The Blog of Keith Kalfas

Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog - please let me know if there's something special you want to see here!

First thing I need to talk about is that the GIE Expo is from October 17th-20th.

Equip Exposition is an annual event that helps landscapers, hardscapers, manufacturers, and dealers grow their businesses. Find the newest and best products and pit them against each other at 1,000 exhibits.

 You have only until Sept 7th to get my 50% discount! (Use Keith50 at checkout!)

 Click to get 50% off!

 August's videos - 

Lots of videos last month - from property walkthroughs to seeing me at my in-laws.  

Property Maintenance & Shrub Trimming (All Work No Talk)

This was a fun job!

Overgrown Property Cleanup | How I "WRITE UP" a $2,750 Quote

When I walk a customer's property, I'm attentive, confident, and a good listener. I practice something called "spin selling." It's about asking lots of questions to understand...

Hello! 

They’re saying the first two weeks of July were the Earth's hottest on human record!  I hope you’re well, and making killer money this season!

Videos

 I wanted to let you know about the latest videos I’ve made – starting with how my $700 Minimum is working in my Landscaping Business.  The psychology of this is amazing, and you won’t believe how new customers are reacting to it.

 https://youtu.be/DW0loy9tDeY 

Next, this guy is AMAZING – he removes 2 MONSTER pine trees in just SIX Minutes!!  You won’t believe it!  Watch it here:

https://youtu.be/foReEGz-Nis 

We did a $4,050 Garden Bed Makeover – I was ALMOST finished – and found out there was a mistake!

See it here:

https://youtu.be/pGseU5bvGf4 

Podcasts

Your Customers Are Not Your Friends

Click here to go to the podcast!

Let's be honest. When we are prospecting for a customer, we...

After running my landscaping business for the past 12 years, I've picked up a lot of valuable lessons regarding managing my thinking as well as my finances. 

In today's article, I want to talk about how much you, as the owner of a service business, should pay yourself.

Disclaimer: The information I  that I share with you in this blog post is for general informational purposes only and should not be taken as professional advice. I'm telling you what I know as of May 2023, but it's important to remember that laws and rules can change.

I highly suggest talking to a qualified professional, like an accountant or lawyer, if you want advice that is specific to your situation. I make no guarantees or promises of any kind, either directly or indirectly, about how full, accurate, reliable, or appropriate the information I give is. If you use this knowledge as a guide, you do so at your own risk. I'm not responsible for any damage or loss that comes from using this blog post or...

In the world of landscaping. Getting things done efficiently and making clients happy is very important. Having a software with all of the functions needed to run your business smooth and organized is a necessity. Jobber has completely changed the way I run my business. Let me tell you how...

I've been using a CRM software called Jobber for 4 years now and it's truly helped my automate parts of my landscaping business  

Theres a powerful feature that  Automates Scheduling and Follow-up and it's become my some of my favorite parts of Jobber. It makes following up with my customers easier, helps me stay organized, and allows me to provide the best customer service to my clients.

Let me explain how these features have made a big difference in my landscaping journey. 

Oh!  By the way, you should take advantage of their trial period by clicking here right now.

Jobber's auto scheduling feature saves you time by suggesting the best times for appointments based...

Starting a business is no easy feat, but running one is even harder. In the service industry, there are seemingly hundreds of things to keep track of. If you try to keep track of. If you do it all manually, you are going to lose things and miss deadlines. If you want to be successful, you have to be organized.

When you first figure out how to get clients and start sending them invoices, you might not think that keeping up with those clients or invoices is all that much work. Although when you, hopefully, become more successful and have dozens or hundreds of clients, those things get very hard to keep track of and it can take ages to schedule and later invoice all of those jobs.

After I got tired of running ragged trying to do this all myself, I found Jobber. While it still gave me the ability to send invoices and talk with customers, it streamlined the whole process and was a literal game changer for my business. Although I am not the only one, there are thousands of businesses...

Creating and growing a business is hard. Really hard. Just when you finally figure out how to get more clients, increase your profits, and actually learn how to run your business, the ugly side of business shows its face. That's right, the taxes and legal side of the business can not be ignored! Even though we badly want to look the other way, the legal side of a business is extremely important, and if you do ignore it, you will pay the price later down the road.

I did the same thing in my business. After years of running it and needing this document or that document for all kinds of circumstances, I thought it would be helpful to gather them all in one place for you guys. There are basic documents every business needs, but as you get more and more legit, you need more and more legal protection which directly correlates to more documents and forms. Exciting stuff I know, but the 16 documents I put together for you guys could save you a lot of money in legal fees. 

When You Are...

This year I am promoting one hell of a deal for all of my followers. I decided to make one mega bundle that I call the Entrepreneur Bundle. This bundle includes all of my courses that thousands of people have used to accelerate their businesses. If you added up the prices of these courses individually, this bundle would cost well over $2,500 but during this holiday season, I am only charging $247 for everything.

The amount of content you will get in this bundle is mind-boggling. There are hundreds of hours of content across all of these courses where I share everything I have learned on my long and hard journey of building a six-figure landscaping business. Plus a lot of this content shows you how to run a small business, which you can take and apply to any industry, not just landscaping.

In this article, I am going to go over everything that is included in this bundle and show you just how much you will benefit from it. I will go through each course and explain the nuances behind...

Whether you are just starting, or have had a lawn care business for a decade, there are things you can do to make more money. If you are just getting started, the most important thing you can do is nail down your craft. You also need to go full force into marketing and customer recruitment. Although you don’t need to keep those same customers or prices forever.

Today I am going to tell you just how you can take a small lawn care business and ramp it up to be a successful and professional business. It takes time, and hard work, but it is very possible. Taking your business from $1,000 a month to $1,000 a day is much easier than going from zero to $1,000 a month. Implement these tips, and with a little dedication, you will be there in no time.

Get Efficient

Alright so to make a lot of money in lawn care, you have to care for a lot of lawns. Plain and simple. You can’t charge a million dollars for one lawn and take forever to do it. Ideally, you should be able to do four...

If you are serious about landscaping, or run your own landscaping business, a quality mower is a must. As a business owner of a successful landscaping business, I have had plenty of mowers over the years. I actually have multiple for my crew to use. So I have gotten exposed to just about every brand out there and tried most of them first hand. The one mower that I have always relied on, was my Exmark.

If you spend more hours on a mower than you do on your couch, then you need to read this article. When I first started out landscaping, getting my mower to run reliably was one of my biggest stressors. If you are in that same boat, or don’t love your current mower, let me show you just how great of a time I have had with my Exmark mowers.

I Have Been Using Them My Whole Life

Like I mentioned before, I have been using Exmark mowers for a very long time. I have spent thousands of hours on an Exmark seat and after all of that I can confidently say they are my mower of choice. Like...

If I had to pick which business decisions have made the largest impact on my small business, Jill’s Office would certainly be in the top three. After you figure out your marketing and grow your business to a point, you are going to get a lot of phone calls from people in your area. So many in fact that it will keep you from actually working.

That is what happened to me, and Jill’s Office was the answer to my problems. For starters, Jill's Office is a receptionist business that can answer phone calls for you, and book clients. Here I am going to go over the whole process I went through and what happened once I finally decided to call Jill’s Office.

I Was Drowning

I am the type that will always work as hard as possible. When a part of my business is lacking,  my first reaction is to work harder. The problem is, I only have so many hours in the day. I was getting so many phone calls that I could not keep up with the actual landscape work. Plus, my phone...