The Genius of Mr. Mulch Man
Edition #81 of Earn After Reading
I love writing this weekly newsletter because it truly challenges me to see the storyline in everyday life.
Just when I think to myself,
“Ah, finally, the time has come. I am completely out of storylines. Time to close down shop for the newsletter or write some boring story no one will want to read..”
The universe gives me an unexpected moment or experience, and I see an IRL storyline playing out before me.
(I imagine this is how script writers develop their storylines, how comedians discover a punchline, or how a musician starts feeling the emotions of a new song coming on.)
And like I imagine any creator might experience life... the more you flex your creative muscle, the easier it will be to spot these moments and take note of them in your memory for an idea to be used later.
(like content creation hehe)
This is exactly how I discover the stories to tell in my newsletter every week, and this storyline from last week was clear as day.
It was a beautiful Friday morning in Houston, Texas, and the rumors were true…
“The prairie sky is wide and high…”
Blue skies. Sun shining. Humidity 90%. Texas summer weather is in full swing. Hot. Sticky. Miserable.
But also how I thrive these days–with some solar-powered energy.
It was a good day last Friday because both my children were occupied, which means I got six hours of UNINTERRUPTED work.
A WFH SAHM’s DREAM!!!
(In case you’re not familiar with the acronyms, that’s a work-from-home stay-at-home-moms dream)
I’ve got projects in my pipeline and a list of tasks I’m ready to knock out before I’m OOO for the weekend.
(This is your reminder to set your OOO responder in your email for the weekend 😉)
It’s about noon, and I’m as deep in thought as the Denver Airport backrooms conspiracy when I hear a knock on the door.
My office is on the second level of our home and faces the street, so I can always see whoever is in our front yard, driveway, or the entire culdesac.
(Perfect for catching visitors before they’re here… not perfect for the neighbors who occasionally catch me recording content on my tripod and phone 🤣)
Irritated that I’m broken from my deep focus (brought to me by my favorite lo-fi work beats playlist), I peep through my blinds and see a few men who look like they are doing lawn care approaching mine and my neighbor’s yards.
Speaking of lawn care; want to hear a crazy statistic?
The lawn care industry hit 6.7 MILLION dollars in revenue in TEXAS ALONE in 2023. 🤯
In other words, it’s a very busy and lucrative business. With that being said, we are pretty much solicited by lawn care workers at our door weekly, if not daily.
They are the kind of people who will knock on your door and say, “You should hire me right now because your yard looks like shit,” but in lesser and nicer words.
(In theory, that’s basically what I do in my own business when I say, “You should hire me to build you a CRM, since your client experience sucks.” Lol)
I would love to say I’m a ‘yard & garden’ kind of girly, but I think I’d rather pick up trash on the side of the road than do lawn care 🤣
We pay our lawn guy every week or two for a mow, weed wack, etc. for our front & back yard.
I touch my yard with my own hands approximately three times a year:
In the fall when I put up Halloween decor 👻
At Christmas when we put up Christmas decor 🎄
And about once before summer hits, so we don’t have the ugliest yard on the block ☀️
On this particular day, while our yard was just freshly cut 24-hours before, our garden beds were a poor excuse for a garden bed. More like a bed of weeds complete with last year’s mulch which had essentially been waterboarded for the past 3-months straight. It was looking rough.
When I got to the door to tell the man ‘I already pay Mr. Johnny every week’ and ‘Unless he wants to compete for his price, thank you but we’ll pass…’
I realized the pickup truck attached to his trailer parked on the street wasn’t full of lawnmowers and weed wackers. It was full of mulch.
That thick, hot, smells like manure mulch. Fresh.
(Are you even a Texan if you don’t get aroused by the smell of fresh mulch? 🤣)
It took me less than two seconds to understand what he was about to sell me. And before he could even speak, I said,
“You wanna do the mulch?” 👀
While he blurted an excited “Si,” I noticed in him that familiar feeling when you know a sale is about to go through and you didn’t have to do shit… except carry around some mulch that smells like shit. 🤣
Being the ridiculous negotiator that I am, I followed with “How much?”
The convo went like this:
Mr. Mulch Man: “Ah… pick weeds, mulch, spray beds. $200.”
Me: “…. $150?”
Mr. Mulch Man: “$180?”
Me: “Zelle?”
Mr. Mulch Man “Si”
Me:
I walk away, my head lifted a little higher by the stilts of my * excellent * negotiating skills. I continue my work in my office while I watch him and one other man mulch my yard for about 45 minutes.
Normally, I would’ve thought nothing of a transaction like this. What can I say? I appreciate a good bargain.
And then I realized the storyline!!!!
The perfect, absolutely on-point marketing that just happened in my own front yard (as I’m upstairs making content about business…)
He did exactly what you do when you want to sell 👇
Figure out the problem you can solve: He knows how to mulch quickly & efficiently
Find the people who need this problem solved: Suburban moms with terrible yards who are repulsed by yard work (especially during summer when it’s hot AF)
Meet them where they’re at: literally at her house
Give them an offer they can’t refuse because of what they’ll miss out on if they don’t take it: I can pay $180 for my yard to be mulched and I don’t even have to put a thought into it, or I can sit here and continue to be embarrassed by my weeds & mulch beds for the rest of the summer?
That’s selling.
It didn’t take some kind of massive marketing scheme, or fancy flyers, or an entire Facebook Ads campaign (which are not all bad in and of themselves).
All it took was delivering a specific solution to a problem and making the point of sale so easy and so effortless, all I had to do was walk out my door & nod my head.
Sales really can be that easy.
We get so caught up in the fine details that, to be honest, your ideal customer probably doesn’t even notice and/or care.
Instead of focusing on 1) where can I find them and 2) what’s the easiest way to show them MY SOLUTION is the best fit to solve their problem…
We tend to get lost in the focus on vanity metrics, presentation, and complicated funnels that lose the attention of our audience faster than Mr. Mulch Man revived my yard.
When all it really takes is simplified effort.
Me your customers where they’re at and present your offer as something they can’t refuse.
Who knew a middle-aged stranger knocking on my door would remind me, and you, just how simple sales can be?
Show yourself some love today. You’ve earned it.
As always,
Taylor Hedden
Hi, I'm Taylor Hedden, accidental adulting expert and purveyor of all things unhinged. When I'm not navigating the up’s & down’s of the real world, you can find me dishing out a weekly dose of humor, heart, and a dash of TMI right here in this little corner of the internet.
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