My buddy Larry was working for a landscaping company for years. He started knowing absolutely nothing about grass, trees, flowers, seeding, dirt, irrigation… all of it! Eventually, he became nearly an expert at everything.
And, I never use the term “expert” lightly. The word “expert” is defined as a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of something; Larry was an EXPERT!
Last year, Larry decided to leave the company that he had been with for years to work for himself. His employer was positive about his decision, but hated to see his top worker leave. Larry also was respectful enough to perform work that was more related to his previous employer, but not directly a competitor (smart move).
Everything started off fast for Larry in 2025.
In July, Larry called me. Seriously stressed and anxious, Larry’s voice was not anything I remembered. He was worried, nervous and, I would say, scared, about his business for the rest of the year.
“What am I doing wrong man?”
“I tried that garbage and it never worked…”
“How did [my previous employer] keep so many customers coming through; I can’t get even a fraction of that…”
Larry was ready to say goodbye to his dream of business ownership, sell his equipment and truck, all of his gear, let his new hire go and go back to working for someone. Larry was not getting traction, was not building revenue and was honestly at the end of his pile of patience…
Sound familiar?
What follows are a collection of the conversations Larry and I had. This is not abnormal from many of the conversations I have with business owners who did something similar.
Whether you are a landscaper, roofer, accountant, lawyer or dentist, moving out and on your own can seem exciting and scary, in a uniquely freeing way. But when business goes into the red and negative, it loses that passionate fire that was burning so brightly in the beginning.
If this sounds like you, whether you are just starting, or you’re experiencing it now, hang in there, grab a cup of coffee and check out how I helped turn Larry around in just a few months.
The Biggest Myths Of Starting Out In Business For Yourself
Pause!
If you are a business owner who is struggling, you are having trouble making the ends meet and don’t know where the next dollar is coming from, PAUSE! You did something big. You are doing a great thing for your family, for your community – but don’t forget, this is a big thing for you as well. Know that nearly every business owner, this one included, has experienced EXACTLY what you are going through. You are not alone. I’m not telling you to calm down – what I am telling you is that other people have gone through the same thing and come out of the storm with a smile. After reading this, I want you to know, I hope you do too!
Okay, back to it…
“Where is everyone? I thought everyone needed the X, Y and Z that I offer…”
You started a business providing a service or product. You have invested years learning this industry, getting your skillset up and going out on your own.
But, now, no one is calling.
Why?
Well, the simple answer is that, quite frankly, no one knows you exist! I know that is a simple answer, but that is usually the right one.
If no one knows that you exist, what you can do, how available you are, how you can help them – then no one will call!
The solution is using a simple method of building your awareness -and because you are starting out, doing this as affordably, if not completely free is the ideal action, right?
My first recommendation I give new service-based business owners is to start close, and then make your circles bigger. Talk to family and friends about your business. Get cheap business cards made and ask your friends and family to carry a few in their glove box to hand out as the situations come up. By the way, a cheaper place to get 500 business cards for less than $30 is at Vista Print.
Other cheap places that I recommend:
- Local printing companies for door hangers
- Basic website
- Using social media posts to show your work
For door hangers, GotPrint offers a package of 500 hangers for under $70. A basic company website can be purchased and created for less than $100 if you do the work yourself – for the year, not per month! And social media is completely free; all of the time spent is your cost to make images and videos.
“I’m providing a great service and great quality – people should trust that!”
If someone doesn’t know you, how can they trust you?
And that question isn’t assuming trust for something like my bank account or being a caretaker to my kids – I’m talking about trust with my hard-earned money in exchange for a quality piece of work.
So, how do you prove to someone who has never met you, that you are not a fraud and will provide them quality?
Here are some of the best ways.
- Public business reviews
- Personal business reviews (networking / word of mouth)
- Business reviews
- Working with you in the past
With these being shown, we now can see the BIGGEST problem – you are a new business, so you don’t have any work history. You don’t have customers, you don’t have reviews, you don’t have a past.
