I recently sat down with Aaron Huskey, the founder of Husky Turf Solutions, and his story is a great reminder that sometimes the best move in business isn’t adding more. It’s cutting back. Aaron started over 13 years ago mowing lawns with his cousin after a full-time job wasn’t cutting it anymore. Today, he’s running a thriving lawn care and pest treatment company in Oklahoma, on pace to hit $850,000 this year after doing $640,000 last year. And a big part of that growth came from figuring out what to focus on and what to let go of.
The Side Hustle That Became Everything
Aaron’s story starts pretty simply. He and his wife were both working full-time jobs about 13 years ago when they found out they were expecting. That sudden urge to earn more money kicked in, and Aaron partnered up with one of his cousins. They’d go out after work every day mowing lawns, picking up sticks, trimming trees, whatever they could get their hands on.
It didn’t take long for the side hustle to outgrow the full-time job. They were working sun up to sun down, every day, weekends included. Aaron wasn’t burned out because he doesn’t mind working hard. It was more that he couldn’t grow any further while juggling both. Something had to go.
So they pulled the trigger. Quit the full-time jobs and went all in. His cousin stuck around for a couple of years, and then Aaron just kept going on his own.
Reinvesting Everything
Here’s something that stood out to me about Aaron’s early days. For the first three years, they didn’t make any extra money. Everything went right back into the company. New equipment, a new trailer, all the things you need to build a real operation.
A lot of business owners struggle with this. They want to start paying themselves right away. But Aaron understood that better equipment meant faster jobs, which meant more jobs. “I just wanted to have the nicest equipment to be able to do the nicest job and also move faster so that we could do more work,” he told me. A nice zero turn mower, better weed eaters, better edgers and blowers. It all added up.
Growing up in a small town of about 13,000 people helped too. Aaron knew a fair amount of people, and word spread fast. “It’s like, Aaron Huskey’s mowing now, let’s use him.” Combined with door knocking and referrals, the business grew quickly in those early years.
The Pivot That Changed Everything
Around year five, Aaron started getting into lawn treatments and weed control. At first it was scary. He didn’t understand it. But it didn’t take long to figure out, especially with good people around him to learn from. And once he saw what treatments did to the lawns they were already mowing, it was a no brainer.
“The lawns that were treated were so much prettier, easier to mow and maintain, and those customers were the customers that we wanted,” Aaron explained. So they started treating their own customers’ yards. Then they stopped picking up new mowing jobs unless they were also treating the lawn. And eventually, about three years ago, they dropped mowing altogether.
The reason? Mowing was a nightmare to run as a business. The barrier to entry is so low that anyone with a truck and a mower can start doing it. Employee turnover was brutal because it was tough to price jobs high enough to pay good people good money. And it was constantly pulling Aaron’s attention away from the lawn treatment side, which had higher margins and was easier to train people on.
“Spraying lawns is a lot more duplicatable and easier to train. You can get those guys out there making decent money pretty quick,” he said. Cutting mowing was one of the best decisions Aaron ever made.
What He'd Do Differently Starting Over
When I asked Aaron what he’d do if he started over tomorrow, his answer was clear. He’d skip mowing and landscaping entirely and go straight into lawn treatments or pest control.
And he’d be strategic about where he started. “I would pick a market that’s really dense, that has a medium income. I would start in one neighborhood and I would blow that neighborhood up and I would move to the next neighborhood and blow it up,” he told me. By blow it up, he means door knocking every single door in that neighborhood consistently for a year and trying to get at least 30% of the houses signed up before moving on.
It’s a focused, methodical approach. And it makes sense. Instead of spreading yourself thin across a whole area, you dominate one neighborhood at a time. Build that density, get those referrals flowing, and then expand.
The Pink Trucks
One of the things that immediately stands out about Husky Turf Solutions is the color. Everything is pink. The trucks, the shirts, all of it. And it’s working.
Aaron used to run a company called A Cut Above Lawn Service with white trucks and green logos. When they rebranded to Husky Turf Solutions, they wanted to freshen everything up. Aaron’s wife’s favorite color is pink, and he thought, why not? “There’s nobody else in town with pink. Let’s do it.”
The results were immediate. With just two pink trucks on the road, people started calling and saying they saw his trucks everywhere. “How many trucks y’all have? 10? 15 trucks?” Aaron would laugh and tell them they only had two. “We’re just everywhere.”
