Q 1. Please give our readers an introduction to your business. Include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans: Absolute Lawn Pros provides hassle free, full service landscape maintenance and is located in Cumming, GA.
Q 2. Provide a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans: I started Absolute Lawn Pros at age 14. When I turned 18, I really started to take the business seriously and wanted to grow the business into something I could making a living out of. I earned a bachelors in business while growing the business.
Q 3. What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)? How did the idea for your business come about?
Ans: I saw an opportunity to make money as a teenager by providing lawn service to people in my neighborhood. This did not require driving, which I could not do at the age of 14. I liked the freedom of being my own boss, enjoyed working outside, and the instant gratification of looking back at the work I just did and saying man that looks good!
Q 4. What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans: 1. Take really good care of your employees and maintain a positive work environment.
2. Learn from your failures/mistakes, then improve and prevent.
3. In the beginning of the start of the business (5 to 10 years), live frugal and reinvest everything back into growing the business with minimal debt.
Q 5. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: Selling, Self-discipline, recruiting skilled and talented people to delicate to help grow the business.
Q 6. How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans: 9.5
Q 7. To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans: Ambition, leadership skills, self-discipline, analytical thinker, financial knowledge, goal oriented, locating the business in a high household income area.
Q 8. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Ans: Word of mouth incentives, internet, PPC, and neighborhood newsletters.
Q 9. Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?
Ans: Saved money by working other jobs when starting the business. At age 18, I worked for my company during the day M-F. Then, I served tables at Applebee’s nights and weekends. Working 70 to 80 hours a week between both jobs helped me save money. My parents also gave me a loan of $1,950 so I could buy a more efficient lawn mower.
Q 10. What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Ans: Be consistent, set goals, and never stop learning. Do what is best for the company and the people in it. Then, your own personal success will follow.
Q 11. Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans: Will move Jeremy, our current shop manager/senior foreman, into a more general/operations type manager position. Also, we plan to have an office manager by then. Then I will be able to escape the day to day business activities and put my talents and skills where they can be utilized at their best.
Q 12. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans: Brightview Landscape Services
Q 13. How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans: Extremely. It was a requirement in my type of business.
Q 14. How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans: Until I have completely exhausted all options.
Q 15. What motivates you?
Ans: Money, reputation, being competitive, challenges, creating manager jobs for my brothers
Q 16. How do you generate new ideas?
Ans: Usually in discussion while talking about business with other like minded individuals
Q 17. How do you define success?
Ans: Financially established and stable, being a good Dad, a good friend, making a positive influence in everyone’s life.
Q 18. How do you build a successful customer base?
Ans: Recruit by successful marketing and company reputation, retain by providing better service than competitors. Accept only the customers that provide the most year-round stability that are not unreasonably picky. Too many of those types of customers will drain resources and lower margins. It will also make employees unhappy at work and create higher turnover.
Q 19. What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Ans: Freedom, control, flexibility, always challenged, opportunity to make a positive difference in our employees’ work environment.
Q 20. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Ans: Being able to leave the crew, let a crew leader take over and be able to focus on the business and not the labor side of things.
Q 21. What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?
Ans: Positive, uplifting, low frustration, honest, ethical, respect, we are one big team. These are the basic Christian values that I feel are the right things to do which create a great place to work and in return we will have happy customers as a result.
Q 22. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Ans: Dream
Q 23.If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Ans: Should have let a crew leader take over the crew years sooner. It would have allowed me to spend my time on the business side of things.
Q 24. How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
Ans: It took a lot of sacrifice in the beginning to establish and grow the business. I did not get much time with family or friends for about five years.
Q 25. What is your greatest fear, and how do you manage fear?
Ans: Delegating tasks and was afraid they were not going to get done like I would do them. Without risk, there is no reward. Without pain, failure, challenge there are no substantial gains.
Q 26. How did you decide on the location for your business?
Ans: My parents moved to Cumming, GA in 1998 and that is where I started my business.
Q 27. Who has been your greatest inspiration?
Ans: No one specific really. Just watching all of these companies, and their founders and CEO’s starting from nothing and creating it from scratch has always been fascinating to me.
Q 28. What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made?
Ans: Purchasing the wrong equipment and trucks. Ones that were cheap and too unreliable. Nickeling and diming. Also saving money on equipment and trucks was costing more in lost production do due unreliable equipment. Buying the wrong truck setups that were to inefficient for what we needed, costly repairs on Isuzu NPR’s etc. Wasting money on poor ROI advertising.
Q 29. What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
Ans: I like to go to the lake and tube, knee board and hang out. Hiking, basketball, tennis, running, rafting, pool, beach, concerts, exotic cars, shopping, restaurants, take out & a movie at home, hang out at friends’ houses etc… If I is fun and active I will probably do it. I do like to relax some too though. I am a Christian and like to go to church. Music lover and taste is a wide range: rock, metal, rap, R&B, classical, techno, trance, country etc.
Q 30.What makes you happy?
Ans: Good hearted People
Q 31. What sacrifices have you had to make to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: Sacrificed social life for 5 to 7 years, did without a lot of things I wanted to buy for myself so I could use the money to buy things for the business, stressful times.
Company Detail:
Company : Absolute Lawn Pros, Inc.
Contact : Josh Sergent
Address : 745 Atlanta Rd, Suite 201
City : Cumming
State : GA
Zip : 30040
Phone : 678-758-1876
Email : absolutelawnpros@gmail.com