Fedzilla is our name for the growing bureaucratic conglomerate of government agencies, politicians and operatives who attack capitalism, impede free enterprise and think the government is smarter than self-reliant citizens of the USA.
We hang out with small business owners – mostly landscapers – 5 days a week. We live the entrepreneurial dream 7 days a week. There’s rarely a day that goes by without thoughts and effort to figure out how we can get better serving our clients.
Since we see similar efforts from our client base of fellow entrepreneurs, we grow tired of the hogwash, disinformation and mis-guided leadership coming from Washington DC.
If we were sitting down knee to knee… or bellied up to the bar to have a cold one, we’d likely share similar ideas of distrust of that massive creature called Fedzilla. We could moan, groan and complain about politics and government waste as we enjoyed each other’s company. Hold on to this thought for a moment…
Let’s refer to the data we reported on in last-week’s edition of the Wealthy Landscaper Letter. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is ONE small part of Fedzilla. It’s part brain and part bigmouth – collecting data then spewing it out to the citizenry.
Inflation is now running 8.6%, says the BLS.
We’re on the record saying one thing: BS.
Bureaucrats we are not. Are we politically correct? No chance…
However, we are very good at simple math. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division IS the success language of small business owners.
That’s why we are calling out Fedzilla this week. Liar, liar pants on fire!!!
We’ve been carefully calculating how much it costs to purchase, own and operate a lawn or landscape truck for three decades. We won’t bore you with all the details in this essay. But if you want to dive into the details, here’s access to the 2022 lawn truck cost report we published in early November 2021 when we began to warn our brothers & sisters in landscaping of the coming inflationary impact on pricing your work.
Here’s a screenshot of the math equation we created in MS Excel to calculate the cost of your truck to the penny – so YOU can pass that cost along to your clients as you price your jobs.
The blue colored cells are data inputs that change over time. Each and every year, this data must be updated to calculate your current lawn truck costs.
The orange colored cells have math formulas built in so you don’t have to punch a couple of hundred keys on a calculator.
The yellow cells are subtotals from the three areas of cost:
- Acquisition costs
- Ownership costs
- Operational costs
The green cells are TOTALS broken into hourly, annual and monthly costs. If you want to be a Wealthy Landscaper…you gotta know your numbers!
Now let’s look at this data on lawn truck costs from 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Lawn truck costs have increased by 53.2% since 2018 – 4 years.
53.2% divided by 4 years equals 13.3% inflation per year over this 4 year period.
Like we said…you gotta know YOUR numbers if you want to become The Wealthy Landscaper.
Listen carefully…Trucks shouldn’t cost YOU one thin dime! The costs of your trucks should be passed along to your customers just like you would pass along the cost of mulch, flowers or a bag of fertilizer.
As you look at the data chart above, please look at the column labeled “2022 Projected”. We published this in early November of 2021. You can see that we greatly underestimated the cost of gasoline. We were using $3.50/gallon.
We had no idea gasoline would go up to $5/gallon by June of 2022. However…we did a much better job forecasting inflation for 2022 than Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell OR Treasury Secretary Janet Yellan. (We gladly toot our own horn or admit our goof ups.)
The good news is that we’ve been coaching our clients to adjust their equipment hourly rates as fuel prices have climbed up to $5/gallon in 2022. (Our paid up members get updates on pricing and management strategies every two weeks year round.)
Now that inflation has busted into double digits, we fear that our brothers and sisters who provide the valuable and essential services of landscaping may underestimate their costs of doing business. Some landscape contractors incorrectly think they can’t raise lawn maintenance prices during mid-season. Not true!
The circumstances of macro economics in 2022 can’t be ignored. Your costs are going up – up – up. Likely, your costs are going up much more than you realize. You can’t afford to absorb these price increases my friend. Go back and study our charts…or watch the 2022 Truck Cost Guide.
We stand by our numbers. We hope you embrace the idea of “know your numbers”. Do your own math. I hope you see that Fedzilla can’t be trusted to provide reliable forecasts.
Then tell us…
Do you rely on the press release from the BLS to adjust your prices?
Or…
Do you do your own math and come up with your own inflation-pumped figures?
We’d love to hear from you.
Hit reply and share your thoughts.
Profit Greatly,
Tony Bass, founder
866-923-0027
PS – Would you like help understanding YOUR numbers?
We’ve coached over 400 lawn and landscape business owners to become more profitable business owners. We are holding the highly acclaimed Profit Builder training event in August. We have room for 8 companies as of today.
Would you like to join us?
Send an email to tony@tonybassconsulting.com and put “Profit Builder” in the subject line.
We will follow up with you in a few days with all the details.