To grow one, once again, start with your close circles; and if you have to, start with reduced rates, or added service. Then, ask for reviews. And then do more. And then ask again.
One additional action I recommend to everyone I work with is pretty simple. When you are performing your first jobs, use that area to talk to neighbors, knock on doors for an estimate or review, and take lots of video and images. When people see what you are doing and can do, they trust that you can do it for them.
“I really hope this works!”
Hope is a great thing. It allows us to see the future, and our visions becoming a reality.
But hope is very passive. Hope is a ‘sit back and see’ activity.
When you are starting out your business, hope is something that you should have deep in the back of your mind and somewhere in your heart. But, hope doesn’t grow your customer base. Hope doesn’t pay your rent and loans.
Never rely on hope over history!
Instead, let’s build history. Let’s use solid actions, tools, strategies and tactics to build a base, and grow your business.
Each segment of your business has these tools. Marketing has marketing agencies that work with local businesses to grow (like me!). Accounting has SAAS tools to handle invoicing and estimates as well as bookkeeping. You can create SOPs (standard operating procedures) to make every action the same, with every new incident and event one that is able to be handled correctly and the same, every time.
One thing I want to mention here is that we also have a similar myth of “I tried it and it didn’t work for us” – one that I hear in the marketing and advertising world a lot. This is a myth not because of the result not being inline with what you expected the solution to your problem to be; it’s because it is worded wrong.
What you likely actually meant to say is: “I tried it and it didn’t work for us this time, for this problem, in this quarter for where we are in our revenue and service volume.”
Remember, if you are starting out, a 100-page website, with AI integration, complete lead generation funnel and flow design, integrations for multiple marketing and sales tools are not needed. “Starting out” is a much different time than “legacy operations” – customer volume, revenue volume, employment considerations, regional service, offerings, etc are all different.
Just keep that one in mind as well!
The fundamentals of a good business
What makes a business a ‘good business’? What are the fundamentals that we can build that will yield the final outcome of ‘good’? What are we doing incorrectly that can be fixed? And, finally, what areas should we look at to change, create, build and grow for real impact in our business?
“Larry, I know that right now it’s just you and one person. But, you shouldn’t be doing EVERYTHING, ya know?”
“Wait… what do you mean? I still need to drive, I still need to work, I still need to handle the invoices and the payroll, I still need to handle the calendar, I still need…”
“Yes, but does it JUST have to be you?”
Most business owners who have worked for someone, don’t know how to not work for someone. Meaning, they now own their own business, but still treat themselves like an employee.
In this section we are going to talk about some tools and methods of removing yourself from being the only worker at the role at a 24/7 pace. Instead, you can setup a system and oversee it rather than constantly be working on it, and in it.
Let’s Talk About Marketing, Advertising & Sales
The first part of this conversation needs to be directed at the one that will bring in the MOST business.
Your marketing, advertising and sales processes all need to remove you as a 24/7 technician. Instead, you should be using tools and methods that create flow without you needing to keep pressing buttons, stay stuck on the phone and to not be actually working on your business.
One tool that seems to be a constant recommendation by myself is Calendly. This tool allows you to automatically schedule an item by an outside customer.
For many service businesses, I help them setup a day of the week (or a few) and some blocks of time for the community to claim a free estimate. The user enters their name, email and phone, along with their address, and then the business owner shows up at the residence on that date and time for an estimate.
The results? No underwhelming phone calls, no scheduling issues – just a clear and automated way of creating a conversation for new services.
One other tool that really does work, is a business website. Now, this isn’t something I recommend by itself – you definitely do need to make calls, shake hands and put feet on the ground when you first start out. But, if setup correctly, your website becomes a call center, message center, support center, lead generation machine, sales person, etc.
From your business website, you can use both online and offline assets to create more interest in your brand, answer questions, setup appointments – ya know, the whole sales process!
Fulfillment – The Real Work Begins
Fulfillment is simply a fancy way of saying ‘the work we’ve done for a customer’. For many people, they mistake fulfillment as only the dirty hands that are made from jobs from customers. Once again, this is a mistake.
