Episode 44: The Pursuit of a Perfect Credit Score – Is It Worth It? Then Joined by Ryan Dittes from RD’s Total Lawn

Table of Contents

• Introduction with Madison and Mike
• Discussion: The Pursuit of a Perfect Credit Score
• What Motivated Steve Mitchell?
• Should Credit Scoring Be More Transparent?
• Is a Perfect Score Worth It?
• Impact of Credit Score Monitoring
• Beyond Credit Scores: Financial Well-Being
• Introducing Ryan Dittes of RD’s Total Lawn
• How RD’s Total Lawn Started
• Transition from Coca-Cola to Full-Time Business
• Challenges of Scaling the Business
• Hiring the First Employee
• What Sets RD’s Total Lawn Apart
• Maintaining Customer Relationships
• Winter Operations at RD’s Total Lawn
• Instilling Professionalism and Reliability in the Team
• Ryan’s Favorite Part of Running RD’s Total Lawn
• A Typical Day as Owner
• Advice for Starting a Small Business
• Mike’s Takeaway After 19 Years in Business
• Where to Find RD’s Total Lawn
• Outro and Credits

Introduction with Madison and Mike

Madison: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Not Just Numbers, Honest Conversations with a Financial Advisor and Lawyer. I am Madison Demora and I am here with Mike Garry. Mike is a financial advisor and a CFP practitioner and the founder and the CEO of Yardley Wealth Management. He is also an estate planning lawyer and his law firm is Yardley Estate Planning. Hey, Mike.

Mike: Hey, Maddie. How are you?

Madison: I’m good. How are you?

Mike: Good. Another Monday we’re recording. Not sunny and beautiful, but it’s not terrible either. Could be colder.

Madison: It could be. And the birds won. We’re still in the playoffs.

Mike: That’s right. Big game.

Madison: Definitely made this Monday morning better, right?

Mike: Sure did. I know. I think we’re all in nervous worry mode for the third and fourth quarters yesterday, for sure. Way the game started out so well and then didn’t really score that many points after that. Yeah, it was hard, but it’s great. They were never behind.

Madison: We did it. All right. So today we are going to discuss an article and it’s titled this “Man Dreamed Big: A Perfect Credit Score”. And this is by Imani Moise. And the article will be linked in the description below. Here is a summary of the article and then I will ask Mike some questions about it.

Discussion: The Pursuit of a Perfect Credit Score

Madison: Steve Mitchell, a Texas engineer, became obsessed with achieving a perfect 850 credit score despite already having an excellent score in the 840s. Over five years, he experimented with credit card balances, payment timing and account closures, but found the scoring system confusing and inconsistent. Ultimately, he discovered that maintaining a minimal balance (0.5% to 1.5% of his available credit) and timing payments just before his credit report date helped him reach 850. However, he acknowledged the randomness of the process and noted that the benefits of a perfect score were limited, as there was little difference in loan rates between a score of 750 and 850. Financial experts suggest the pursuit of a perfect score often isn’t worth the effort and emphasizes long term, responsible credit habits over short term hacks. All right, Mike, what do you think motivated Steve Mitchell to pursue a perfect credit score despite already having excellent credit? Do you think this level of perfectionism is common or necessary?

What Motivated Steve Mitchell?

Mike: So I think he wanted to, he’s an engineer and I think he tried to figure it out and, you know, got involved in how the credit bureaus game the system. And I don’t think that level of perfectionism is necessary or common. And I think that, you know, it, it’s.. We have a situation where those three credit bureaus have all of your information. They give you a credit score so that lenders can make better estimates as to whether you are creditworthy or not. And then you’ll pay interest rates on purchases based on your credit worthiness. And so in a lot of ways, I think it feels to a lot of people, me included, that it’s a rigged game where you can’t actually find out exactly how they judge things. Right. And he, he was experimenting with like timing of payments and how much to put on cards. Like he was, he really was putting a lot of work into trying to change his score from 847 to 850. But it’s funny in hindsight, but it seems like it was really frustrating for him. But I think it’s, it’s frustrating too for consumers not knowing, you know, how things will work. You know, some things in your credit score totally out of your hands, like your length of credit history. You know, a 19-year-old can’t have a long length of credit history. And other things that, that can be in your hands contribute to your score, but maybe not necessarily a whole lot more than that length of credit. They have breakdowns on how much each of those things like that you make timely payments, that you don’t use too much of the available credit, you know, like the amount of credit you have outstanding, the number of creditors that are on your list. You know, so there’s a bunch of things and they give them different weights and then all the credit bureaus will typically have slightly different scores for everybody. And so, and they change all the time. And so yeah, I could see why he’d be interested in it. I couldn’t imagine myself doing the work for that other than, you know, doing the work that we all need to do to make sure our credit score is high. How’s that for an answer to that?

Madison: That’s awesome. Awesome. I was wondering if his career in engineering had an impact on this.

Mike: Yeah. I mean, engineers try to figure out how things work. Right. And so maybe he was trying to figure that out. So it’s, you know, it’s not, it was not a surprise to see what his occupation was and what he was trying to do. Might, might be different if he was like a painter or a sculptor or something.

Should Credit Scoring Be More Transparent?

Madison: Yeah. All right. Mitchell found the credit scoring process confusing and unpredictable. Do you think credit bureaus and scoring companies should be more transparent about how scores are calculated?

Mike: Yeah, I think they should be totally transparent. Right. If they have that much power over consumers, they should say what the rules are. Right. They should say, like how they’re going to treat things differently so that we know. I mean, if we are stuck using them, and we are, we didn’t sign up to have those credit bureaus monitor us the way they do. That’s the system that has been forced upon us. They should at least explain what, how it all works.

