Exploring Life & Business with Mike Mentor of Lawns In Order LLC and Diamond Willow Ice Fishing Lures

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Mentor

Hi Mike , please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started working in the wind turbine industry fresh out of high school and had the opportunity to travel the country building and maintaining wind turbines, about a year into traveling and working my now late mother began to lose her eyesight. She had an incredibly rare eye disease that restricted the blood vessels behind her retina and it wasn’t long before she became legally blind. Coming from an incredibly small town (graduating class of 16 kids) you were either working on a farm, in a factory or something along those line’s. Before my mother lost her eye-sight she pursued her dream of owning a tavern/restaurant which in turn inspired me to start my own business. When I was going I worked for a lawn care company and I enjoyed being outside, never being stuck at the same place all day and the exercise that came with the job. In 2014 I took every penny I had and bought myself a lawn mower and told myself I’m going to go broke trying to make this work. My best quality is persistence and wasn’t going to allow myself to fail. I began going into towns, knocking on peoples doors and practically begging people to let me cut their lawn. I knew if just a few people gave me a chance, in our small community that word would travel fast. I worked full-time for a vintage motorcycle company at the time and we worked monday-thursday which left me Friday Saturday and Sunday to cut lawns. I did this for two years, working as hard as I possibly could trying to gain enough clientele that I could leave the 9-5 cycle and within two years I had enough clients and a boss who started his business from nothing that let me leave my job and pursue my “little American dream”. After leaving a stable job it motivated me even more to work harder and spread the word of my business because I didn’t have a stable paycheck anymore. After a few years of hard work I became affiliated with a non-profit organization called cutting for cancer, where we would service peoples yard who are battling a disease and all we tried to do is give those people one less thing to worry about. In 2019 I won my first award as one of the best lawn care company’s in our county, we also were nominated and made top 3 in 2020,2021,2022 and 2023. In 2021 the huron daily tribune named me number 1 in their “top 20 under 40 years old to watch”. Unfortunately in 2022 I lost my Mother. The only thing I ever wanted was her to be proud of me, growing up she always told me one day I was going to do something special and she told me so often I started to believe it myself. Good things happen to good people who make good decisions was her favor quote and I’ve made it this far because of her and the overhwhelming support of my small community.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My road has been incredibly bumpy. In 2011 I was in a work related accident and unfortunately had to have a finger amputated, it left 20+ inches of titanium rod in my arm, 22 screws, 6 surgery’s and had to have my hand reconstructed. After a year and a half of physical and occupation therapy I was able to regain Most of my mobility in my arm and hands. In 2023 I lost my mother unexpectedly and December 20th of 2024 I lost my father unexpectedly to an aneurysm.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Lawns In Order LLC was founded in 2015. We specialize in weekly maintenance and Ornamental Shrubbery and the shores of the Saginaw Bay. We mostly service cottages and lake houses and we get the best views in the business.

Diamond Willow ice fishing Lures was founded in 2009. We specialize in building custom ice fishing spoons mainly for perch. We are in 30+ locations all over the state of Michigan, Canada, Wisconsin and you can even find our Lures in British Columbia. My Lures are based off tradition when the Russian migrants came to Michigan to work in our sugar beet fields. They were expert fisherman and had their own Lures they brought from home. Diamond willow replicated that style of lure and helped keep the tradition of Russian spoons alive.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
There’s a big push for all electric everything. There’s even autonomous mowers being produced at this moment. There’s also a push for more natural ways of having a lawn. Instead of grass some people are switching to a low maintenance moss, artificial turf and There’s also people replacing their lawns with wildflowers for Bee pollination. Sooner or later we are going to have to adapt to these changes start offering different types of services or get left behind. There’s also a future where the lawn owner could run multiple autonomous mowers at the same time while he monitors their fleet from the comfort of their vehicle and just let the autonomous do their jobs.

Contact Info:

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