Instead, fulfillment is the process of completing a job. Let’s look at the basics of the process…
- The work
- The tools
- Client updates
- Tracking work
- Completion actions
Work is just work. It needs to be done. The customer paid for it, so you gotta do it.
But everything else is a process. And, because of this, we can create an SOP for each step of work being done.
One thing I do spend some time with while working with new business owners is to outline work actions, from start to finish. Where are these always the same? Where is there some deviation? What can we itemize and make into a checklist? What tools can we use to make our communication better? What tools can we use to make our tracking more effective?
The biggest and bestest solution? A cell phone!
For Larry, we created an SOP that was a customer communication SOP. The basics of it were just to keep up with the work being done and keep the conversation open and alive with every customer:
- “Our crew will be visiting you today at around 10AM” – send via text sometime in the early morning to ALL of today’s customers
- “Our crew is at your property and work has started” – send via text as soon as we arrive BEFORE we unload and work
- “Our crew has finished work. Thank you for choosing [business]” + image(s) – send via text as soon as work is completed
- Send work images via email to work email for updates (socials, work being done, timing, etc). We can also include notes about the job to make the next job for this customer better.
This SOP might seem simple, but when you have a repeatable, outlined process, you won’t have to think about something else. The work is in front of you. Plus, this particular SOP built a TON of trust for Larry’s company – customers were sharing Larry’s phone number left and right because of how transparent his work was.
Customer Service – The main issue some new business owners dread
Many, if not most, new business owners LOVE handling their own customer support and customer service. Talking to new and existing customers is an exciting way of building rapport and trust when getting things started.
Over time though, handling phone call after phone call is an issue. After all, if you are constantly answering customers’ needs, sometimes you can’t fulfill their working needs.
So, what can you do?
My recommendation here is straight across the board – remove yourself from handling customer support in every way, unless it is an emergency.
Here is how:
- Use a domain-branded email, not a GMail address, i.e., customercare@domain.com
- Use a Google Voice (free) phone number or VoiP service as your business number
- Use bots and AI on your website for handling basic questions and issues, not as a solution for all customers’ concerns
- Create a Q&A on your website for answering the most asked questions from customers and potential customers
- Use a script that always starts with “I’m sorry that you have experienced [ISSUE]. Let’s see if we can make it right for you…”
- Never, ever negatively answer ANYTHING online (reviews, Facebook comments, YouTube comments, etc)
SOPs for customer service and support should be made overtime. You can create skeleton actions for flows for yourself and other employees – it doesn’t have to be a bunch of rigid scripts and actions.
The Backend / Ownership / Management / YOU!
The backend of your business is where many business owners I work with usually get, well, bored. The many actions here involve personnel, accounting, payroll, billing, SOP creation, safety, insurances, and the like.
Many service businesses feel this way, and this is my own opinion, because they are in the blue collar industries, and this area of business is very white collar.
The reality in business is that sometimes “boring is effective”. If you have a good process for accounting and payroll, you don’t run into payment issues. If you have good SOPs, you and your employees can rarely mess it all up.
One segment of this administrative group that I even use is Wave for my accounting and financial tracking. For small businesses, this is a great method of accounting, handling invoices and receipts, and keeping expenses under control. Plus, it’s a great tool for handling your business taxes.
Other actions and areas to consider (and yes, there are free and affordable tools to help you!):
- Financial Management (Bookkeeping & Cash Flow)
- Human Resources and Employee Management
- Operational Processes and Documentation
- Communication and Data Management
- Compliance and Risk Management
- Administrative Methods to Improve Efficiency
Building Momentum Versus Using Tactics – How to “win” while not playing around
Let’s get real here – excitement fades over time. You can work balls to the wall when your business first begins, but eventually, you start to feel like there is no more gas in the engine.
The problem? You stopped using momentum, and started just working harder and harder.
In this section, we are going to look at some of the methods I recommend using as a small business owner to keep your business growing, moving and staying a business. And, yes, as you can tell, the solution isn’t to work harder!