Madison: Yeah, absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.

Is a Perfect Score Worth It?

Madison: Mitchell achieved a perfect score but saw minimal practical benefits. Do you think striving for a perfect score is worthwhile? What factors should people consider when deciding how much effort to invest in improving their credit?

Mike: Sure. So I don’t think it’s worthwhile to invest that time. Right. He wound up keeping balances on things and paying them. So he might have been paying interest on those credit card bills to get that perfect score. It just seems silly to me. Like, it’s like not seeing the forest for the trees. And how much effort you should put into improving your credit score really depends like where your credit score is and really what stage you are in life. Right. So, at your age, you should get your annual credit reports every year, which you could get from annualcreditreport.com. You get your credit reports, check them to make sure that they have correct information for you. They might have wrong information. And then you put in writing the update to the information. All three bureaus have mechanisms or channels for that. But then you should also use something to measure your score. A lot of credit cards will offer that to you. There are some, like they’ve never done anything and it’ll show you again their estimate of what your FICO score is. I also use Experian Alerts for monitoring. You know, I guess I find it kind of valuable. It’s, it’s hard to say. But you know, at your stage of life, right, where you haven’t bought a house yet, you have bought a car, but you haven’t bought a house yet, you know, if your credit score is great, when you go to buy the house, it will be cheaper for you than if your credit score is lousy, so it’s really important. And then once you get to a part where your credit score is like good, right, like the top two categories, then, you know, I think if you just have normal, good financial habits, the scores will take care of themselves. Right? So don’t go to the limits of the credit. You have outstanding pay everything on time. Don’t open unnecessary credit accounts. You know, it used to be common where you could open a credit card in a retail and get like 10% off. And I don’t know if that’s still a thing, but I remember it used to be. And then people would say, oh yeah, well, I opened six of them because I was shopping. Like, okay, well you might, might have cost you more than the, than the 10% off you got from your six purchases. So once you have a good score, then, and as long as you keep your good credit habits, check in on it once in a while. But then, don’t be, don’t spend too much time on it I don’t think.

Madison: Yeah. Awesome.

Impact of Credit Score Monitoring

Madison: The article suggests that monitoring credit scores can influence positive financial behavior. How do you think access to credit score monitoring apps has changed the way people manage their finances?

Mike: Yeah, I wonder. I wonder. I know somebody I spent some time with last year who, you know, used one of those apps and really paid a lot of attention to it. And you know, I don’t know, I think I look at it the opposite way. If you have good habits, then the scores will just be the score. And does it matter really whether Your score is 810 or 828? No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. So follow the good habits and if you aren’t sure what those habits are, I’m sure we have good, there’s plenty of good sources for that you could Google. Like what good habits do I need to have a good credit score? And I’m sure it’s easy enough to find, but you know, it’s paying your bills on time. Don’t borrow more than you could afford to borrow. Don’t open too many accounts and then keep living because the average length of credit, you know, matters.

Beyond Credit Scores: Financial Well-Being

Madison: All right. The article mentions that improving a credit score doesn’t always equate to better financial health. What other metrics or habits should people focus on for true financial well-being?

Mike: Yeah, I guess the other parts of, like, the financial planning process. Right. So make sure you have an idea of, like, that, that you are saving enough that you have diversified investments, that you have the appropriate insurance for your situation, whether it’s life, disability, health, property and casualty, umbrella policy. You know, make sure you’re doing what you can to minimize your taxes, make sure you’re paying those on time. You know, there’s all, all the things as, as part of being a mature, responsible adult, I think, you know, I don’t think there’s any secret sauce there.

Madison: Okay. All right. Thanks so much, Mike.

Mike: Thanks, Maddie. This has been great. It’s a good topic. Appreciate it.

Introducing Ryan Dittes of RD’s Total Lawn

Madison: Today we are thrilled to introduce Ryan Dittes, the owner of RDs Total Lawn, a family-run lawn care and landscaping business based in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Ryan and his wife Lindsay launched RD’s Total Lawn in 2018 as a small side business while preparing for their second child. Fast forward to today and their company has grown into a trusted name in lawn care across Langhorne, Levittown, Bensalem and beyond. Known for their professionalism, clear communication and attention to detail, RD’s Total Lawn isn’t just about mowing grass or trimming bushes. It’s about raising the bar in an industry where that extra touch of care and consistency makes all the difference. Whether it’s fertilizer and weed control, weekly mowing, leaf cleanups, or even residential snow removal, Ryan and his team are committed to providing exceptional service and supporting their local community. We are excited to talk with Ryan about his journey as a small business owner and the lessons he’s learned along the way. Ryan, Welcome to Not Just Numbers.

Ryan: Hey, guys, how you doing? Thanks so much for having me on. Really appreciate it. Looking forward to kind of chatting with you guys here. Awesome intro there too, by the way. Put that together nicely, so appreciate it.

Madison: Awesome, awesome. All right, so we’ll jump right in.

How RD’s Total Lawn Started

Madison: Can you share the story of how RD’s Total Lawn started as a side hustle and grew into a business employing up to 15 people?

