I spent a decade watching us lose jobs to voicemail.

I worked in my family's landscaping business from 2013 to 2023.

I wore a lot of hats. Took calls, met with clients, quoted customers, and was out in the field.

Here's the part I couldn't fix while I was in the business.

The phone would ring at 8 in the morning. We'd be out picking up wood, or we'd be out working a job. Nobody could pick up.

And you never know how big a job is until you're doing the actual estimate. Maybe it's a new fence. Maybe it's a new deck. Missed calls usually all look exactly the same.

By the time we called back that evening — sometimes the next day — they'd already gone with someone else. Or they just stopped answering.

They weren't shopping around. They called the next person on Yelp, and that person answered faster.

You're not losing the job on price. You're losing it because you didn't set the estimate fast enough. Because you didn't meet the homeowner sooner.

Every landscaper I know is losing work to this, and almost none of them know what it's costing them. It doesn't show up anywhere. There's no line on your P&L for the person you never met.

So the advice the industry gives you is to buy more leads.

Why would you buy more leads if you're already not getting to the ones who are interested?