Case Study – From Mowing Lawns To 7 Figures In Less Than 2 Years

Josh Nelson
Hey, this is Josh Nelson with the Seven Figure Agency. And on today's episode of the Seven Figure Agency podcast, I'm super excited to be interviewing Brian Stearman, from Lawn Care marketing mechanic. He's had a meteoric rise, I think in his digital marketing agency. And so I'm super excited just to kind of interview him on what he's done, how he's done it, and hopefully inspire you to do the same within your digital marketing agency to really get the success that you're after, and move things forward. So, Brian, welcome to the show. So glad to have you.

Brian Stearman
Thanks for having me.

Josh Nelson
So let's start just tell us a little bit about your about your digital marketing agency, like number of clients, years in business, all that kind of fun stuff.

Brian Stearman
So we started in March of 2017. After taking your online class, currently we have about 60 clients. So, about a year and a half, that's all that.

Josh Nelson
So 60 clients approximately how much recurring revenue?

Brian Stearman
We're at about a little shorter 700,000 a year right now in recurring revenue.

Josh Nelson
That's phenomenal. Congratulations. So just give us like a little bit of your background because you know, you're not the typical digital marketing guy.

right kind of tell us the

Brian Stearman
So I actually started out as a police officer and out of kind of necessity, I started a lawn care marketing or I'm sorry, a lawn care business. Ran that for a while, got really interested in marketing that business, doing my own website, doing pay per click that kind of stuff. Really, just started searching out ways to do that for other lawn care companies as opposed to going out there and actually mowing yards. So that's kind of what led me to, you know, I kind of found you through other classes and things like that, and took that class actually ended up coming here to the offices in Miami. And that was really the change.

I mean, so I took the course and did did some of the some of the work. I won't say that I did at all. But uh, but certainly did some of it, started doing some positioning work got a client that I could use, as a case study those types of things. And then once I came here to the office kind of saw the the scale of this, how you guys were doing things, that was really the change. And so that was that when I left here, I was supercharged and just went after it.

Josh Nelson
That's awesome. So you got to get down to Miami for one of our one of our power days. Thanks for saying that. I'm glad that it had such a big impact on the acceleration of your growth. So like, let's just talk about the the progression of the agency so about a year and a half already 60 plus clients like tell us about the progression over that period, even though this is a rapid progression, and not everybody gets to that level that quick.

Brian Stearman
So I was you know in the first few months, it was, you know, one customer, two customers, that kind of stuff. It was slow. You know, but it was, it was just me doing the work, doing the sales, doing the marketing, doing everything. And really what I mean, basically creating, getting those few customers, getting them results, getting the work done. And then them having those examples to share with future you know, with other calls, other marketing leads that type of stuff, being able to show them those websites, show them results, show them what we've done for other customers, how much revenue we've been able to bring to those businesses. That was really what moved us forward. And then I mean, we had in the winter months, which is our busy time, you know, 10-12 clients in one month, adding on so that's, you know, that was that was kinda how we grew.

I mean, it was it really boiled down to getting results for a few clients first, and then having those results to show and that made the sale so much easier.

Josh Nelson
Absolutely. Yeah. So so that was kind of the the change point, talks about how you chose the niche, I guess for you, it's kind of kind of easy.

Brian Stearman
You know, what was funny was I so I took the course and I was trying to come up with something that I wanted to do. For nation. I was like, you know, I came here sat down with you and Dean and everyone else that was here. And I remember Dean saying, and, you know, I don't know if I'd choose the lawn care market, you know, lawn care marketing, and you know, that's a seasonal service, that type of stuff. And you know, he's right, it is seasonal and that type of thing.

I think really what it is, is qualifying the customers to make sure that you're getting the right type of customer that can afford to pay you to provide service year round. So you're not going after the one man show that's out there mowing grass and answering calls on you know, nights and weekends. And that kind of stuff, trying to collect checks underneath the doormats, you know, you're looking for professional companies that really have, you know, a business established. And so I mean, reality was is I was looking for customers in that $250,000 to $500,000 a year range, okay, as far as revenue goes.

Josh Nelson
Alright. And that's, that's a critical insight and something you guys should all pay attention to, regardless of your niche, right? You can look at plumbing, you could look at lawn care, you can look at almost any niche and be like, that's a terrible niche. These guys don't have money, they're going to pay you for these types of services. And and depending on who you're working with, you're probably right. You know, but if, if you choose the right clients and clients selection really is the critical factor between success and failure in any niche. You know, he's looking 250 to you said 250,000 to 500,000.