Ryan: Cool. Yeah. So kind of like you said, it started as a side hustle and I really never intended as I feel like most ventures in life, you don’t know where they’re going to take you. So I really just started as a side hustle making extra money. At the time, my wife, Lindsay’s my wife, who’ve married about 10 years now. We now have three kids, but at the time she was a teacher. I was working for Coca Cola, actually. So we both had day jobs. You know, we had one child and we were really trying to save up money so that with the second child, she could kind of take like an extended maternity leave. So really that’s all it was. It was just, I have a push mower already. I’m going to mow some lawns, make some extra money and kind of save up money so she can stay out longer. And then it really just, you know, God, willingly just evolved from there. We were able to just grow the business slowly over time. I actually. I was at Coca Cola for 15 years and I started the business eight years ago, so I was running them in silo for most of the time. I actually just left Coke coming up on a year now. So for most of my time running the business, I was working a day job while growing the business on the side. And then it, you know, just kind of evolved and. But that’s how it started. And that’s kind of where we are today.

Transition from Coca-Cola to Full-Time Business

Madison: How was that transition, you know, leaving, you know, Coca Cola is a, you’re promised a salary and, you know. What encouraged you to, like, make that jump?

Ryan: Yeah. Good question. Coke was an awesome place to work. I have nothing bad to say about it. It was really good too, because I learned so much there that was able to translate into a lot of, like, operations here, some sales stuff here. I managed people at Coca Cola, so that’s obviously translating to now, so. And again, I knew fairly early on when I was working at Coke, I would say after I started the business, once I got a taste of, like working for myself, I was kind of like, oh, this is different. This is maybe Something that I want to do. But yeah, I have nothing bad to say about Coke. It was for sure challenging at times, obviously doing both a full time job while, you know, growing a business. But what I’d say, one key thing that it did was since I had a day job, I was forced to do certain things in the business that made it more like a business. Like for example, I couldn’t do all the work so I had to hire people, I had to create systems and processes. So it was really a good thing. Even though it was, it was challenging at times. I think like some people that just start the business full time and they don’t have anything else going on, they do everything and they just keep maxing themselves out. Where I was like forced to almost treat it like a business because I only had so much time to dedicate to it, so. And what was good too is I had a W2. It was a great job, great benefits, you know, it’s obviously it’s Coca Cola, it’s not going anywhere. So it was a stable job that was able to provide and like pay most of my bills. So then with the profits of the business, we’re able to eventually just reinvest them to kind of grow it. So for me it was like it was a great thing to do that while I did the business. And then again, ultimately the goal was really just to have my wife take an extended maternity leave. You know, if we, if we achieved that goal, we were happy. That was it. We just wanted her to be stay at home raising the kids. And then God took it way further because of how much we grew the business. She was able to, she took a two year maternity leave, they held her position and then after two years she was able to actually resign and now she’s, she stay at home with the three kids. So we’re, we’re so happy about that. And that was really from the start, that was the whole why on why we were doing this, you know. And then eventually we’re able to grow it enough where I was able to leave Coca Cola and go full boat here, which was again my dream. And you know, I’m just, every day I’m just pumped that I’m able to do it, provide for the family. So it’s really cool to see where it’s come from.

Mike: Ryan, I want to make two points. First, I love that perspective that you’re forced to treat it like a business at first, because I’d say 99% of businesses are what you described the opposite. Like me, you know, I had no income coming in. Like, I had to just. I just worked all the time. Right. Just had to max everything out. And so it took a long time then to actually, there’s no other income coming in. It took a long time for it to become the business that it is now. So I love that perspective that you knew and understood and treated that way. And then the other thing about being self-employed, I met a guy long time ago. I don’t remember the context, but he said after working for himself for some amount of time, he would rather, like, shine shoes for himself than go back and take a corporate job like it had before. It’s like once you had a taste of that and it seems to be working out, it’s hard to go back to work for somebody else. And I totally get that. You know, at this point, I couldn’t imagine working for somebody else.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s funny you say that. I was just talking to my wife. I was saying, I think I’m pretty much unemployable at this point. I don’t think I could be an employee, you know, just because, you know, way it’s been molded. And that was challenging at Coke because again, Coke was awesome, I have nothing bad to say about, but toward the end I was like, you know, the business was growing, it was a decent size, and I knew for quite some time that I was going to be leaving Coca Cola and going full time, it was really a matter of when I felt like the business was established enough. But anyway, at the end of Coke, it was kind of like, oh, man, I was like, really torn, like, oh, I’m a business owner, but I’m still an employee, you know, and I have obligations at my job. So, you know, that was like, like Dave Ramsey says, get the boat close to the dock before you make your jump. So that was the goal. Kind of get it close before you made the leap. So. But yeah.

Ryan: Excellent, excellent. Thank you.

Challenges of Scaling the Business

Madison: All right. What are some key challenges you face transitioning from a small operation to managing a larger team?

