‘Mow, blow, go’ - the maths doesn’t add up

[00:00:00]Hi. So, on a previous video, I spoke about how um last year I'd seen quite a lot of Molo kind of gardening companies start up in my area. Um approximately 30 odd I thought I'd seen. Um as of July in the next year, two are still in operation.

[00:00:22]So, you have to ask yourself, why is there such a high attrition rate? Why are they going out of business at such a high rate?

[00:00:28]And I think part of the problem is people don't understand the real mathematics behind mob blow and go. And I think the picture that's been put across online is actually incorrect and it's incomplete and we need to go through that today so you don't get stuck in the same traps. We're also going to talk about the physical element which types of gardening are easiest and um what we do and why.

[00:00:52]So let's build a worstcase model logo for your first year. Now we're going to build a worst case model because that's what you need to work on as a businessman. You can't assume that everything's going to be hunky dory. You have to assume that the very worst would happen. And what would you earn in that scenario?

[00:01:13]So let's assume that you get to charge £25 a lawn.

[00:01:17]And say we're a fit young lad. So you do 10 lawns a day. That's £250 a day. Right now, for most in your first year, what you're going to find is you need leeway in your schedule to be able to rearrange jobs.

[00:01:32]And you also need to be able to give your body a break. Mo is actually more physical than most people realize when they get into it. Believe me, taking a mower in and out and going to 10 gardens, going in and out 10 times a day, it is a physical job. So, you do need to give your body a break, too. So, let's assume you work four days a week.

[00:01:56]That's a grand a week. And then call it four grand a month. Okay? So, very rough maths. Let's call that four grand a month.

[00:02:06]Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? £4,000 a month. But now you need to account for something else. You can't work in winter because the grass isn't growing. So let's say again worst case you're not cutting grass from November to the start of March.

[00:02:22]Then we also need to factor in the the summers now which we're being told the new norm is to have a drought for the grass to stop growing in the summer. In fact in East Yorkshire in the last five summers, three of those um we've had such a drought that the grass has just stopped growing altogether. And in the two that we just escaped it and didn't have a hose pipe van, it really did slow down. So, let's discount July as well because we know that month is going to be too hot and too dry.

[00:02:50]Factor that all in then for mowing 10 lawns a day, four days a week, earning four grand a month, what you will earn per year is 28,000.

[00:03:03]So, initially sounds really good, like you're earning four grand a month.

[00:03:09]That's only the surface mathematics.

[00:03:11]Beneath that, what you're actually earning is 28,000.

[00:03:16]And now take off your expenses. The average expenses in the UK for a oneman band with a van and equipment will be about the 10,000 mark.

[00:03:28]So now you're down to 18,000 for a full year's work.

[00:03:32]Take off your 20% tax for a full year's work mowing 10 lawns per day, four days a week, you're down to £14,400, not even the minimum wage.

[00:03:49]This is the truth behind the numbers and this is what people miss out.

[00:03:55]It's not as affluent as it appears on the surface. Yes, it is scalable because you're charging per job, but no business can survive without having any income for five months a year.

[00:04:08]So, what do we see? We see all of the MoGo type businesses scrambling and try to have sort of winter survival plans. A lot of them try to do exterior cleaning in the winter, which I'm not sure I agree with because we're gardeners.

[00:04:22]We're not specialists in that.

[00:04:24]okay, we can do it, but we shouldn't be advertising it as a specialist service because we're not.

[00:04:30]And they try to get hedge cutting work and they try to get all the other things that um they need to get through winter and they're advertising, you know, from September to try and get this work. But here's the thing.

[00:04:45]Someone who's using a mixed model, who doesn't just cut grass, but who does garden maintenance as well, by about September already has all the winter work teed up.

[00:04:57]And the reason is that garden maintenance continues for a lot longer than grass cutting does.

[00:05:05]And you need to keep that in mind. You can't just cut grass. If you do that, you are not going to earn enough money to survive.

[00:05:14]You need to have a mixed model. You need to be thinking about going out in November and collecting leaves. You need to be thinking about doing garden tidy ups ready for Christmas in December. You need to be thinking about bare root planting in January and February. All these other different jobs that you can incorporate and that you can do to help you earn money throughout the whole year.

[00:05:34]The argument that's been put across that you can just cut grass and then take the winter off, it's not correct. It's not the truth.

[00:05:43]You won't earn enough money. A mixed model is the way forwards and a mixed model is a stronger business. Thanks guys.