It’s not just about standing out either. Pink happens to appeal to their target customers, which are mostly women and moms making the purchasing decisions for the household. Kids love pointing out the pink trucks too. Little kids will yell from the back seat, “Look, mommy, pink truck!” That kind of brand recognition is priceless when you’re a small local business.
Facebook Groups Done Right
Aaron joined Pest Control Millionaires about a year ago, and one of the biggest wins from the program has been learning how to actually use Facebook groups for lead generation.
Before the program, they were posting in local groups from the company Facebook page. Two or three posts a week. And it did basically nothing. A couple of friends would like them because they knew Aaron, but that was about it.
Then Jake and Jonas taught them a different approach. Post from a personal profile instead. Keep it simple and not salesy. “Hey, I’m Aaron Huskey. I’m a local lawn care business in the area. We’d love to meet with like-minded people.” No phone number, no hard sell. Just a genuine introduction.
“Man, people hit on that like crazy,” Aaron told me. People would message him directly, he’d point them to the form on his website, and they’d sign up. It’s free, it takes some time, but it works.
The Facebook ads have been even more impressive. In 2024, they sold maybe 10 accounts off Facebook ads. In 2025, they hit 50 to 60. They sold 385 accounts this year compared to 250 the entire year before. And their overall cost per client across all marketing channels came out to about $97. Not bad at all.
Staying in Front of People
Something Aaron said really stuck with me. He was at a gas station about 30 miles from his town, and a stranger recognized him. The guy had seen Aaron jump out of a pink truck wearing a pink shirt and said, “Dude, y’all are blowing it up.”
Aaron played along, acting like he just worked there. But the point is, the consistency was working. They were posting in Facebook groups constantly during their big selling season in March and April, running ads, and showing up everywhere. People didn’t need lawn care right that second, but when they did, Husky Turf Solutions was going to be the first name they thought of.
“If they need us, when they need us, we’re going to be in front of them. So we should get a good chance,” Aaron said. That’s the whole game. You don’t need everyone to become a customer today. You just need to be the name they remember when the time comes.
Growing Into New Markets
Aaron’s already started pushing into a market just south of him with about 98,000 people. It’s dense, there’s money there, and there’s good competition. He sold about 60 accounts there in the first push, which was enough to keep going.
His strategy is simple. Push out a little more each year. Keep doing the same thing that’s working. Stay in front of people, keep the pink trucks rolling, and let the brand recognition do its thing. They’re also pushing into North Oklahoma City this year.
And hiring? Aaron’s gotten slower and slower to hire and faster and faster to fire. Back in the mowing days, they’d hire on the spot just to fill a truck. Now he’s much more intentional about who he brings on board.
What's Next
When I asked Aaron about the future, he kept it straightforward. He enjoys what he does, he enjoys growing, and he enjoys hiring and training and employing people. He’s not looking to sell. He just wants to see how big he can make it.
They’re planning to bring on general pest control services in the next year or two, which will add another revenue stream on top of the lawn treatments and perimeter pest services they’re already running. And with the momentum they’ve built, the brand recognition they’ve earned, and the systems they’ve put in place, the sky really is the limit.
Key Takeaways
Aaron’s journey has some really valuable lessons for anyone in this space. First, reinvest early. Aaron put everything back into the business for the first three years. That foundation is what allowed everything else to grow.
Second, know when to cut something. Mowing was holding Aaron back. The margins were thin, the turnover was brutal, and it was stealing his focus from the higher value side of the business. Letting it go was one of the smartest moves he made.
Third, stay focused on one thing. Aaron’s message to other business owners was blunt and honest. “Stop looking at all the shiny stuff around you that you could make money at. Focus on one thing, do it well, and show up every day and try to be 1% better every day. That’s it. That’s success.”
Fourth, brand recognition compounds over time. The pink trucks, the consistent Facebook presence, the posting in local groups. None of it works overnight. But when you stack it up day after day, month after month, you become the name people think of first.
And finally, be yourself, not your company. The Facebook group strategy didn’t work when Aaron posted from a company page. It worked when he posted as Aaron Huskey, a real person in the community. People connect with people, not logos.
From side hustling lawns with his cousin to running an $850K lawn care and pest treatment business, Aaron’s story is proof that focus, patience, and showing up every single day can build something really special.
Want to connect with Aaron? You can find him on Facebook. Just search Aaron John Huskey and send him a friend request. He’s happy to connect with anyone in the industry. And if you’re looking for the same kind of support and systems that helped Aaron scale so fast, that’s exactly what we’ve built with Pest Control Millionaires.