Ryan: Yeah, that’s a good question. I would say, like, what worked in the past isn’t necessarily working anymore. Like, when I first hired my first employee, everything was like, totally different. Like, you know, we had all different equipment. We didn’t have any processes, procedures. I was just, I mean, I’m still winging it, but I was really winging it. And then as you grow, I think what I’ve seen the most is like, at scale, things that you think aren’t a big deal, become a big deal at scale. And like, an example of that would be, you know, in the beginning, we use trucks and trailers, like all landscapers, right? We haul around a trailer with our equipment. And I’ve seen that at scale, once I have to buy, you know, we have like, five trailers at this point. There’s a lot of maintenance with trailers. They’re harder to drive. It’s harder to hire people that know how to drive and back trailers. So when you have one of that and you’re the one driving it, or you have maybe one guy, really, it’s not a big deal. You can train the guy. You got some maintenance on the trailer. It’s all good. But I feel like once you have five of them, that’s five registrations, that’s five sets of tires. That’s all these different. The maintenance is like magnitude. And then, you know, I’m hiring, I usually hire college kids, for the most part. High school, college, younger, I would say. They don’t have a lot of experience driving and backing trailers, so you have to train them on all that. So anyway, the model that we’re slowly transitioning over to is like a box truck model. Where we just have a box truck, we put ramps on the back so we have no trailers. That eliminates a lot of maintenance. The insurance is a lot cheaper on all that stuff. It’s way easier to drive that than a truck and a trailer. So little things like that, and that’s one example. But there’s a lot of things like that. At small scale, you feel like, not a big deal. And as I’ve seen that it’s grown, little deals come into big deals, you know, because their magnitude, you’re doing it at bigger numbers. And I really like to try to create things that are just very easy to bring in people with not a lot of skills. And I can train them on the skills, and they can be productive fairly quick. That’s kind of the model that I like to do. I really like to hire for, like, attitude and energy and personality. I’m really not worried about the skills. Like, when a guy comes to me, he’s like, I’ve been doing landscaping for 15 years, and I’ve been with five companies. It’s not really, you know, people think, oh, that’s great, it’s really not for me. You might have even bad habits that we now need to break. I’d rather a kid that comes out of college or he’s in college and he’s just got an awesome attitude. He’s positive, he’s trying to grow. He’s never even touched a string trimmer or a lawn mower in his life. I’m not worried about that. We can train that, but I can’t train, like, your work ethic and your personality. So anyway, I try to simplify our services so that when people come in, we can train them, we can get them rolling, you know, and be productive fairly quick. So.

Mike: Right. No, that’s great. It was like assembly line or fast food kind of thing where, you know, it’s not like training to be a doctor where you need extensive training like you could teach somebody and if they have the energy and enthusiasm, it won’t take all that long. When I was in college, I worked at a window factory. And it was funny, on my second day, I had to train somebody. And meanwhile, like, the two other people had been, they were lifers. Like, they’d been there like 12 and 15 years. I get now why I had to train that person. But that day I was like, why? Like, I don’t know anything about this, but it was a relatively simple task that you just repeated all day long. And so it wasn’t hard to learn. And so then, yeah, I guess I had more enthusiasm than the poor guy stuck at the wheel for the last 15 years.

Ryan: That’s funny, second day training somebody. Yeah, I’m very interested in small business, and I always look at, like, you know, electricians, plumbers, and all that. And I’m always like, man, that’s got to be a challenge to bring somebody on. The amount of training and time it would take them, I mean, a master electrician, how many years to get them to know? I mean, even enough to be productive. So that stuff’s always interesting to me. Like, that’s got to be a challenge to bring people in. You invest so much time into them, training them, you know, adopting your culture, all that. And a lot of times I feel like if somebody has that much skills and knowledge, that they might just go do their own thing. You know, because they have, that’s the secret sauce is all the skills, you know, so anyway, just interesting. But yeah, you know, there’s challenges in every business, obviously, but that’s one that I look at a lot.

Hiring the First Employee

Madison: All right. When did you know it was time to hire your first employee and what was that experience like?

Ryan: Yeah, so again, you know, the having the job was, again, good for me because it was pretty obvious. Once I felt that I can only dedicate, let’s say it’s 20 or 30 hours a week toward the business. Once I’m at max capacity, that’s when I need to hire. That’s kind of the, the model I use now. Like, I’m always looking at my capacity of trucks, equipment and guys. And once my workload is at capacity, at that point it’s like okay, do I want to keep growing and invest in more equipment and hire more guys, or do I just want to maybe raise my prices and stay where I’m at? And for all these years it’s been, we’re going to keep growing. So we hit capacity on all of our stuff. Okay, now we need to buy new equipment, we need to hire more people. Typically, I try to like stay ahead of it a little bit too. I would say coming from Coca Cola, I had a couple different jobs at Coke, but one was I would manage a team of merchandisers. So they would, they would be the ones that you would see in the grocery stores stocking the shelves and stuff. So it’s a hard job, very physical job, similar to what I’m doing now, managing a hard job. But there was a lot of like, churn, a lot of turnover. And I really always, like, I use the motto, like, I’m always hiring. I’m always hiring great people because if you’re a stud and you’re awesome, I mean, I’ll make room for you in the organization. And that’s always kind of been my motto because probably more than likely somebody in my wheelhouse is not going to be there that much longer. Maybe they’re going away to school, maybe they got another job. Maybe this is just too physical for them. There’s probably always somebody that might be thinking about leaving soon. So it’s like kind of having that bench ready to kind of fill it in. And a lot of the guys that we’ve had, they’ve come in and they’ve told me from the get go. I had a guy, his name was Brandon, great kid, awesome worker. The day I hired him, he told me, I’m doing this for now, I want to be a police officer. I’m going to the academy. So. And I said, awesome. Like, he’s like, I’ll be here for at least a year. I’m totally good with that. Come in, he’s up front. So I knew, like, there’s a timeline on him. And he was an awesome worker. He’s doing great now. He got in. He’s with a department now, so he went through the academy, passed his test, he got into an apartment or into a department. And, you know, that whole time, I knew his time’s limited, but he’s coming in, he’s going to work hard, he’s going to do his thing, he’s going to move on. And I’ve had many guys that same scenario. They want to be electricians, they want to do this, they want to do that. And this is kind of like where they can come, they can see a small business, they can learn some stuff, make some money, and then kind of set them up to moving forward. So.

Mike: So, Ryan, can I tell you how your story kind of is very similar to how Madison got hired here? So my wife and I knew Madison for six or seven years, and at one point, about three years ago, we knew that she was looking. And she’s got great energy and enthusiasm. She’s always looking to figure things out and get stuff done. And my wife said, you should hire Madison. I was like, for what? And she said, you’ll figure it out. She’d be great to have around. And, you know, she’s done some different things, but, like, the podcast, I guess, the last year and a half or so, and it’s true, you have great people in your organization and you figure out how to make them work, and it’s been fantastic for us. Hopefully it’s been up to her, too. But, I don’t know.