“More activity does not equal more outcomes”
If you spin the wheels on your car as fast as you can, does that mean that you are faster than the other guy?
Of course not.
In business, this is the same answer. We’ve all seen employees who are scrambling around, doing a lot of nothing. They get paid for their activity, not their output. Other times you see employees who barely do anything, but it seems like they do EVERYTHING, right?
When you are running your own business, your level of action does not equate to the level of positive outcomes. Just because you are working from 4AM until midnight, everyday, without any days off, doesn’t mean anything.
So, let’s focus on what really matters when you first start your business…
- You have to be correct and legal (LLC, certifications, state licenses, insurances, bank accounts)
- You need customers (marketing, networking and becoming aware to the community)
- You need to do good work
That. Is. It.
If you do those three things, and focus only on those three things, you will find success.
Where do business owners go wrong?
- Spend too much time and money planning for something
- Spend too much money on expansions and growth when there isn’t any yet
- Spend too much time ‘training’ – education is good, but eventually you need to act
- Reflective planning on what went right and what went wrong
- Daydreaming and hoping on the best outcomes of your projections and business plan
Instead of these, work on 1) revenue and 2) doing great work.
This part is a mentality change, not a physical type of change. The next part is both.
Smaller wins lead to consistency, and that leads to major gains
Easy method of building momentum for us here…
- What’s the “big goal”?
- What is a branch of that big goal that is a smaller part?
- What is the least/smallest/teeny-tiniest action I can do to complete that part?
In the context of this conversation, we have two things that can be done. And, just in case you are wondering, this was how I walked Larry from his vision (he was focused on growth in year 3 and his other concern was shutting down the business).
- Building awareness that leads to a new customer
- Doing work from that customer
Building awareness is full of small wins just waiting to be asked. What are some actions that yield bonuses:
- Asking our circle for work
- Walking neighborhoods we are in to ask about work
- Shaking hands in neighborhoods we are in
- Using door hangers
- Posting well-constructed social media content
- Sending a single email blast to ANY existing customers about a new offer
- Attending small business events
- Posting in the local Facebook Groups about your business
- Sending a text with a link asking a current customer to leave a review
These are all small, low-overhead actions that can yield more and more results when you compound them. Compounding takes consistency and time – keep doing small things, over and over, and over time, they snowball into larger results from the same amount of action.
Using tactics to create momentum that is sustained (until you don’t need it)
Working for customers has the same small wins compounding into larger outcomes happening.
How so?
In Larry’s case, we added two small items for each customer that created a ton of momentum over time.
First, during the visit, especially a ‘first visit’, Larry would walk the customer through the work in a five-minute conversation. He would offer tips and suggestions (his experience as an expert), not for upsells but just general ‘you should know this’. He would also detail exactly the work he was going to do.
The second item would be when he was about to leave. Larry would thank the customer for the opportunity to work on their property and ask for a review. Plus, leave a business card and tell the customer that anyone that called would give them a 10% off of their next service.
What happened?
Within a month, one customer had given Larry 4 new jobs from 4 new customers! Larry was so happy that he told the customer that he would take care of his house for the rest of the month, no discounts, just free. Which, in turn, snowballed even further when Larry also received an offer to handle an associate of the customer’s business properties as well – or 50+ new jobs.
Once your business gets to a point that you are working too much, with enough revenue that profit is solid and work is good, repeat those same actions to grow.
However, something changes. You can now say ‘no’ by charging more. And that is kind of the goal, right? Grow, charge more, grow, charge more, grow… wash, rinse, repeat.
You also get to do what I think Larry will be doing in 2026 – focusing more on growing his business, and not just working in it. He can focus on offers, lead generation, branding, building brand awareness and, the biggest thing, hiring more staff. This all, opposed to cutting grass, weeding and tree removal.
Final Thing For You: Use Systems & Processes To Make Your Wins Better!
As you can probably tell, I’m a big fan of using processes and systems in a business. The more detailed the processes are, the more effective the system is being built, the better the results. Those results are bigger, better, faster and, in general, are longer-lasting.
