6 a.m. Zzzzz … chatter, music, news, blah, blah, blah, crashing through the speakers of the alarm clock … attempt to smash the alarm clock!
6:30 a.m. Coffee, check email, scan social media sites, Google AdWords rank, browse the newspaper, check email again — yes, I have a problem with this.
7:30 a.m. Ride into work, listen to a podcast on sales or nutrition or social media marketing — my three latest obsessions. Sometimes I just listen to loud rock ‘n’ roll music until my ears bleed … depends on my mood.
7:50 a.m. Passing my trucks en route to jobs on my way into the office, wave to the crews. It’s a beautiful thing having good people running the operations side of the business.
8 a.m. Arrive at the office and have more coffee. Meet with vice president of operations for 20 minutes. Get the lowdown on the day ahead — the short version. I don’t need to know every detail; that is why I hired him. One day he asked me if I thought he was not capable of doing his job. I said “No, why do you think that?” He responded, “Then why do you feel the need to be here every day at 7 a.m.? Don’t you think I can handle getting the crews on the road; that’s what you hired me for?” That is why I come in at 8 a.m. now.
9 a.m. My office manager arrives. I am done with my coffee but now she is drinking hers and it smells good, so I want more coffee. Check email. We have specific days and times that we meet to go over the financials, pay bills and review paperwork that I have to sign for various things like business insurance and stuff. She likes to drop the forms on my desk and stand watch as I sign them because she knows how much I hate filling out forms and I have, on occasion, sneaked out of the office to avoid this redundant task.
10 a.m. Consume myself with the latest commercial landscape bid or review my sales log, closing ratios and sales goals for the current week. I am the primary salesperson for the company, so I have to stay on top of this. I send email, make calls and chart out my sales calls for the week. Check email again.
12 noon. Lunch. Meet someone for lunch or fly solo and read about sales, nutrition or social media.
1:30 p.m. Let’s be honest here. Things come up and I usually end up dealing with them in the afternoon. If you have ever been in business for more than two minutes, then you know what I’m talking about. Check email … really I can’t help myself. Don’t you worry, I’ll work on this.
3:30 p.m. Things, things and more things. Check in with vice president of operations. Everything is fine except that one of the crews had a trailer tire fall off. This is why I don’t deal with the day to day anymore.
4 p.m. Try to start wrapping things up. Usually I fail miserably at this and end up with a pile of paper on my desk the size of Manhattan. Wrapping up starts to fall apart because I get a call from an upset customer. Going to have to do some schedule shuffling, meet with vice president of operations, have discussion about customer’s issues, solve the problem.
5 p.m. It’s 5 p.m. already? Where did the day go? Try to wrap it up again and get out of here. Some days it works, some days not so much.
6 p.m. Family time!
7 p.m. Take a run! I have to run as much as possible; it keeps me sane.
8:30 p.m. Some work stuff, internet things to explore, content to create and promotional things for work to do. Get a bit more done, maybe watch a few YouTube videos — Gary Vaynerchuk, Casey Neistat and Rich Roll are my favorites. Check email.
9 p.m. Hang out with family, watch some TV.
10 p.m. Maybe some writing. Depends on my mood. Check email.
11 p.m. Set that damn alarm … Zzzzzzz.
What’s a day in your life as a landscaper look like? Tell us in the comments below.