Madison: It’s been awesome. Very, very grateful. Very grateful.

Ryan: Yeah, that’s cool. That’s awesome. Yeah, she’s the podcast pro now, I guess.

Madison: Yep.

Ryan: That’s cool.

What Sets RD’s Total Lawn Apart

Madison: Thank you. What sets RDs Total Lawn apart from other landscaping and lawn care companies?

Ryan: Yeah. So I mean, obviously there’s a lot of lawn care companies. You see them out there. I would say there’s like, there’s two main parts of our business. We have lawn mowing that we do. And in that aspect, I would say we really just try to be more professional, as professional as possible. Lawn and landscape guys get a bad rep sometimes, I think, just for being unprofessional, sometimes warranted, sometimes not. But we really try to be, you know, have a good reputation, communicate well with customers and just kind of bring that professionalism from the lawn care, you know, lawn mowing standpoint. Now the other side of our business, fertilizer and weed control. I would say in all honesty, that avenue does have a lot of professionalism. If you look up like fertilizer, weed control companies, there’s a lot of national brands, like big, large companies that are doing it at large scale. So I would say they have like that professional backing to them. But what sets us apart on that aspect is we’re just a small business, we’re family owned, we’re local. It’s hard to find a super reliable, dependable fertilizer, weed control, that’s also a local owned company. A lot of them are nationals, they’re corporates, they’re franchises. Nothing wrong with them. I’m just saying that’s what sets us apart necessarily on those two aspects of the business. I would say.

Madison: That’s awesome.

Maintaining Customer Relationships

Madison: All right. How do you maintain strong relationships with customers to ensure satisfaction from start to finish?

Ryan: Yeah, I would say our biggest thing, and I kind of touch on it, would be like, communication from start to finish. We’re definitely not perfect. We’re trying to get better all the time, but we feel like we really over communicate. I always feel like in most aspects of business, or when there’s an issue or a problem with a customer, it really comes down to communication. If there’s poor communication, a small issue can kind of blow up. I saw that a lot when I was working at Coca Cola. Like, if you’re not over communicating, you’re not proactive with your communication. Any minor detail can get way blown up. And then the inverse, like, you could have a problem if you’re very actively communicating, because nobody’s perfect, we’re all going to drop the ball here or there. But if you’re, like, actively communicating, you’re taking ownership on it. You’re keeping customers the loop. I think that goes a long way. And like, when customers reach out, we try to get back to them quickly, and we’ll keep them updated the whole time. Like, if you reach out to us, you want a price on something, we’re going to get you a price quick, and then we’re going to follow up with you until we can get an answer. And then when we schedule the project, we’re going to stay in contact with you. Okay, here’s when you’re scheduled. Here’s when we’re coming out. The morning of, we do reminders of service. Hey, just a reminder. We’re coming out today. So we try to, like, way over communicate, all that stuff. And customers seem to appreciate that a lot because they’re never in the dark. They’re never like, you know, oh, I haven’t heard from him in a while, I don’t know when he’s coming. Because a lot of times what we hear, you know, we’ll have a customer reach out, they want to price for something, let’s say it’s lawn mowing. And we hear all the time that, one of the questions I usually ask is, have you used the company in the past for the service? And a lot of them, yeah, they have. And usually the response is, yeah, I use this guy for years, and he just fell off the earth and he’s like ghosted me, you know, And I haven’t heard from him in a long time, so. And they’ll just stop showing up. And we get that a lot. And I think the reason being, like, there’s a lot of lawn care guys where it’s like a solo guy or plus one guy. And I feel for those guys because life happens. Everybody has families. People get sick, their family gets sick. You know, things like that happen. And those people are at a very high risk because if they get sick or their family member gets sick, I mean, that’s the most important thing. So your business is going to suffer a little bit. You kind of need, like. And I can never say enough good things about our employees, but you really need a good, strong foundation of people that maybe when you’re down, they can pick it up and they’re there and they’re there to pick up the slack or you want to go on vacation for a couple days and the business isn’t to a halt. So anyway, long winded answer, but that’s what I would say some of the differences in what we bring to the table.

Mike: Yeah. We had a guy who did our stuff for years and years. It was just him with like the occasional guy with him. And at some point he realized that he just, like, couldn’t make a living doing it right. Because I think that, you know, like, business was inconsistent and he worked for his cousin and his cousin just right from the day, first day, like, rubbed me the wrong way. And so I stayed with him because, like, Howard still came out and did everything. And then Howard passed. He was like 62 and he died. And then when he passed, we switched to a different service. And it’s been good since then. But, yeah, it’s. I can just see that, like, it’s hard, right? And you have like a pretty long season where you can’t ever be sick or you can’t ever have your spouse or kids be sick. It’ll be really hard thing, right? So, yeah, you need some scale, but then not too much. I think you guys are in a great spot for that, you know, because I don’t want to hire some, you know, Fortune 1000 company to take care of my lawn needs. We use a small business, a young guy, and I like it. That’s good.

Ryan: Yeah, yeah, we like this sweet spot. It’s like we don’t plan to be huge or anything. You know, we’re kind of, we’re smaller, but we’re not so small, so if something happens. So it’s a nice spot where I can keep my hands on everything pretty good. But if I need to step away for a day or two or whatever, like, you know, me and my family will go away to like Great Wolf Lodge for a night or two. And it’s like the world doesn’t end. You know, the guys do an awesome job. They’re super dependable. They got the thing rolling. I’ll still be available and checking in and stuff, but I can go away a couple nights, come home and, you know, things are, things are still running. So it’s really like an awesome spot. I feel like we’re super grateful for, for where we’re at, the people that we’ve had, the employees, things of that sort.

