I Wouldn't Touch This Job With A 10-Foot Pole (Why I Wouldn't Bid This Client's Project)

I get a lot of grief from viewers (even other lawn care guys) when I document business decisions that turn down work or value time over money. This is just the way I run my business, I will never sacrifice my sanity or tangle with a stressful situation for a couple bucks. I don't the money that bad and it is rarely worth it. I also get that is a very privileged position to be in that I don't take for granted.
I can anticipate a lot of comments calling me lazy or having a bad work ethic. Generally these people are NOT business owners themselves. Many are young kids or lawn care employees and the majority are just employees in other lines of work. They view the decision to decline work through the lens of 'If I ever did that, I would get fired', and they might be right.
The vast majority of commenters on these kind of videos who say 'Yeah, I get this 100%' identify themselves as business owners of some sort. This has led me to the conclusion that the way business owners view work and the way employees view work are WORLDS apart, and the decisions made by one rarely make sense to the other when viewed outside of the context of the one making the decision.
But that isn't a hard and fast rule, since I also have had other lawn care business owners give me friendly grief because I gave up $100 for multiple hours of my time or refuse to remove a gate hinge due to liability or pass on a job because there is too much string trimming, so the moral of the story is I don't really know anything when it comes down to it.
Q: You should have taken the job. Money is money.
A: I get what you are saying, but no, that is not the way I view it. Would you do 1 minute of work for $10? Most of us would say yes. Would you do 100 minutes of work for $10? Far fewer would still say yes. Everyone has a sliding scale of what they will do for money and it all depends on their circumstances and values.
Q: It was perfectly sunny, you could have mowed it right then.
A: Unfortunately, weather is only half of it. Grounds conditions are the other part, and if the ground is too wet from previous rains, it doesn't matter the current weather is good, you have to wait for the lawn to dry out (unless you don't care about marks, ruts, or damaging the lawn).
Q: You should have hustled and just got it done.
A: I discussed all the reasons I didn't do that in the video.
Q: You aren't a real lawn care guy. If you were you wouldn't turn down work.
A: Another viewpoint I have had expressed from folks I knew personally, and I get it. I am mainly a stay at home dad that mows a three days a week and makes KZbin videos. That discounts my credibility when it comes to explaining my business decisions to a lot of folks as they reason a 'real' lawn care company wouldn't make that same decision. But again the truth is THEY wouldn't make that same decision, based on their circumstances and values.
Q: Some other variant of 'You made the wrong choice'.
A: If you haven't had your question answered in the video or comments above, I don't think you really want to understand my point of view (which is fine), but I can't really think of any other way to explain it. I do appreciate you watching and commenting, though!
Q: Why aren't you responding to every comment anymore?
A: Responding to comments was something that took ~1-2 hours every day. I normally did this during the early morning or late night hours, but it was really taxing on my mental health as well as cutting into the few hours of time I could spend with my wife without distractions, so I made the decision to stop. The other consideration is that with the continued growth of the channel I am at the point where I was struggling to keep up. Just to put things in perspective, in a rolling 28 day period in October, I received over 2,800 comments, or roughly 100 a day. I anticipate that number will only increase as things continue.
The products I use: www.amazon.com...
Copper Creek Cuts is a lawn care and landscaping business in Florida with a goal to entertain and educate.
Contact me: [e-mail]