But, what are the systems that you need in your business? What processes can you create and utilize to make your business operate at 100% effectiveness? What should you be aware of and working on today?
Let’s look at it right now!
The very first process your NEED today (like right F$*%ING NOW!!!)
The very first thing you should be using now is a new customer process. New customers are a bit more expensive to acquire than existing customers, but the revenue is a new source from a new customer – meaning using the LTV (life-time value) to increase revenue.
This process is called a few different things, but the actions and tool it uses are all the same:
- Outreach
- Sales process
- Fulfillment
- Follow-up
Building this process is custom for your industry and region, and where your business’s lifecycle is: new, running, growth-centric, legacy, etc.
A process is a repeatable sequence of actions. In business these processes can be large ones, or micro-processes. For reaching and working for new customers, this is a bigger process. But, ‘bigger’ doesn’t always have to mean ‘more complex’. We are going to use those five steps above to build your process.
Start by writing out what outreach is likely to work. Think about similar businesses to your age, value and industry: How do they reach customers? How do they fulfill their work? What is broken? What can be better?
In outreach, let’s focus on ‘small’. So, what small action is going to give the most impact in reaching new customers? Is it flyers? Is it door hangers? Is it with postcards? Is it in the Weekly Bargain Bulletin? Is it via a trade show? Is it with Facebook Ads? Is it with a presentation at a farm show? Is it literally by walking around a new neighborhood and introducing yourself?
Focus on one thing that has worked for someone similar to you, and then do it repeatedly.
Next, for your sales process, we should outline how we go from first contact up to the point we collect money. Do we use free offers like consultations, estimates, walk-throughs or examinations? Do we accept payment before or after services? What about partial payments? And how do those payments get made – credit card, cash, check, etc?
Now we want to outline and make a step-by-step plan on how fulfillment works. You need to answer some questions that are usually assumed, but we want it outlined and on paper. Who does what work? How does scheduling work? What is the process from first contact to the work getting done to when the work is complete?
Finally, we need to outline what happens next. If your customers are happy with your service, they are likely to:
- Tell people about it
- Give great reviews
- Hire you again
Get in the habit of asking for these things, but in a way that benefits them more and more.
Digital marketing agency support – what I would do to help
Hiring a digital marketing agency near you can make sense in a lot of situations. You can get professional creatives, digital assets being built and more.
At Blews Media, we don’t just like to give you a list of what we can do, but instead, we like to work as a partner with you.
For instance, let’s assume you are just starting and you just got your LLC from Pennsylvania accepted and you are ready to go. What do we do to help?
We start with a business website. And, I’m not talking about a mega-site with all of the bells and whistles of the “big boys”. I’m simply talking about a point of contact that is branded. We can use some local SEO techniques on the website to trigger Google into saying ‘yes, this brand is in this area, doing this type of work, in this industry, and here is how to contact them!’
Then we add in external local SEO elements like an optimized Google Business Profile, local citations and an offline review campaign for incoming customers. These are all relatively free of hidden costs – when you hire a marketing agency for these, you are hiring for the footwork and results.
Next, we look to other areas where we don’t have to charge you for services. We guide you through the process of creating and editing video and images for social media. We guide you through building offline marketing and advertising materials.
A good marketing agency will also spend a nice chunk of time working with you to build offers that are inline with your company goals. Without a good offer, customers will not respond. From there, we can build quality content and copy that helps promote those services.
Finally, a real marketing agency is one that will be there for you. So, for many people I work with, we are active on projects every few months or each year. I love working with a business as it grows. Support for your marketing and advertising needs is important, but also seeing the whole business’s needs and helping to match solutions with the problems they experience is exciting.
Let’s talk about New Customers; Lead Generation begins with Awareness
I’ve stated this before, and I will again – you do not have to have a mega-site, with every feature and system, when you start out.
But, you do need the ability to expand your website to allow that to happen!
The main point where a website helps to bring in new customers, as well as existing ones for new revenue, is lead generation. Lead generation is the process of using external means to bring in customers’ information with the end goal of turning that information into revenue.