Winter Operations at RD’s Total Lawn

Mike: What do you do in the winter?

Ryan: Yeah, that’s definitely a challenge. Like every business has their challenges. And that’s the biggest with lawn care is just the seasonality of it. So in the winter, I mean, we do snow as a necessary evil at this point. We don’t love snow. The money’s good, a little hectic. You’re on, you know, as per our reschedule of the, the call here. But you know, you’re on mother Nature’s timeline. But yeah, we do snow. We do any work we can. We have this winter service package that we’re trying out this year. Where we’ll kind of come out, we’ll clean your gutters, we’ll clean up your property, we’ll clean up your beds, we’ll wash your windows. Trying to get creative with some type of a service that we can provide over the winter. A little bit of cleanup work. But for the most part, January and February, the guys get laid off with the exception of snow events. But I call it like, it’s really like a 10 month year. You know, we start back in March. We really try to pull all the work we can because everybody wants their, their mulch done in April. We try to pull as much of that as we can into March and give even a little bit of discount just to kind of, you know, level out the workflow. And then we’ll do the same, we’ll try to push it into the end of the year. So we, we keep pretty busy March through December, we’ve kind of figured that out. And then we got that two month lull where we got to get a little creative. We keep a little bit of work coming in, but we try to just budget. You know, I tell everybody, hey, you know, big surprise, the winner’s coming. Just budget for it. You know, save up your money to get through those two months and all that. So.

Mike: Okay, great.

Instilling Professionalism and Reliability in the Team

Madison: All right. RD’s Total Lawn emphasizes professionalism and reliability. How do you instill these values in your team?

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. So. So actually, one of our core values is that we are professional. We conduct business professionally. That’s our core value. So we talk about it all the time with our guys. It’s kind of like a, you know, we try to do a weekly meeting every week, and we’re touching on this. Okay. We kind of call out the guys. So if a customer leaves us a good review or a customer will fill out our post survey feedback form and they’ll say, you know, Eli did an awesome job. We just had an email come through the guy, Eli and Michael, they came in, they did the snow, they did an awesome job, very thorough, made sure everything was taken care of, you know, so on and so forth. We’ll promote that at the meeting. You know, I share that with the guys just to show them, hey, this is the example. This is. This is what we’re looking for. So they kind of know, like, how do I meet the expectations? Like, that’s what it is. So just I think top of mind, constantly talking about it. Yeah, like, anything. Like, so when I was at Coca Cola, I had a team, and we would have like a daily huddle call for 10 minutes. I don’t do that at the, at the lawn care company. But every. Every call, it’s like the same things we kind of touch on. And I think that’s important, though, because if things aren’t top of mind, they kind of get forgotten. So we just got to keep reiterating that, you know, these are the expectations, these are the important things that are just, you know, set in stone that we have to kind of deliver on. So just reminding them on a regular basis and like, doing the simple stuff, you know, being in uniform, checking in with the customer, checking out with the customer, things like that just go a long way. And they know, like, they are the front line. They’re the face of the company, essentially. Like, there’s plenty of customers that I have never even met. I have never even talked to face to face. You know, the pricing comes in, we send them a price, we go do the service. So plenty I have met, obviously, but there’s some that I haven’t. And the only person they know might be, you know, Donald or it might be Drew or it might be Matt, and that’s their, oh, this is RD’s, this is the guy. So they’re really the face of the company. It’s really important that they get what the mission is, what the values are what we’re trying to do.

Mike: That’s great.

Madson: Yeah. I feel like even, you know, when you do your meetings and checkups with everyone in your company and then you hear Eli got a good review, I feel like, as a co-worker of him, you’d be like, wow, he got a good review. I want to get a good review. So that’s awesome that you guys instill those values.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. For sure.

Ryan’s Favorite Part of Running RD’s Total Lawn

Madison: What’s your favorite part running RD’s Total Lawn? And what keeps you motivated every day?

Ryan: Yes, good question. I would say. I mean, obviously, just providing for my family. I’m just so grateful that we. I can run a small business. I can provide for my family, my wife can stay home. And that’s really the. That’s really my why. That’s my biggest thing. But one thing that I really love about it is I’m able to, like, be a good steward of the employees that I have. And I bring in, like I said, they’re kind of younger guys, and it’s really cool to see them come in and just grow and evolve. Right. Especially when you’re younger, you’re so moldable and you’re such in a growing stage. I see some of these guys coming, and we’ve had guys that have been here now four, five, six years, and to see what they’ve come from when they started here to where they are today, it’s like leaps and bounds. And I’m talking they grow all around. They’re growing professionally, they’re growing, they’re maturing as themselves. So it’s cool to see, like, their journey as they grow. And I’m just grateful that I’m able to employ, like, so many people. And that’s really my goal. I want to provide a place where people come in. It’s a great work environment. They can make some good money, they can learn some stuff. I tell my guys, listen, I’m realistic. I don’t think you guys are going to work here for 60 years until you retire. I understand that. I hope you don’t, because I don’t know how you’re going to be doing the physical nature when you’re 60. Like you mentioned, I think you said Howard. He did it till he was 62, God bless him. He’s probably in phenomenal shape. Maybe body, emotion, stage emotion. I don’t know. But I know that, like, everyone has a timeline here. My hope is they come in, they work here, I treat them good, they learn some stuff, they make some money, and then they maybe go into another job and they can look back and say, oh, man when I worked for Ryan at RD’s Total Lawn, and that was a sweet job. That was a good gig. I really enjoyed that. That’s really what I want. Hopefully they leave better than when they came in, and that’s, like, motivating to me. And that’s what’s cool.