Brian Stearman
And, I mean, you know, it's I it's great that if you can find someone better than that in that market, in my industry, that 500,000 mark is typically you know, a decent sized business. We have clients that are over a million, but they're they're few and far between in that industry.

Josh Nelson
Absolutely. So it's a great insight, just a truck one man operation, you're going to beat yourself into the ground and might want to just throw in the towel. But if you get quality operations that are been in business that understand how things work, like they spend money in advertising, they know how to track the return, they know how to close the business, you know, those those kinds of companies who exist in just about every niche, right? And so you want to specialize in those types of companies. So thank you for that. That was that was a great insight. So just kind of talk a little bit like what is it that you do for your clients? What types of services do you provide?

Brian Stearman
So we are full service, so we build a website that really the first thing we do is build a website. Then we do some, you know, citation management, SEO type services, then we do pay per click management, and then we also kind of help them manage their Facebook ad campaigns. In my industry, my guys are not technical at all. So they require a lot of direction and a lot of times it's it's just teaching them how to present their business, you know, getting in front of a camera, taking the camera with you making sure that it's held the right way that you're using the right type of settings on your camera. And just, you know, how to promote their business. So we kind of help them with that. We're leaning towards doing more of what you're doing with with camera days and that kind of stuff. So just really trying to start position ourselves for that. But that's really the bulk of our business. This next year, we'll be doing some one off websites as a add on type service for some of those smaller guys that we can hopefully develop into long term clients from an SEO standpoint in the future.

Josh Nelson
All right, so they're so they're basically buying website SEO and a little bit of paid search management. Right. Okay. Excellent. And it's always other than what you're doing there. It's usually they're paying you a monthly recurring fee.

Brian Stearman
Yeah. So up to actually up till next month. When we go to a conference. We've never offered one off websites. So we've turned them down. And you know, if it wasn't recurring revenue we weren't interested and, we've just kind of positioned ourselves as far as labor goes, we have some capacity to build more websites. And so we're going to take that opportunity and start building some.

Josh Nelson
Awesome. So I'm gonna encourage you guys, if you're not at least $50,000 a month in recurring revenue, don't sell one offs, you know, it's going to be a distraction. It's going to prevent you from really getting scale and growth. Brian has my blessing at $750,000 a year, he's got some excess capacity, it makes sense. You should be focused on all monthly recurring revenue.I think you probably agree.

Brian Stearman
I totally agree with it. I, I'm glad. I mean, we took on some clients in the very beginning that we shouldn't have, you know, that we're that one man type thing. And people that were interested in those lower dollar services that weren't recurring revenue, and they were they were a complete distraction. You would spend, honestly, you spend double the amount of time working with them than you would if you had just gotten recurring revenue client that you would normally try to sell. Yeah, because you're changing everything to try to facilitate what they want done.

Josh Nelson
Yeah, believe it or not, it takes almost it takes exactly as much energy to sell $1,000 a month retainer client, as it takes to sell a $1000 1 time website.

Brian Stearman
Exactly yep.

Josh Nelson
And the amount of work you do for that website.

Brian Stearman
You know, it's the same

Josh Nelson
Its a ton of work where you could get $1,000 per month into perpetuity, get, you know, selling them, not just the website, but selling them the SEO and the paid search management, and everything else.

Brian Stearman
Exactly.

Josh Nelson
Awesome. So let's talk about the package. We talked a little bit about this from a packaging perspective. It's it's all in, right, it's all in

Brian Stearman
so we, like I said, we're going to go to a conference, we're going to offer a few things that we've never done before. So one, so we're going to obviously offer our full service package, which is really where we're kind of trying to steer everyone. We're going to offer one off websites, and then we're going to offer one off Pay Per Click management. Honestly, the pay per click management thing, from a revenue standpoint isn't much different than the full package. You know, because it's, it's, I'm not willing to use someone else's website, I'm not using someone else's landing pages, we're going to have a lot of work to do with them. So they're still recurring revenue clients. It's just they're basically not getting the SEO.

Josh Nelson
Got it, makes makes sense. So um, now this is interesting. And everybody wants to know, everyone likes to hear about that I got 60 clients, and this is what I'm doing today. But the hardest part really is your first handful of clients, right, your first 3,4,5 clients. So let's just talk about how did you get those first five clients and that first like $5,000, in monthly recurring,

Brian Stearman
So I I actually went out to Facebook, and found groups that were in the industry that I chose. So basically, I just went for Facebook groups that had a bunch of ongoing guys in it. And I just started answering questions about SEO building websites, things like that. And when they expressed an interest in having a website built, I would message them on Facebook, that type of thing. And then really, I kind of connected with a CRM that a lot of lawn care companies use and by getting into that group, I was able to get really all my clients these days come from that at least they may not find me that way. But most of them are involved in that group in some way just because it's such a predominant CRM in that industry.

