Currently over $2 million in annual revenue and how I got here.

@localcasestudy thanks for doing this! I am really looking forward to reading your reddit posts in the near future.

I do have a question about targeting locally. I noticed on one of your sites you target the D.C. area. Do you have experience or advice for those in a small area? I live in a city of about 200k with a very "Anytown USA" feel. You know, "That internet thing is for them kiddos. I'll ask my neighbor for a suggestion." That's basically the overall feel of where I live.

If I go to Google keyword planner and look up lawn care Anytown it shows an average of 50 monthly searches. Basically....do you think trying to start some local service websites in my area would be a waste of time?
 
Been a reader of your case studies on the subreddit for years. Really good stuff man, people will definitely be able gain strong insight after reading your posts.
 
@ttados good question man. I can't really say, but I do now $200K is a good number. I have a guy in North Washington State, in a city with a population of less than 60K and he's killing it because what little competition he has there is so bad or not even online to begin with. So can't call it man. But if I were me, I would take a shot. But you probably already knew that : -)
 
I've had an urge to start a biz in which I can market to offline companies for a while. I've considered creating a web design company catered to landscapers. A lot of landscaping companies down here in south florida only have their business name and phone number on their trailers. I came up with a nice pitch and 3 example templates but stopped there. Now I'm looking into creating some sort of lead generation business in which I can sell potential leads to companies, mostly local. I've coded up a nice templates/landing pages that linked back to google spread sheet so my expenses are minimal. Do you have any opinion or experience with lead gens businesses?

Thanks
 
Hey @localcasestudy,

Thanks for the response. Another question. I'm new to Adwords. Remember reading (I think) in the reddit that you started with a specific book to learn the basics. Can't find it for the life of me. Any suggestions? Thanks man!
 
@dwa yup. Haha and you just validated my original post in this thread: Webdesign -> affiliate marketing (lead gen).

I've done both of those. But I think the sustainable business (and the real revenue) is made being your own brand instead of working for another brand. And if you're going to do lead gen, you could as well do leadgen for yourself and make the bulk of the money. But yes I've done a lot of lead gen at the local level. I would do pay per call for an electrician company. But yeah the real money is lead gen for yourself.
 
localcasestudy said:
@dwa yup. Haha and you just validated my original post in this thread: Webdesign -> affiliate marketing (lead gen).

I've done both of those. But I think the sustainable business (and the real revenue) is made being your own brand instead of working for another brand. And if you're going to do lead gen, you could as well do leadgen for yourself and make the bulk of the money. But yes I've done a lot of lead gen at the local level. I would do pay per call for an electrician company. But yeah the real money is lead gen for yourself.
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Small world right? Lol

I could see why this makes more money instead of selling leads for 11-20$ each. But of course more work.

When you mean build your own brand are you talking in terms of actually becoming the service provider? Instead of selling the lead you just hire a team to do it under your name and you provide the backend?

Were you ever based in florida by any chance?
 
@dwa Yup exactly. Actually becoming the service provider and hiring a team to do it and we provide the backend. That's exactly what I do. So instead of $11-$20 I'm looking at $150 to $300. I'm still based in Florida. Tampa.
 
localcasestudy said:
@dwa Yup exactly. Actually becoming the service provider and hiring a team to do it and we provide the backend. That's exactly what I do. So instead of $11-$20 I'm looking at $150 to $300. I'm still based in Florida. Tampa.
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Awesome. Thanks for the calcification. Reason I ask is because I live in Boca and pass a maid/cleaning service building and could of swore you owned it or someone else on /r/entreprenuerridealong maybe.
 
Hi local! hoping I am not too late you ask you a quick question!

When you create a new local business such as your lawn care, do you entirely rely on search engines for traffic or is a lot of your marketing efforts focused on other areas as well?

Thanks mate, wishing you a successful 2015 :smile:
 
Callum Short said:
Hi local! hoping I am not too late you ask you a quick question!

When you create a new local business such as your lawn care, do you entirely rely on search engines for traffic or is a lot of your marketing efforts focused on other areas as well?