Mike: Yeah, they learn some things about the workforce a little bit about life, you know, as they’re growing up. Right. It sounds like a lot of high school and college age kids, maybe first second job for them and learn some responsibility. Be, you know, be as you said, like a lot of times the customer only knows the, the guys that are out there. Right. So like they’re responsible for them in a serious way. You know, if they mess up like the customer is going to know it. And so it’s good, it’s a great training program for these guys and it is realistic. And Howard was in worse shape than you think for somebody who was doing it at 60.

Ryan: Is that right?

Mike: Yeah, I think it was hard for him. I think it was really hard for him. I think he had no other options. Like he never learned anything else and so he just did that and that’s probably why that business kind of fell apart on him.

Ryan: And we just had like, so we just, and I’m open book with our numbers. Like we had a year-end meeting brought all guys in. We go over the numbers because a lot of these guys, they talk about they want to start their own business someday. So if I can show them not that it’s perfect but how I do it and they can learn something from it and maybe apply it down the road for them. So kind of treat it like some educational stuff too. They can learn how, how a small business kind of runs a little bit. So.

Mike: Yeah, yeah. A lot of times in small businesses people only see like the revenues that come in oh that plumber is how much per hour without realizing like the cost of tools and the cost of acquiring customers and the time and all that stuff. So that’s great to give those guys, you know, some knowledge and experience about running a business because I think it’s part of like the American dream. Right. And so like a lot of people are interested in it and like now there’s shows about it and things about like, you know, like taking your, your business public. I think that’s a great thing that you do with those guys and hopefully they, they learn from that. Maybe someone will have businesses. Maybe you’ll be somewhere like hey I hired that guy 20 years ago or 10 years ago. Now he’s got know whatever this business is. That’s really cool. I like that.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. And one of our core values is act like an owner. So how are they going to act like an owner if they don’t know the numbers that I know as an owner? So that’s kind of one of my big reasons too. I want them to really kind of know full circle, what’s going on, why I’m making certain decisions, why we’re doing this, doing that. But yeah, it seems to work out good.

Mike: Awesome.

A Typical Day as Owner

Madison: All right. Ryan, what does a typical day look like for you as the owner of RD’s Total Lawn?

Ryan: Yeah. So year to year, season to season definitely changes a lot. I would say most of this year. So I do like all the back house stuff. I don’t do much in the field. You know, I’ll jump in here and there, but for the most part they handle all the field stuff. I’m really office, sales, hiring, operations. I did just hire an office person. So I’m excited to, you know, get her rolling and get her set and take kind of the admin off me because the admin got to be kind of overwhelming and it’s kind of consumed most of the day. So going forward I want to focus on like operations and sales, you know, growing the company and then just improving the way that we perform things to maximize efficiencies. She’ll handle the office portion, which is what I did. And then the frontline staff does all the field stuff, so.

Mike: Excellent.

Advice for Starting a Small Business

Madison: Very nice. What advice would you give to someone thinking about starting their own small family-owned business?

Ryan: Yeah, I definitely encourage anyone to start their own. But I would also say look into it. There’s a lot of value in working for someone else within the field or without of the field. Like obviously I work for Coca Cola, has nothing to do with cutting lawns. Right. But there is a lot of principles that could apply and a lot of things that I learned and I think I matured over time to be able to run my own business. But I would say it’s not for everyone. Like there’s definitely people that they are an employee somewhere and that’s what they enjoy and that’s awesome. There’s like totally. It’s not like you owe a business owner, is it? And that’s it. And if you don’t do that, you’re wrong. So I think it’s like a fit. Like you gotta make sure, it’s a fit. You know, there can be long hours. You gotta really be mentally prepared to like go all in, fully dedicate. I would say the biggest difference with when you run your own business is it’s like it’s 24/7, right. Like, you know, there’s. Even if I’m not actively working, it’s always like on my brain at some facet. So it’s kind of like it never shuts off essentially. Whereas when you’re an employee, you can kind of like shut it off and you don’t care as much. But anyway, it’s really a, it’s really a personal preference. For me, I could, I love running my own business. I mean, I love lawn care for sure, but I really love just growing business and learning about business. And you know, even I’m fairly young, so who knows what the future holds if I go into other businesses down the road or whatever. But I think whatever the stuff that I’m learning now, I could apply to a lot of different businesses to some sort. But I think it’s really a preference like look into it, see if it’s really a good fit for you. I think there’s a little bit of a craze right now with like, oh, you got to be an entrepreneur, you got to be a business owner. And I don’t know if that’s really best for everybody. Like I said, it’s not like look down on if you’re an employee by any means. There’s awesome employees. That’s what they like. There’s nothing bad about it. So it’s really, really your preference.

