help you attract this. But everyone on your team, the person answering the phone, the person who's... If you're hiring an executive assistant who's scheduling appointments for you, they could do some light qualifying like, "Hey, can you tell me what services were you interested in? Oh, you're looking for a one-time grading? At this time, we're not offering that." But the other thing you can do is expand this to a referral partnership. One time I did this in New Jersey and many people listed poison ivy removal. That was the one thing that like... Okay, you don't want to do one time mows or one time grading. In New Jersey, it's like one time poison ivy removal, no, thanks.
But there was a guy there who's like, "I'm all about it. I love doing poison ivy removal." And so that now creates a referral partnership. So when that person calls, you can say, "You know what? You've got to call Jerry's Poison Ivy Removal. I know this guy Jerry, he crushes it. Let me give you his info." And then Jerry actually didn't do the other stuff that that company did. So you can use this in a lot of ways. Let's give these guys a big round of applause. Thank you for coming up here. Do you guys want some beef jerky?
Ernesto:
Sure.
Jack Jostes:
Awesome. All right, so we've got some beef jerky if you guys are hungry.
Ernesto:
Thank you very much.
Jack Jostes:
And we'd love to give you a copy of the book too.
Jesse:
Awesome.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, thank you.
Jesse:
Thanks a lot.
19:50: Identifying Your Unique Selling Position - Why Would Clients Buy From You vs. Competitors
Jack Jostes:
All right. Well, that's the hell yes customer, and we need to get clear on it because when we get clear on the cities that they're in, the services that they're in, we can then build out our tree of good fortune. But the next question after you're clear, you're like, "All right, here's who I want." The next question you've got to answer is, "Why would they buy from me? What is my unique selling position?" I'm going to tell you, if you already have a thriving landscape company and you've got a bunch of reviews, you've got a bunch of repeat business, you've got people who have worked for you for five years that are stoked, you already have a USP, you just need to figure out how to communicate it.
You already have this. It's not something again that you're going to make up. It's more of helping people understand what do you do differently. So here's an example of one that I wrote, "2D designs guaranteed within four days or your money back." So that's a risk reversal because I'm hitting at that pain of waiting two, three weeks for a design and I'm giving it to you in four days. And if I don't, I'm going to pay you back. Do you guys charge for designs?
Audience Member:
Not normally.
Jack Jostes:
Not normally?
Audience Member:
But that's a good idea.
Jack Jostes:
Okay. So let's pretend that you could guarantee it within four days. What would you need to charge in order to do that?
Audience:
250 bucks.
Jack Jostes:
Okay, 250 bucks. You could charge more. I don't want to get into how much it costs, but when the customer says, "You guys charge for designs?" "Yes, ma'am. That's the only way that we're able to guarantee it within four days. And if we don't, we're going to pay you back. What we typically hear from people is they meet with a landscaper, they end up weeding 2, 3, 4 weeks. Sometimes they don't even reply. So it wouldn't make sense to just pay $250 and get it in four days." I know, so let's not get hung up on the amount or the time. They are able to do it, and I'll share in part by outsourcing it, they outsource that design part. They got out of their own head and said, "Okay, cool. Somebody else could do this first draft for me pretty well," and then if they actually hire me for the project, we then move forward with the rest of the design.
22:34: Why it’s Okay To Put Prices On Your Website
The other thing that they do is they have a budget page. This is on the top of their budget page that has a price guide that shares the ranges of the projects. Landscapers are like, "Oh, I can't put pricing on my website. It depends. It depends on the grade, it depends on the size of the yard, it depends on the plants." And then they rattle off all the things that it depends on that you could record yourself and transcribe it and put it on your website. So yes, it depends. And if you could tell somebody in person why it depends, you could tell somebody on your website why it depends. Literally record yourself selling sometime. "Well, how much do you think it's going to cost?" "Oh, well it depends on X to," and you know, you've done this hundreds of times.
So you put that on the website and now you get a customer who's like, "I understand that you have ranges and that it depends on the size of our yard and the material that we use for our decking and the plant selection and all of these things," and now they're educated and they trust you. So anyway, so this is an example of a unique selling position. Many people will write something like, family owned since 1986. That's cool, but how does that actually help me? Does that mean that you're going to do it better than somebody else? Are you able to do it in four days or less? Look, the family history thing is meaningful if you're good at what you do. But if you've not been very good at what you do since 1986 then... So it's really more about, what does that mean to me, the customer?
