Hiring your first lawn care employee

Every lawn care owner hits the same wall at ~$150-200K solo revenue: you can't mow more lawns without help, but you can't afford to train someone AND run the route yourself.

Here's the 30-day plan that gets you through it.

Week 1 — Prep before they start

• Post the job on Indeed, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist. Pay $18-22/hour to start. Anything under $16 gets the wrong people.
• Write down every daily task. Every one. "Load mower, fill trimmer line, check trailer tires, inspect blades, review route in app." This becomes their onboarding doc.
• Buy a second commercial mower + trimmer. Duplicate your kit. If they share your gear, one broken belt takes down the whole crew.

Week 2 — Onboarding

• Day 1-3: They shadow you. Watch every mow. No solo work.
• Day 4-5: You watch them mow. Correct in real time.
• Load them into Service Pro Suite as a Technician. They get the mobile app and see their day on their phone. No paper route sheets.
• Cover payroll (Gusto, $40/mo), workers' comp (~$1200/year for lawn care), and drug-free workplace paperwork.

Week 3 — Solo runs on the easy accounts

Assign them the 8-10 accounts closest together, no gates, no dogs, no HOA drama. Track completion time in the app. They should be within 15% of your times by end of week 3.

Week 4 — Full route

Hand them a full 20-lawn day. You take the harder stuff — big properties, HOAs, install jobs. Now you're a 2-crew shop.

The traps to avoid

• Don't hire your buddy unless you're comfortable firing your buddy
• Don't skip workers' comp — one back injury bankrupts you
• Don't pay under the table — one 1099 audit and you owe back-taxes
  • penalties on every payroll you ever ran
• Don't hire on a handshake — I-9, W-4, offer letter with 90-day probation clause. It protects both of you.

The economics

Bad hire: -3 months of your time + $8-12K in wasted wages + a customer you lost = ~$30K real cost. Good hire: 2x your revenue capacity within 6 weeks + your Sundays back.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.