Thanks mate, wishing you a successful 2015 :smile:
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Hi @Callum Short yeah what @vinnypolston said. I start with PPC. Search engines take too long. It will be months before you get your first job from search engine. But with PPC you can get jobs literally the 1st day of launching. And that's what you want. Get jobs, turn them into recurring jobs if possible, and get traction. By the time search engines kick in you would have already done in the tens of thousands of revenue. Then you can slow PPC down a bit as you get to the "too many jobs and not enough teams" point.
 
localcasestudy said:
Hi @Callum Short yeah what @vinnypolston said. I start with PPC. Search engines take too long. It will be months before you get your first job from search engine. But with PPC you can get jobs literally the 1st day of launching. And that's what you want. Get jobs, turn them into recurring jobs if possible, and get traction. By the time search engines kick in you would have already done in the tens of thousands of revenue. Then you can slow PPC down a bit as you get to the "too many jobs and not enough teams" point.
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Thanks for the response mate. Another quick question if you don't mind:

How do you compete with other local businesses in terms of pricing? Considering the fact that you effectively broker work out to local independent lawn carers/cleaners, surely your pricing would be more as you have to not only pay the labour costs but consider your margin? How do you keep prices low while still being able to outsource work? Thanks.
 
Callum Short said:
Thanks for the response mate. Another quick question if you don't mind:

How do you compete with other local businesses in terms of pricing? Considering the fact that you effectively broker work out to local independent lawn carers/cleaners, surely your pricing would be more as you have to not only pay the labour costs but consider your margin? How do you keep prices low while still being able to outsource work? Thanks.
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Read through the ridealong, I addressed this here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneu..._9_pricing_mindset_layer_on_value_and_charge/

I have no motivation to keep prices low to begin with. I price at the highest number I think I can get people to pay.
 
Are you still pursuing the lawn care project or has it fizzled out? I ask because I see it is from 2 years ago. Also, I noticed on the Day 9 entry someone was saying that you should be paying "employees" vs. contracting out the work technically. Have you had any developments with that?

I'm planning to do similar work in another area/niche so was just wondering if you had any information on the employee vs contracted worker side of things.

Thanks for the awesome thread!
 
kyled23 said:
Are you still pursuing the lawn care project or has it fizzled out? I ask because I see it is from 2 years ago. Also, I noticed on the Day 9 entry someone was saying that you should be paying "employees" vs. contracting out the work technically. Have you had any developments with that?

I'm planning to do similar work in another area/niche so was just wondering if you had any information on the employee vs contracted worker side of things.

Thanks for the awesome thread!
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@kyled23 sure thing man, thanks for checking it out. Yeah, lawncare did $25K in the last 4 months, it's still going strong (I only launched it in july). It's winter now but we still scraped together $2k in bookings in December somehow lol. Next year will be the first year we have a full season. Can't wait.

Unfortunately employees vs contactors is something i don't address anymore. People have to do the research and go from there. A lot of companies do employees. And a lot of companies do contractors: homejoy, exec, handy, and the rest of big VC funded companies all do contractors for example. But your best bet is to contact a lawyer that understands this stuff and find out what works best for you.
 
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localcasestudy said:
@kyled23 sure thing man, thanks for checking it out. Yeah, lawncare did $25K in the last 4 months, it's still going strong (I only launched it in july). It's winter now but we still scraped together $2k in bookings in December somehow lol. Next year will be the first year we have a full season. Can't wait.

Unfortunately employees vs contactors is something i don't address anymore. People have to do the research and go from there. A lot of companies do employees. And a lot of companies do contractors: homejoy, exec, handy, and the rest of big VC funded companies all do contractors for example. But your best bet is to contact a lawyer that understands this stuff and find out what works best for you.
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Fair enough man, I really appreciate the reply and the amazing resources you've provided everyone with this thread and the Reddit posts.

Hope you a lot of continued success, I'll be sure to share my success story with you when I utilize all the information here, hopefully within a few months!
 
@kyled23 Awesome dude, if I can help in any way feel free to hit me up on here or shoot me a pm. Best of luck, it's a fun journey!! : -)
 
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