Returning to residential

Last time we checked in with Gabe Labato, he was going to meet with the new property manager of his lone commercial property. Unfortunately, the property manager decided to go in another direction and find a new landscaper, leaving Lobato, who was already skeptical about commercial work, even more so.

So, he will focus on residential work in 2019, which has been doing well. Looking back on the year, the Turnaround Tour experience didn’t go the way he imagined.

“All it does is reaffirm why I gave up pursuing this market a few years back, because the whole situation (with commercial work) is that clients prefer their own vendors and you just really don’t have much opportunities unless you are already in with them,” he says. 

Lobato does feel more confident about figuring out his hourly average wage (HAW). He is in the process of implementing that for his residential maintenance accounts in order to figure out the cost of jobs on a daily and weekly basis.

While he won’t hit his goal of $1 million at the end of 2018, he thinks he can hit his goal by the end of 2019. He had wanted to sell the company in the near future, but now is reassessing that plan. 

“My goal is probably in the next three to five years to be able to step aside and do something else but continue to own it and oversee it, but not be in it as much as I am at this point in time,” he says.