Josh Nelson
Awesome. So you know really cool insight here probably not what you were expecting to hear got into a Facebook group of people within his niche started adding value and answering questions and and just PM'd people basically, after they after they got value from you. Right?

Brian Stearman
Not spammy. So not just not a

Josh Nelson
Hey, need help with your website??? Hey, I made a sample website for you go check this out.

Brian Stearman
Exactly. Yeah. So it was answer questions give advice, made sure that my you know that my name and my, what I did for a living on Facebook matched …

Josh Nelson
was congruent..

Brian Stearman
Right you know, so it wasn't Oh, um, you know, I own a lawn care company because at the time I did, and you know, so it was you know, I'm a lawn care marketing mechanic and this is what I do and that type of stuff. So making sure that that was all in place for everyone out there and did it. So when someone looked at me after commenting, they knew what I did and knew how to contact me.

Josh Nelson
Yeah, so your persona on Facebook, on LinkedIn mattered, right? So you know if you're going to go after your niche lawn care in his case, he's got lawn care marketing mechanic. He's branded that way on Facebook, on LinkedIn probably. So when he answers these questions, they're like Oh, man, that was useful. They fall back to the profile. He's got a banner, that's probably what did your banner talking about that at the beginning?

Brian Stearman
Yupp. Absolutely.

Josh Nelson
And it was just it was all very congruent, right?

Brian Stearman
Yeah. So it was your it was actually You're (I dont event know you still use it) the little checklist.

Josh Nelson
Uh huh.

Brian Stearman
Yep. So it was it was a CTA for that.

Josh Nelson
Beautiful.

Brian Stearman
They'd click on that and we'd send them that and get their email. so.

Josh Nelson
Fantastic. So that I mean, that's a great strategy. Maybe some of you guys aren't even thinking about, you know, think about your niche. Go find the groups that those people in that niche are hanging out in. And you know, start adding value. Don't expect to get clients right out of the gates. How long did you have to do this before?

Brian Stearman
It took a little while, I mean, so I got really lucky. I knew a guy that I had talked to in the past, basically my case study with someone that I had a relationship with in the past that I had helped from a business standpoint, from the lawn mowing company, okay. And so I was able to just kind of reach out to him and it was more of a Hey, look, I I need someone other than my website to use and if you'll be my cheerleader, I'm going to give you a heck of a deal nice and you know which which is awesome because it's it's so it's been a couple years now since I've worked with started working with him and he was from three little over $300,000 a year, he's at 1.2 million last year.

Josh Nelson
Wow.

Brian Stearman
So huge.

Josh Nelson
Powerful.

Brian Stearman
Yeah. I mean, so I love using him as a case study because it's I mean, you know, you talking about $700,000 $800,000 a year in revenue that we were able to give to him, and he did absolutely no other marketing than what we did for them. So he's a great case study for us, you know, and that helped us a lot.

Josh Nelson
Yeah. So I mean, that's another critical insight when it comes to this. You know choose the niche, go out, position yourself, add value, and then one of the number one levers that's going to move you from your first client to your 12th, 15th,16th client is to crush it. For at least one of the first handful of clients.

Brian Stearman
Especially who you're giving out.

Josh Nelson
Like crush it! Make sure that that client gets ranked on page one gets great results. That way, they'll be your mouthpiece right there your proof, you can say that you're great and you know how to get clients ranked and you can get them results. But when you can actually point to look, this is the client one of the clients I did this for, this is the result, go ahead and talk to them. Your sales resistance drops to the floor, right? And that's when you get accelerated growth. So you have some great nuggets you're sharing here, Thank you very much. So, you know, let's talk a little bit about how you generate clients now like what's, what's the flow like? Where does the lion's share of the business come from?

Brian Stearman
So most of it is referrals.

Josh Nelson
Okay.

Brian Stearman
Yeah. So that and that same group, so that CRM that I work with that is, you know, those are really my ideal clients, because people that are paying for a CRM that are paying to, to be involved in those types of things, have the money to afford marketing, so they're not, you know, no one that has a CRM is out there mowing grass day in and day out by themselves and a helper. You know, they have they have a team, they have an office staff. So that's kind of what's works best for me. I honestly, I mean, we just we keep getting so many more clients. Our biggest issue is as a business is really just keeping up with process and getting the work done. So you know, we haven't We haven't focused a lot on sales I've been you know, as you know, I've, I've been positioning myself from a staffing standpoint, to be in a better position for next year. So I can really focus on sales and marketing and really try to grow this thing, you know, next year sometime will reach a million dollars. And you know, then just go from there.