23:58: The Importance Showcasing Your “Three Reasons to Buy” On Your Website
So I'm all about putting histories, bios, when you started, it contributes to the reason though that they would buy from you, but it's not. So we want to create three reasons to buy. Here are mine. The first one is that I help you brand your sales process to get the owner out of sales. The second reason is that I continually bring proactive marketing strategies to help you stay ahead of your competition. The third one is, I have exclusivity. I have exclusive partnerships geographically with my top tier clients, so those are three reasons. Remember Nomadvisor who sells all of your leads to your competitors. They're not going to do this. They're not going to be proactive. They're going to send you garbage and hope that you keep paying. So this is for me, but have you seen this guy? He's here and we're going to talk to him later. But Scott has done this. Scott has a hell yes customer, and he has created a very meaningful reason to buy. So here's a clip of him in a video.
Scott Callenius:
The second reason HOAs and commercial property managers trust ForeverGreen is because we only do commercial properties. Many of our new clients come to us because they had poor experience with their previous landscape company who was distracted by bright and shiny residential projects. At ForeverGreen, we only do commercial. Since 1989, our staff of over 25 is prepared to manage installations, maintenance, tree care, irrigation and storm cleanup. We have the resources to handle any and all projects. We have the know-how and the training to handle large projects. Our teams are trained to handle commercial environments. You can count on us to make your HOA or commercial property presentable and safe for all of your community members.
Jack Jostes:
So that was a clip from the Three Reasons to Buy video for Scott, which is on his website. He can proactively send it to people before a meeting, after a meeting. And let's pretend, remember the pains and problems. I'm an HOA community and my current landscaper is out doing shiny design build projects and their crews missed mowing for the second week in a row, and it's Memorial Day weekend and I need my community to look amazing. That's the problem that they have. Now, if they hear of Scott, "Hey, we only do this, we only do HOAs and we're staffed for it and we love it, and check out all these reviews from other HOA," that is a reason to buy. That's a unique selling position. So what's changed in your local market in the last few years? What's changed in the economy? What's changed with your team?
Who do you have on your team now and where are you heading and what do you want? It's a simple question, but a lot of people don't have a clear answer to it. What do you want? What do you want from your business? Who your customer is has a big impact on how much you enjoy running your company, how much money your company makes, the quality of work you're doing. So it all starts with who are you serving and why? Truly, why should they buy from you instead of anyone else? And it may be time to cut some services. It maybe time to let some clients go. We've interviewed a lot of people on our podcast who have done that. There are a lot of things changing, and I do have another podcast episode that you might want to check out. It's The Landscaper's Guide to Sales and Marketing in the New Economy, so see our show notes for that.
27:38: Download the Hell Yes Customer Worksheet
And if you haven't already, download the Hell Yes Customer worksheet. Just fill it out. Fill it out and review it with some of your key people. Review it if you have an operations manager or director, if you have a CFO, if you have a sales team, if you have a sales manager, rally your team around who is your hell yes customer and dial your marketing in on that. So we've got a link to that worksheet in the show notes and helping people figure out who their hell yes customer is a specialty here at Ramblin Jackson. And we'd love to have just a 15-minute conversation with you. So check out landscapersguide.com/brainstorm and we can schedule a 15-minute marketing brainstorm focused on you and your hell yes customer and how to get more of them. All right everyone, my name's Jack Jostes. Thanks so much for checking out today's episode of The Landscapers Guide, and I look forward to talking with you on the show next week.
Show Notes:
Watch the full episode + see the transcript at: https://landscapersguide.com/podcast/
Tell us where to send your beef jerky: https://landscapersguide.com/toolbox
Book your Free 15-Minute Brainstorm Call: https://landscapersguide.com/brainstorm
Download your Hell Yes Customer Worksheet Here
Listen to The Landscaper's Guide to Sales and Marketing in the New Economy: https://landscapersguide.com/the-landscapers-guide-to-sales-and-marketing-in-a-normal-economy/