A lead is a person that is aware and interested in your business. Our goal is to turn that interest into a buyer.
Lead generation, using this example, is the process of turning awareness, into interest, into action, into money.
But, where are those customers? And how do we talk to them? And, even better, how can we do these things affordably and in an automated form?
We find new customers via one of two things:
- Knowing (they know you)
- Spotlighting (you tell them)
Knowing means through some form, the customer already knows your name before calling. This occurs with word of mouth, advertising, etc.
Spotlighting means that we use something more ‘in your face’ and direct. Door to door knocking, cold calling, cold email are all types of spotlighting.
Either way, the person needs to know you in some way.
And, keep in mind, customers are EVERYWHERE. For landscapers, a millionaire and a 9-to-5 minimum wage worker needs to cut their grass. For roofers, a mansion and a housing complex needs to have wind-damage repaired with new shingles. For accountants, business owners as well as single-moms need to file taxes.
Once awareness is made, the customer needs somewhere to go or something to do. The primary action we always look for is calling – it’s immediate and we can collect information when we are top of mind. But, there are MANY other ways to get information:
- Lead magnet / freebie offer
- Scheduling an estimate
- Calling
- Emailing
- Sending a PM
- Visiting the workplace (very rare in service-based industries)
- Signup for something, in-platform (think Facebook Forms)
After you start to build your business more, lead generation is no longer so basic. We want to start incorporating our sales process into our marketing and advertising as soon as possible.
The sequence usually goes like this:
- Customer sees an ad on Meta or Google AdWords
- Customer visits the website where the offer is housed by clicking the ad
- The main CTA (call to action) is to sign up for something free
- The secondary CTA on the website is calling
And remember, a lead generation funnel can have different goals. One lead generation goal might focus on getting calls. One might focus on collecting email addresses and names. Another might focus on automatically scheduling meetings.
Ready to turn old money into NEW?
Have you heard of email marketing? Most people call it spam marketing. But, let’s get real – it can and DOES work!
Likely, if you are in the majority, you’ve probably tried it with less than stellar results.
However, this is an often unused, simple and automated method of turning existing customers into new revenue. We use our existing, positive relationship for future purchases.
Let’s look at some facts…
- Your success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60% to 70%
- It is relatively 5x to 25x more expensive acquiring a new customer
- Existing customers are 50% more likely to purchase new services
Existing customers are far more valuable than new customers – easier to close, more receptive to new offers and buy more from you.
So, how do we talk to existing customers?
One simple solution is to setup email marketing campaigns to keep existing customers informed – new offers, deals, reminding them of our work, etc.
Plus, it’s hands-off. You can create a whole set of monthly email campaigns that are pre-loaded and scheduled. You can add people to those lists, and just automatically send out emails to your customers. Simple.
The platforms that make sense are MailChimp and Constant Contact. Both offer free packages, with affordable and feature-rich accounts. Some package upgrades also offer SMS marketing (messages via text) to take things a step further.
What’s Next?
So, you likely could tell, Larry is not my friend’s name. But, he is real and his story is real. His business is real – along with his worries, his frustrations and his solutions to those problems.
Starting a business for people like my friend, and even myself, is exciting, hopeful, enlightening and invigorating. But, it can also be stressful, nerve-wracking and an anxiety-inducing exercise in action, love and perseverance that makes you want to pull the hair out of your head!!!!!
Okay, I’m calm again…
With some of the examples I’ve provided, I hope that you can see places in your business and business actions that you can change for the better. Maybe you have found some nuggets of information in here, and are taking actions right this second to help your business.
And I hope that you remember that you aren’t alone.
As a business owner, we don’t create a business to tell other people to “F$*@ OFF” and isolate ourselves – we do it because we want to own our time and give our experience. We build businesses to make money for our families, enrich our community with quality work, and, most of all, experience the freedom of ownership at a major level.
If you find things are too overwhelming (and I get that), you can call me at (724)510-7201 and start a conversation about your brand, your goals and how to achieve them.