Josh Nelson
That's awesome. So, critical insights, something that you guys can tap into is his whole concept of the CRM in the industry, you know, implementing an HPC. There are two category killers. They call it like the ones that almost everybody uses. Its service Titan and house call Pro. In his industry, you don't have to say but there's, there's a software that everybody uses. And that's the main platform they use for marketing automation for dispatching their guys, right knowing their customers. They literally run their businesses out of the systems. And I can guarantee you, there's one in your niche, or probably a handful in your niche. And these guys are using the systems that are paying premium dollar for access to these types of tools. tend to be progressive, you know, business owners. And if you can crack into that industry or into that CRM group, and in a be at their events, get into their closed groups, the fate little of Facebook groups, it can become an affinity group that that generates business for you on a very ongoing basis.

Brian Stearman
Yep. Right. Absolutely. And there's, I mean, there's several in our industry, I just chose one because it's top of the line.

Josh Nelson
It's the premier.

Brian Stearman
Yeah, it's the high end one.

Josh Nelson
And so, like you speak at their events, and you exhibit or?

Brian Stearman
Mostly just exhibit.

Josh Nelson
Okay.

Brian Stearman
So I do have some speaking engagements set up for next year. This year, we have, um, do some roundtables and dinners and things like that. But no, not on stage for the big one. I just didn't get there in time. But they they were able to get me a booth at the back of the room I'm the only marketing company there. So it'll be good.

Josh Nelson
Yeah,

Brian Stearman
There's about 500 attendees.

Josh Nelson
We're not talking about him having one JV that's plugging him into hundreds of customers. We're not talking about a $10,000 a month advertising budget. We're talking about, you know, into a very good niche for he's well positioned into the Facebook group adding value, getting kind of into that affinity group, not speaking, but just hanging out having the having the booth at the back. Right. And then getting on on average, would you say like, five to eight new clients per month?

Brian Stearman
Yes, I mean, our peak months 10, 12. Slower months 4,6 somewhere in there. And, yeah, it's, I mean, it's been a crazy ride, actually. But, um, but yeah, I mean, it's been really good to go to those events, and just really meet a, I mean, like, when I go here in a few weeks to, to the conference, there'll be 35 of my clients will be there.

Josh Nelson
Wow.

Brian Stearman
So, you know, you take them out to dinner and that kind of stuff and you know, have that FaceTime, you know, without having to go to 35 different cities.

Josh Nelson
And the word spreads.

Brian Stearman
Oh, yeah. You got 35 cheerleaders there at the conference for you, you know, they're all you know, provided you're taking care of your customers there, they're going to start talking about what you're doing for them, especially with you being there.

Josh Nelson
No doubt, powerful, powerful stuff. So, so let's talk a little bit about fulfillment, right? So you got you got all these clients. Now you've had this rapid growth, you said somewhere, like 8, 10, 12 clients in a single month, not a massive team. How do you get how do you get all this work done for the clients and do it so well, that everybody's happy and they're getting good results?

Brian Stearman
Right. So a lot of work. Vital time and a lot of work. You know, so I've tried people here in the United States, people where I live, people overseas. And, and honestly, today, my team is a mixture of all of that. So I have hired people in in the town that I live in, which is very small. And then I have other people that live throughout the United States that kind of work. They do work full time. And then I also have some people that are overseas, that do develop me a website development, that kind of stuff, some coding stuff, that type of thing.

So that, you know, the whole team. That's part of, you know, really, as far as where I'm at, in my business, growing my business that is our biggest struggle at the moment, is, you know, how do we systematized everything, and that's kind of what we're doing. You know, we, I talked to you about teamwork and that kind of stuff. So we're in the process of kind of, you know, we had all these spreadsheets and documents and different you know, emails and just 15 different ways of making sure everything got done. And so we're putting it all together and teamwork and if my recommendation would be is start out that way. So if you can document your process that was part of the training that I didn't follow. Right? Yeah, I should have kind of the first customer I should have kind of documented the process and had it all set up in teamwork. I mean, I know it's an expense, but I'm I sure regret it. But um, but yeah, I mean having that process I think will make it a lot easier to keep on track for each customer because the you know, obviously today with the number of customers we have there are things that fall between the cracks. I mean, we miss things. So you know, it's getting organized and making sure you have your stuff together is is important.