Mike: Yeah, it is. It is wild that there are now like influencers out there telling people they should be business owners and these influencers make money. It’s just mind boggling to me. And so, yeah, it’s not like the only thing to do right. And I love your idea of getting some sort of professional experience first, like some experience as an employee in the business world, know how things operate a little bit. I was fortunate. Like, I worked as a lawyer initially and then I worked at Merrill Lynch was my first as a financial advisor. And I learned a lot of things like that I wouldn’t want to do there. And then I worked for a small business owner. He always had like five to 10 employees when I worked for him. And it was good because he kind of let me run things and be responsible for things, but it wasn’t like my checkbook paying for them. And I learned a lot, you know, like there might be some things as an idealistic 20 or 30 something that I thought, but then, you know, the four and a half years I spent with him was time really well spent, you know, and then, you know, coming here, it was totally different. But yeah, you know, like, I think the big key is like, they keep learning and trying to figure things out. And yeah, it’s a good point that maybe the entrepreneurship or like the whole side hustle culture, you know, like, don’t feel bad if that’s not you. Right. Like, don’t. If your energy is, like, you want to be the best, I don’t know, librarian or teacher or nurse or doctor, whatever. Like, that’s totally good. Like, there’s nothing wrong with that. It is funny. Like, if you’re not. It’s a good point, Ryan.

Ryan: Yeah. And like you just said, like, working at Merrill Lynch and in that small company, I’m sure you learned so much that you couldn’t have learned by going getting the degree. Right?

Mike: Right.

Ryan: And it was on someone else’s dime. Right. It was on his checkbook, and you were learning those things. And to your point too, I think you gotta stay learning. Like, that’s what’s cool about running your own business, is it’s like, man, there’s never, like, a dull moment going on. And as you grow, I’ve learned so much. Like, when I was at Coke, you know, I had some promotions along the way, and every time I took a new job, it was, like, exciting. Like, it wasn’t necessarily the pay increase in money, but it was exciting because there’s new things I gotta learn, a whole new side of the business I don’t know, which was always exciting to me. And now it’s like, with running my business, it’s constantly. I’m constantly learning, expose different things, learning new things. So. And that’s the cool thing about today, with podcasts and there’s YouTube and there’s so many people like, there’s nothing new under the sun. Right. Somebody’s done what I’m doing at a way better scale than I’m doing it. So it’s like, I’d be a fool not to try to take advantage of learning from them, you know, what worked for them, what didn’t work for them. So it’s definitely a cool time. Just the amount of information that’s online and what you can learn is, like, mind blowing, you know.

Mike: It really is. As someone who was practically an adult when that was not the case, it’s awesome. You know, like, you could find anything out really pretty quickly, and that was not always the case. And I like it better that you can. There’s a lot of smart people have done a lot of cool things, and there’s no reason to just, like, struggle on your own and try to figure it out all on your own. You figure out what’s out there and how to make it work best for you and your family. Right. Like, in a lot of ways, it’s not as hard as it used to be. You know, if you were 30 years ago, when I started this business, 19 years ago, a lot of technology that was only recently available made it much cheaper to start. Like, I didn’t need to rent an office, I didn’t need to have like any kind of administrative support right away. There are a lot of things that 10 years before there wasn’t technology for. Right. And so I feel grateful that I came along when I did that, that those things were out there and that I had a chance to learn about them while working for my previous boss, you know, in trying to help his business, you know, I could see what was working, what wasn’t. So, yeah, keep learning. You know, I don’t know. That’s one of the most important things there is in life.

Mike’s Takeaway After 19 Years in Business

Ryan: Yeah. So I got a question for you then. 19 years in business, that’s quite a feat. What’s like, what’s a takeaway, a tip for staying in business that long? What you, what do you have?

Mike: That’s a good question. First, it never shuts off, like you said when you were saying like you’re always, you know, there’s always something on the back of your mind. Yeah, I’m not going to say that I haven’t logged in on Christmas, I have. You know, they’re, you know, it’s just there at the gym or going for a run or something. There’s always thinking like, well maybe we could do this or maybe we should do that. I would say a big part is make sure you have the time. Don’t sacrifice the time with your kids when they’re young. Try to get to their sports and activities when you can. I was fortunate with that, that, you know, again in the prior days like I couldn’t have left the work, you know, I, I would go and see the kids games at 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon on a Tuesday or Wednesday and can come back and work into the evening because a lot of work is done online. You can use email and things like that. You know, I’d say like trying to keep the business going while maintaining like who you and your wife are and staying on top, you know, spending the time you can with the kids because like that time goes by fast. My youngest is now 23 and it’s unbelievable how fast. And our oldest is going to be 29 in a couple months. It’s amazing how fast that time goes. Doesn’t seem like it when you’re in the middle of diapers or kids throwing up and it seems like it goes, but it doesn’t. It goes by fast. So. So try to keep some sort of balance in your life so you can keep going. You know, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. With my background, I would say it’s an Ironman, not a sprint triathlon.

Ryan: Yeah. That’s awesome. Oh, yeah, I did see something you did an Ironman. Good for you. That’s incredible.

Mike: Thanks.

Ryan: Wow. Yeah. But no, that’s wise advice, I think. Definitely enjoy the little ones while they’re growing up. So. Awesome.

Where to Find RD’s Total Lawn

Madison: Awesome. All right, Ryan, one last question for you. Where can our listeners find more information about you and your services?

Ryan: Yeah. Cool. Thanks again for having me on. Really appreciate it. It’s been great. I’d say our website, it’s rdtotallawn.com and then you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all the good stuff, but.

Mike: Awesome. This has been great. Thank you so much.

Ryan: Appreciate it.

Mike: You’re a great guest. Really appreciate it. You’re really good.

Ryan: It’s fun. Appreciate it.

Outro and Credits

Madison: All right, for more information on Yardley Wealth Management or Yardley Estate Planning, you can visit our websites at yardleywealth.net and yardleyestate.net. you can also follow us on socials at Yardley Wealth Management. Don’t forget to smash the like button if you enjoyed this episode, this podcast has been Produced by Madison Demora and Mike Garry with technical and artistic help from Poe Productions.