Josh Nelson
Yeah, no doubt so it's it's not easy for anybody. I think one of the key things he did you know, that I think is actually smart. He's saying now I wish you hadn't, you know, focus on on getting the clients right if you don't have clients, you can have the best systems in the world. You can have the best team in the world, but you don't have any revenue and there's no way to keep keep things going. So go out, get the clients and then build the systems in the process. You're not going to get all of that stuff fleshed out.

Brian Stearman
Yeah, and really the first few I mean it It took a few to actually even get a process figured out what you're really going to do. Yeah, yeah. What would in theory on paper when you're you haven't done it yet. isn't what actually happens. real changes, right?

Josh Nelson
No, no doubt about that. So, so useful, really powerful stuff. You know, what, just just, you know, everybody's influenced by something, right. So what what what has influenced you in terms of books, trainings organizations to help kind of get you the success that you've had.

Brian Stearman
So, I mean, I, so I was kind of chasing that wanting to do something other than having employees and work for a living time, you know, actual least physical labor. And so I started looking at different things. And really, I didn't know what that was, at first. It was at first I thought I was going to be a Facebook trainer or something like that. And I was going to be like some Facebook guru. And so I ended up taking a bunch of classes on Facebook from like, the different, all kinds of different celebrities, I guess, if you will, that, you know, Facebook training people.

And I found the Fletcher method, I believe, was it was a program that I was In, that's where I saw you. Okay, so that's that's kind of the that's where I found you and then and realize so in I didn't realize you had you may not have had it at the time the seven figure agency set up but I saw the Plumbing and HVAC SEO and I was like man that is something that's something that I'm interested in and that was kind of started looking at you and what you were doing started looking at some other companies that did the same type of thing in different niches and that kind of stuff. And really decided hey, that's, that's something I I can get excited about and get interested in. And I would enjoy that working with a bunch of different companies and helping them grow. That was really the draw was I mean, I mean, it's fun. It's you know, I enjoyed the business part of it but the most rewarding thing is when your customers call you and tell you, Hey, I got you know, I'm up $200,000 this year, you know, those, those are the calls you will love and that's really what keeps me energized about it is so much So much impact you can have, by running your business, you know, it takes care of you and your family and your employee's families, but it also is helping other people and their families and all their employees as well.

Josh Nelson
What would you say to that digital marketing agency owner that's, you know, just getting started or just kind of at that, you know, breakeven point, and what would you say in order to kind of encourage them or help them along? What nuggets of wisdom would you share?

Brian Stearman
I mean, stay focused. I mean, that's, you know, it's easy to get distracted by all the different trainings available out there, all the different influencers out there. I mean, I kind of after the Fletcher thing, and I found your the seven figure agency, which I didn't make it in the first batch, I think it was the second because I didn't know about it, but but I really just, I went through Facebook, and I removed all these pages that I had, you know, all these things that I was following all these people that I was following, and really just went on information diet, you know, and said, Okay, I'm going to do this one thing. just you know, he's been he's been successful. This is kind of what I want to do. I'm just going to follow this and see where it takes me as opposed to. I mean, I just had too many people, you know, it's trying to listen to 10 different people on what to do. And I think that's what most people kind of get wrapped into, is they just get, there's too many influences and you're following 10 different methods of trying to get the stuff done. And if you just follow one, someone that's had success, if you just emulate what they do, you should be able to generate similar results.

Josh Nelson
Beautiful, couldn't couldn't have said it better by myself that that was awesome. This was this was a great a great interview, Brian, thank you so much for for sharing.

Brian Stearman
You bet!

Josh Nelson
I think the the nuggets had been profound. I think, you know, congratulations on your growth and your success.

Brian Stearman
Thank you!

Josh Nelson
Super excited. The funny part is, you're just getting started. If you think about it, you're just shy of a million dollars, and you haven't even really opened up all of the different marketing avenues are available or about your team. So I can only imagine where you'll be three to five years from now.

Brian Stearman
Yeah, scary to think about.

Josh Nelson
So hopefully you guys got great value from this this episode. I loved it. I thought it was awesome. If you want to learn more about how to build your digital marketing agency, you know, learn from guys like Brian and myself, go to seven figure agency com, they would get a training series, a little mini series that walks you through how we were able to build our digital marketing agency focusing on the plumbing and HVAC space two to seven figures made the Inc 5000 list the last three years in a row. And you know, the model that that Brian and Alan some of the other guys are following and working. You can find it all there at seven figure agency com. So thanks for joining us, and we'll catch you guys again soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai