Kirk Slack of Wellspring Landscape Services | Ep 18

Speaker A

00:00:00.800 - 00:02:02.160

This is episode 18 in the first episode of the Business Owner series, where I do a Bottleneck Breakthrough session with an owner, live and unedited for you to see some of the process I go through every time with a new client. This is the Bottleneck Breakthrough podcast.

I'm Josh Long, and this is all about helping you find and fix the biggest challenges in your business to unlock growth and profits. Hey. Hey. Glad to have you here. I'm trying something new with the podcast.

I've got a guest here that's brand new, and what we're gonna do is dig into his business today. I'll introduce him in just a second. But I've been having.

I've had so many friends over the years say, Josh, you should have business owners on and dig into their business and do a Bottleneck Breakthrough session with them. And.

And I've always been afraid that business owners wouldn't want to be that transparent and wouldn't want to air their dirty laundry, so to speak, because it's not that I dig into such horrible stuff or reveal such bad things about them, but business ownership's a messy thing, and there's a lot of emotions in it. There's a lot of private stuff. And lo and behold, my buddy Perry Marshall challenged me. He said, I dare you to try it and see who shows up.

And I've got the first victim here. Kirk Slack. He's the owner of Wellspring Landscape Services in Texas, and we're going to dig into his business.

I'm going to let him introduce himself a little bit.

We came across each other through his membership with a company called Service Autopilot, and my good friend, now the owner of that, Jonathan Patochnik, I spoke at their conference in November of 19, and they've got a great community. I really love the guys there and the community and the vibe, and they've got great businesses.

And so we're going to dig into his landscape business today. So, Kurt, happy to have you here. Thanks for being the first victim.

Speaker B

00:02:02.320 - 00:02:06.240

Hey, man, I appreciate it. I'm honored. I'm always excited to do this kind of stuff.

Speaker A

00:02:06.400 - 00:02:13.440

Yeah, that's great. So tell us a little bit about Wellspring and how long you've had it, kind of what the mix of business you guys do and catch us up.

Speaker B

00:02:13.520 - 00:02:36.790

Yeah, absolutely. So we're in Austin, Texas. I started the company legally. I started it about 12 years ago because of personal issues I don't need to go into then.

I really started working the company about 10 years ago. Okay. So we've been around about 10 years, give or take. We don't service all of Austin. We're mainly stay kind of south and southwest, as you.

Speaker A

00:02:36.790 - 00:02:38.910

Not south by southwest, just south.

Speaker B

00:02:39.390 - 00:03:01.920

That's too far north. No, we got south and southwest. We go out to some of the suburbs out there, like Lake Way and Westlake and things like that.

So as you probably heard, you know, it seems like every publication these days, Austin's like on the number one of every number one list. Yeah, we got.

Speaker A

00:03:01.920 - 00:03:05.440

You know, all these stupid Californians are moving down.

Speaker B

00:03:05.440 - 00:03:10.800

Oh, man. I tell you what. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Most of our clients seem like her from new ones are from California, but.

Speaker A

00:03:11.760 - 00:03:14.400

Californians don't like mowing lawns. They don't like.

Speaker B

00:03:15.440 - 00:03:34.740

Well, yeah, I probably shouldn't say this, but they want it to be California here, and it's not. It's not. So there's a huge educational process that comes with home ownership in central Texas as opposed to California.

So that's it when it is what it is. Most of them have been super, super nice. I think they're super excited to be in Austin.

Speaker A

00:03:34.740 - 00:03:36.980

I know I live in California, so I can beat up on us.

Speaker B

00:03:36.980 - 00:03:41.180

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why you left Hawaii, but we saved that conversation for another day.

Speaker A

00:03:41.900 - 00:03:51.670

Yeah, I jumped from the frying pan into the fryer politically, but yep, we're back with great friends. So that was. That was the big move. And who knows where we'll end up long term.

Speaker B

00:03:51.670 - 00:03:54.430

But Austin's awesome, man. If you ever want to come here.

Speaker A

00:03:54.430 - 00:04:06.190

I know I have so many friends that move there. I've got a client that I'm working with there. They love it. So, yeah, it seems like a great place.

I've got a good friend in Fredericksburg you had offered to help out at one point.

Speaker B

00:04:06.350 - 00:04:07.150

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

00:04:07.310 - 00:04:17.720

He ended up getting a great banking gig, so landed in a great spot, and it moved up quite a bit for him. So, yeah, it seems like everybody in that area is fantastic.

Speaker B

00:04:18.040 - 00:04:41.760

It is. It's a fun place to live. You know, Covid aside, I haven't seen live music in a year, and that's a bummer. So some of the.

Some of the super attractive parts about Austin are. Are kind of gone right now, but they should be back soon, hopefully. Yeah, but we do mostly we have kind of, you know, like, a lot of companies.

We started off, you know, what I call it, is kind of the prostitute stage.

Speaker A

00:04:41.760 - 00:04:41.960

Right.

Speaker B

00:04:41.960 - 00:04:57.890

Where you do anything for anybody to make some money. And. And. But now we've really kind of fine tuned It.

So we do a lot more residential maintenance and then we do softscape enhancement work, landscape work for our lawn or maintenance clients.

Speaker A

00:04:59.010 - 00:05:02.170

And what is softscape for the average Joe out there? What is that?

Speaker B

00:05:02.170 - 00:05:12.530

Yeah, so we don't do construction work. We're not building pools or outdoor kitchens. We do a lot of planting, we create beds, we plant a lot. Mulch, prune.

Speaker A

00:05:13.080 - 00:05:16.040

Do you guys do any pavers or anything like that? Does that qualify that?

Speaker B

00:05:16.200 - 00:05:23.160

No. I have a week for. We're debating whether or not much of landscape we're really going to stay in at this point.

Speaker A

00:05:23.160 - 00:05:30.760

Yeah, it's such a different business for you guys because it's one off. It's quoted, it's time and materials.

Speaker B

00:05:31.160 - 00:05:32.200

It's a lot of time.

Speaker A

00:05:32.200 - 00:05:48.500

It's a lot of time. And then if you don't have that sales driver that's leading it and project manager that can run it, it pulls so much of your time as the expert.

Right. And then. And it pulls you away from the opportunity cost of growing your recurring business. Right?

Speaker B

00:05:48.500 - 00:06:00.980

Yep, yep, yep.

It's funny you can't see, but on the side of my screen is a huge whiteboard and it, and it lists everything you just said, like why should we do this? Why should we not do this? So that's good.

Speaker A

00:06:00.980 - 00:06:50.010

You have a, you have a reminder because like you said, so many small business owners, I mean starting out as a prostitute type business, that's a funny one. I'm actually stealing, so I've never heard that one before but. And all service businesses suffer from that, even product based businesses.

But anyway, the owner has to bootstrap from the ground up. So they just get used to doing everything.

But as the business grows and as you guys have crossed that million dollar mark, it requires a different version of you to lead it.

And now it's that how do you get into that thousand dollar an hour work for you to work on as opposed to a hundred dollars an hour work if you're out in the field quoting stuff or closing stuff or project managing or putting out fires and, or putting out fires starts getting down in the $10 an hour work.

Speaker B

00:06:50.090 - 00:06:50.490

Right.

Speaker A

00:06:51.050 - 00:07:10.380

So yeah, that's great. It's the opportunity cost.

And I think so many business owners, the small business owners don't realize that transition as it happens and so they spend time just frittering away their day and nothing material gets done. So tell us where you're at size wise and we can dig into some of your bottlenecks.

Speaker B

00:07:10.540 - 00:07:23.260

Yeah. So income wise we're at about 1.6 million.

Historically, we kind of got stuck at the million dollar mark for a couple of years and we kind of bounced between a million and a million too.

Speaker A

00:07:23.500 - 00:07:29.620

Now I know your mom may say you're unique, but I guarantee that's so normal. Everybody I deal with gets stuck around.

Speaker B

00:07:29.620 - 00:07:31.970

There and handsome and smart and all that stuff.

Speaker A

00:07:31.970 - 00:07:47.970

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you are handsome, smart, but you're not unique in that because it's just normal. That million dollar threshold is really what separates the men from the boys and the big, bigger businesses from the small people that own a job.

Speaker B

00:07:48.450 - 00:08:11.640

Yep, yep, absolutely. So now, so now we've, we've, we've. We kind of jumped to the one and a half million mark last year.

We were really hoping to grow closer to 2 million and we were off really, really strong last year and unfortunately with COVID you know, and then it became, you know, there's so much uncertainty in the spring and then, and then we.

Speaker A

00:08:11.640 - 00:08:14.120

What's your guys seasonality? Do you have a winter season?

Speaker B

00:08:14.520 - 00:08:22.920

Yeah, we do. Like, it's funny, I'm sitting here right now and we have a cold front coming in, so everybody's freaking out.

It's supposed to get down in the teens, which almost never does here.

Speaker A

00:08:23.510 - 00:08:23.750

Right.

Speaker B

00:08:24.230 - 00:08:32.230

So, but we, so we go, we move full time through November and then we go to a reduced schedule. December, January, February, and then we're back to full time March 1st.

Speaker A

00:08:32.630 - 00:08:36.070

Oh, man. And did you guys have a late season start last year?

Speaker B

00:08:36.550 - 00:08:43.590

No, we started real early last year. We were off just gangbusters last year until about middle of March.

Speaker A

00:08:44.150 - 00:09:54.010

Yeah, right. I mean, it's so easy to remember for me because that was a Friday the 13th in March.

It just, it was the worst horror story of the year is when, when all this locked down and we were in Hawaii and I remember my cousin, she and her family were stuck in Vietnam. They were missionaries in India and they needed to go out for a while to clear their visa time and stuff.

And they traveled I think on March 6th and we're talking on March 11th and they're like, we can't get back into India. And I'm like, if you can get to Hawaii, you got a place to stay and just waited a day or two and then everything shut down that Friday the 13th.

So yeah, that instability, I tell everybody last year that it started out with so much uncertainty that. And it's continued in a lot of places like California and New York and Illinois where the governors are crazy.

But it's like living in a third world country when the sand is shifting under your feet and you have no certainty of what to do, where to move, what to pivot. And so, yeah, you definitely talk us through that. What was that like for you? What was the net result for growth and transition.

Speaker B

00:09:55.770 - 00:10:08.330

As we were talking about earlier? You know, I'm in the academy, the service autopilot academy.

And so we have a group of us that's about a hundred of us and we get together and we speak frequently. As a matter of fact, next week we're all meeting in Utah Park.

Speaker A

00:10:08.890 - 00:10:09.370

Awesome.

Speaker B

00:10:09.610 - 00:10:32.620

Yeah. Anyway, so we all talked and we had kind of emergency meetings. Right.

And brought in a consultant in this and Patosnik talked and we all thought at the time that mowing would probably just keep going along and then the landscape work would just kind of dry out. I thought, well, the markets are going to crash, everybody's going to hold onto their cash, Nobody's going to spend anything. They're going to.

Speaker A

00:10:32.620 - 00:10:40.980

That's what all of us thought. There's no reason. I mean, when you grind the economy to a screeching halt, you assume people are going to hold onto their money.

Speaker B

00:10:41.860 - 00:10:56.070

And then what did they do? They stayed home and started spending money left and right.

So the landscape business, which we weren't, of course we couldn't have predicted this, but we weren't prepared to roll out for the reasons you just mentioned.

Speaker A

00:10:56.070 - 00:10:56.270

Right.

Speaker B

00:10:56.270 - 00:12:17.170

It takes certain expertise to bid it, to sell it, to design it, to manage the job. We just didn't have the people in place to grow that landscape business like we could have if we had known this was coming. But we did.

Well, our landscape revenue was up and then our maintenance revenue was up until about probably June, about time school let out. And then people realized, hey, my teenager's not going back to school, we're not going on vacation, everybody's sitting around the house.

Well, they started buying up lawnmowers like there's no tomorrow. So then people started mowing their own lawns. Yeah.

And so our suppliers, where we get our mowers and our mowing equipment, all, they were sold out constantly. They constantly had to resupply. And so anyways, so about August and our mowing revenue started to dip, our landscape revenue started to dip.

So by mid year we were doing really, really well, revenue wise. By the fall we were kind of just going, well, we hope we can hang on to what we got.

And so we ended up a little up for the year, but certainly not what we had projected and not how the year started, but all in ill. I mean, all in all our net net profits were up or gross revenues were up. And you know, I'll take that as a win for.

Speaker A

00:12:17.250 - 00:12:58.720

Yeah, yeah. What's your, what's your ultimate goal for the company? And I'll lead you down a path.

There's only two real answers in my opinion, to turn it into a cash cow. Get it to some nominal revenue that you can build some more management and layers, give you more time off.

Or build it to be an acquisition target that can be acquired for some exit of multiple.

And I know your industry doesn't have high multiples for exits, but if you get it to a high enough revenue, like 10 million plus, then you're walking away with a substantial amount of cash, even though the multiple isn't really high.

Speaker B

00:12:59.120 - 00:13:57.170

Right, right. Yeah. So, yeah. So definitely I want to build it, hold it long term and, and then get to where someone else is managing it.

And then I get to go do either other investments, more volunteer work, travel, things like that, and then the company just goes on perpetually. If my son wants to take it over, then he can do that. If not, we'll worry about it when I'm dead or whatever. And that's awesome. But I also want.

Talking about multiples. What I'm also looking at too is, is, you know, you get into something like fertilization, weed control, pest control, some other things.

Higher profit margins, more subscription based. Yeah. And then more of a higher multiples for the value. So that's a big direction I'm looking at right now.

And that's a big part of my bottleneck, which I'm sure we'll get to.

Speaker A

00:13:57.170 - 00:14:36.070

Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that. So good. So my goal then is to set your sites at around 2 and a half million as the first watermark for being a real cash cow.

I know you know your numbers and you add some fertilization, weed control, and you get to that two and a half million mark and you've got some good margin, you've got some good buffer. And yeah. So that I would say that's the goal that we talk around the rest of this conversation about, of how to get you there.

And so talking about fertilization, weed control. Tell me about that. How big is your client base? What's your licensing in the state? I don't know anything about that In Texas.

Speaker B

00:14:36.710 - 00:14:52.950

Yeah. So right now we actually sub it all out to a, to a highly respected company here. It's worked out really well for us.

And the main reason why we've never brought it in house is because I'm too busy doing everything else than, you know, to go out getting the license is not difficult.

Speaker A

00:14:53.510 - 00:14:54.830

It's just effort. It's just.

Speaker B

00:14:54.830 - 00:15:22.240

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's. You got to take the test. You got to jump through some hurdles, which is good, you know, and then.

And then hire someone who has experience to come in and start, you know, start being your first applicator or whatever, your first tech, and then grow from there. So right now we've been comfortable. We have pretty good profit margins on subbing it out.

The bottleneck there or the kind of challenge there is, it's hard to grow it when it's not yours, right?

Speaker A

00:15:22.400 - 00:15:49.540

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, because you're just. You're just mailing out a dollar bill with every client you hand over to them. I mean, that's essentially it.

I mean, you're keeping good margins, but grow it. And then, gosh, now we can't. How do we transition all of this over and do. You've been burning that bridge when you do that, right?

I mean, you got that relational dynamic because it seems like they're a good partner and you don't want to. How big are they? Are they bigger than you or are they smaller?

Speaker B

00:15:49.540 - 00:15:59.040

Oh, they're huge. Yeah. This guy. They've grown just exponentially. I think they're in multiple cities now.

I'm sure there's somewhere between, I would guess, 6 and 10 million.

Speaker A

00:15:59.200 - 00:15:59.560

Sure.

Speaker B

00:15:59.560 - 00:16:01.040

They've done really, really well.

Speaker A

00:16:01.360 - 00:16:38.160

Yeah. The only reason I ask is a lot of times they can be smaller and just acquire them could be the play as a potential. But.

Yeah, so you've got a lot of dynamics here to factor in because.

And this is where, like when you're at that million dollar mark, it's a common thing that the owner doesn't close much more business because they know that just means they're gonna have more headache to manage on the fulfillment side because they don't have the fulfillment dialed in.

And so here I'm guessing you're probably throttling yourself on growing the fertilization weed control, because you're like, well, if we get it much bigger, then how do we ever disconnect from subbing it out?

Speaker B

00:16:38.480 - 00:17:16.709

You know, not so much on the fertilization weed control, because there's almost no effort on our part to manage it. You know, we invoice and things like that. But so we can actually grow that.

And we have other subs too, that our goal is to double the revenue this year for our subs because it's just Easy money. It's just low hanging fruit. The biggest. But we talking about kind of throttling back. That's definitely happened. And just.

I'll be brutally honest with you. I mean, I don't.

People judge me all they want, but I think there's a fear that we're going to oversell and not be able to get the work done because the labor market is so freaking tight. Oh my God.

Speaker A

00:17:16.709 - 00:17:19.949

Well, I know. And there's no judgment. Nobody's going to judge you for anything.

Speaker B

00:17:20.029 - 00:17:20.749

Somebody will.

Speaker A

00:17:21.469 - 00:18:49.470

This is all. Yeah. Somebody who's sitting at home armchair quarterback and how to run a business.

No, there's no judgment on any of this because it's reality and this is getting into the psychology of what's really underlying there. Right. So you brought up something that's very real of, okay, if we go close a lot and we get more business, can these partners staff up to meet it?

And for those that aren't in the labor industry, for your space, I thought I would have bet 10 grand that the labor pool was going to be right for the picking after Covid hit last year because all these companies were going out, everybody's laying off. I had no way to predict that the government was gonna pay people more to sit on their ass and do nothing, man. I mean, now look, I'm not.

I won't put on my tinfoil hats because I've got a lot of them. They're all stacked up right here.

And I'm sure you see you like a lot of my posts on Facebook, how tight that tinfoil gets wrapped around my head sometimes.

But man, it's hard to not look at just the any kind of state supported agenda for those low, low skill, low wage employees to just sit on their ass and do nothing and get used to it. I mean we see it in the, we see it at the national parks. Don't feed the bears because then they get used to us giving them handouts.

Speaker B

00:18:49.470 - 00:18:50.390

That's a great example.

Speaker A

00:18:50.550 - 00:20:34.950

They're just doing it to the labor pool right now. And so I know guys, Corey and Reno and Josh. Yep.

Up in Illinois, we're clients all last year and we were doing everything we could to recruit and it becomes the solution. And I saw this before COVID hit for your guys industry. You guys do such a good job.

You're in an industry where there's not a lot of innovation when it comes to marketing and getting clients.

It's not a cutthroat industry like maybe the cell phone industry of manufacturers that Samsung and Apple have to just spend billions of dollars advertising to get the next customers, or Verizon and AT&T over cell phone service or TVs or whatever, where there's just this always this push for innovation. You guys are actually in very basic industries, so you do some decent marketing and you get good reviews, and you have no problem getting customers.

It's a trust thing. Right. And you've got a track record, and, I mean, you've got the service autopilot, biggest badass banner in the background there.

I mean, it shows how thorough you are just in your business and keeping your word and all that stuff. So I've always felt that the solution is put all the marketing effort into recruiting, because selling.

And Josh Robertson, he did this a year and a half ago.

He had a Christmas party, and a little over a year ago, and he just had a video camera set up for people to just talk about their testimony of working with him.

And I think he gave like, some $10 Starbucks card or something, and he ended up having to pull cash out of his wallet because everybody got up and shot a video because they love working for him.

Speaker B

00:20:34.950 - 00:20:35.550

That's awesome.

Speaker A

00:20:35.550 - 00:21:32.650

I'm like, man, that's a big asset.

Like, there's a lot of shitty businesses out there that people hate working at, and they're good employees, but they don't know what they don't know, and they don't know how to find another job, and they think they're just jumping from one frying pan into the next fryer and all this stuff. So I really think that is the big leveraged opportunity for guys like you, is to spend some time, and we can outline what that looks like.

I've given Jonathan the whole outline before of what I think it would. Would take to do it. But I think that that's a really good point of the.

That the labor market's tight and so you're gonna have to swipe people from other companies. And thankfully, there's a lot of bad companies out there still employing people that people don't want to work at. So.

But, yeah, that was a big surprise for me last year was I did not expect our federal government to disincentivize people from working.

Speaker B

00:21:33.130 - 00:22:08.290

Yeah. And, yeah, I'm with you, man. I try not to let myself ask, why are they doing this? Because common sense tells you it goes nowhere good. Yeah.

You don't pay someone more than. My niece was a great example. She got laid off, and she was like, I make more money I've ever made in my entire life.

Not working I mean, significantly more.

And it's like, you would think that our leaders would say, hey, we should put a cap on this or something, because we're just, you know, we're heavily incentivizing people not to work. So whatever. I try not to think about it.

Speaker A

00:22:08.290 - 00:22:09.610

Past that, but that was huge.

Speaker B

00:22:09.610 - 00:22:13.210

I mean, you can find anybody to come work for us.

Speaker A

00:22:13.370 - 00:22:27.250

No, and everything that, when you do open your eyes and do ask those questions, it all starts rhyming with or just sounds like stuff Karl Marx talks about. And it just, there's, there's no good path from my perspective down.

Speaker B

00:22:27.250 - 00:22:29.210

There's not. There's really not.

Speaker A

00:22:29.210 - 00:23:01.410

So. So, yeah. And I, I mean, they keep kicking the can down the road and extending benefits and more, printing more money.

So it makes it harder for guys like you to find the labor pool because, and I'll be transparent for you that for people that don't deal with that level of employee, I mean, these are above minimum wage workers, but not far. And there's a lot of turnover. What do you find for you in the last couple years? What's your typical turnover?

How many guys are you losing or change in a year?

Speaker B

00:23:01.690 - 00:23:31.330

Oh, my gosh. I kind of view it in two buckets, right? We have the bucket of the people who are here. They're solid, they've been here a long time.

They're going to be here a long time. But even in that bucket, we probably still have, you know, maybe 10% turnover.

But, but, but if you talk about new hires, we may run through 100 people. You know, you know, we had a, we, we had a girl we hired the other day and she lasted three days. No call, no show, never heard from her since.

Speaker A

00:23:33.330 - 00:23:39.850

And it's just the nature of that place in the marketplace. And it's not a judgment. It's not just. It is what it is.

Speaker B

00:23:39.850 - 00:23:41.090

It is what it is. Yeah.

Speaker A

00:23:41.810 - 00:25:15.090

And so I think that's where it seems like overkill to go through what I'm going to outline for you. But I think it's such an asset. And as the labor pool gets tighter and tighter or whatever, government programs come out to pay people not to work.

I mean, Universal Basic income has been on the docket for a decade now, and they just keep wanting to shove that down our throats. And so I think this framework that I'm going to outline is you don't have to do it all at once, but if you chip away at it.

And I think the first part is get some testimonials of your staff, get some Videos of just what's it been like working here? What kind of boss do you think Kirk is? And. And then you can make it fun or lighthearted, whatever your culture is.

Like, I always like saying have somebody interview them and not have you there. So when they say what's it like working with Kirk?

And say you can tell the truth, you won't get fired or something like that, I mean, like, just keep it light hearted that somebody watching, that's like, wow, they really do respect him. They really do like him. He's a balanced guy.

And I mean, Josh and Corey and everybody in Academy, everybody in service autopilot world, they're just great people. And that bleeds down from Jonathan as the head. I say the old Chinese proverb that the fish stinks from the head down.

And Jonathan builds great companies and attracts great people and everybody else that follows suit is great. So it's a great culture and I don't have to step inside your shop to know exactly what it's like.

Speaker B

00:25:15.980 - 00:25:43.100

Yeah, yeah. There's so much I want to do too, where we've worked so hard on company culture and it's tangible results.

I mean, it really was nice until Covid hit and then, and then a lot of things kind of fell through the cracks, but we're picking it back up and you know, it's huge because we're a small company, we can't do match your 401k and the best insurance on the planet. And you know, we just, we can only do what we try to do is provide a really, really nice place to work.

Speaker A

00:25:43.220 - 00:27:01.620

You know, one thing Josh did last year, he loves smoking meats like the guy smoking fiend. And I enjoy it. So we swap recipes and swap challenges and whatever.

But he just started doing, I think he did it two or three times a Friday afternoon, smoke out and got him off early and got him back and had a couple hundred dollars worth of brisket or ribs or something. And that just goes so far for those staff. They love it. I mean, they really love it.

And they can't always do it on a Friday afternoon because of timing and weather and whatever. But I said, let's pick the best weather weeks that you can think of in the year.

And then when you can't do that on alternate times, do a breakfast and he makes these great smoked, I think it's smoked bacon breakfast burritos. And he just does it, gets there early, does it in the morning and they get started and send off their day with something that.

And again, if you look at it from a HR perspective or big corporate thing, like, it's not going to, you're not going to get any write ups in the Harvard Business Review over this stuff. But the meaning of the, how meaningful it is for those employees to have something like that make their day. Yeah, Excuse me.

Speaker B

00:27:04.020 - 00:27:46.450

No, I agree. Sometimes it's the little things. And we've, we've done some testimonial stuff in the past. We need to do more.

And as a matter of fact, it's, it's supposed to be really cold and rainy tomorrow. So we're, we're doing a half day training with the whole group. We're bringing in food in the whole nine yards.

And one of the things, we're doing a survey, a employee survey for them so we get some feedback from them. Yeah. You know, and, you know, a guy came to the other day and he said, said, you know, can we put a coffee maker in our shop?

And we have some limitations in our shop. Like we don't really have access to water there. It's kind of a weird setup, but I'm like, yeah, absolutely, we can figure that out.

I mean, it's a coffee maker, I don't care. You know, of course we can do that.

Speaker A

00:27:46.450 - 00:31:51.010

Right? No, I think that's great. And just being willing to hear them out is so great.

I think people love the connection you make just from giving them a chance to voice their needs. Yeah, I had a gal when I was at service, autopilot's conference.

She came up to me and we were talking through some of this retention and she does housekeeping, house cleaning type stuff and she's got a lot of Hispanic female workers.

And she said, I sat down with them and because she had heard me a year earlier on one of the Academy podcast or webinars and I had said something along these lines of just ask them what they want. And she took it a little too far of, tell me your vision. What's your biggest goals and dreams? And like these women are like, what's the trick?

Is there a trick question here? Like, nobody asks me that. Like, it was too far out. It was just too far down the road for them.

And they're like, I just need to get my kid some medicine because he's sick right now. Like, can you help me with that? Like, I mean, and she's like, she just.

And this is where us as owners who live a completely different life, we're in a different strata of society. We can't project what we want on them. We got to figure out what they want and give them.

And I think that's where an old consultant and professor I knew, Tony Alessandra, he had the platinum rule, which the golden rule says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And he took it another level and he says, do unto others as they would want you to do unto them. So, like, give them what they want and that's it.

So I love that you're doing that tomorrow. So starting with the testimonial videos, and they could be choppy. They don't. They do them on your phone.

Like, they do not need to be high production quality. Like, this is. We're not winning any Emmy awards with this stuff. So. And it can. And if they stutter and say that's fine.

Like if they laugh at the beginning because they feel awkward, that's fine. Like it's. It's just getting started.

And so having a jobs page on your website where somebody can go and they can see these videos and hear directly from employees say, yeah, I've been working for Kirk for five years.

I mean, that's a huge milestone for people in that industry in that space is if you've got a guy in one of your crews and he's been there for five years or something. These guys, so many of them bounce around from job to job because it's just such a horrible environment for them or so frustrating or whatever.

So that, that's a big one. And then I think building a bench.

So Corey and I have talked about this, that building a bench of potential hires that you may not hire today, but you might hire them in six weeks, you might hire them in six months, you might hire them in a year.

And so making text message or email opt in that has a form that says, hey, if you're interested in just staying in touch with us, it may not be the right time for you, it may not be the right time for us. But sign up here, text this number to this whatever, or set up your email if they'll use email.

And then that way you've just got a little list building of this bench. And then you just send out a blast anytime you see it coming, that you're going to need people.

And then that way you're not reacting to, oh, crap, so, and so no call, no showed for the third day in a row, they're gone. I need somebody to fill in. It removes that. So I mean, that'll always happen still.

But the way it removes it is once you have that bench, then you can start going through and I say grade everybody on an A through F scale or a 1 through 10 scale and just start proactively replacing the bottom ones. And Corey did that. Corey, now Jonathan and I have talked a lot about this with Corey.

He's just too nice of a guy, too empathetic, gives too many chances. I mean, he's got the biggest heart.

Speaker B

00:31:51.250 - 00:31:51.730

Yeah.

Speaker A

00:31:52.370 - 00:32:51.630

But he gets abused by it. And so we did this process with his staff and he graded them and started firing the D's and F's.

And it wasn't that they fired him, it was the next time they had an infraction. He let them go now. And so it wasn't like we were being proactive jerks about it.

It was just people down at that level are going to have problems and they're not going to, they're just going to create issues for themselves.

And when you have the confidence of knowing, okay, I've got somebody that I can replace them or I can replace them early, get them start trained, knowing, hey, by the end of the month they're going to no call, no show and it'll be done. And then I could just plug this person right into their crew and be off and running.

So that three step process for me I think is how you can really shore up that concern of the labor market and start building more confidence that you'll be able to fulfill on it and not throttle yourself.

Speaker B

00:32:52.190 - 00:32:58.870

Yeah, I've heard that building the bench thing before. I'll be honest. We've never done a good job at it.

Speaker A

00:32:58.870 - 00:33:50.990

No, it's one of those things that just feels so foreign and it honestly like it's, it's a mind shift for you guys that you're in such a great industry that when you do a good job, you literally have to do so little marketing to get clients compared to other industries I deal with.

So it's like shooting fish in a barrel when you can go do a, was it nine door flyer around, not around, neighbor and outreach and then just your testimonials and reviews and you get some Yelp profile and a Google my business and it keeps growing. You just can't help but attract calls. So the effort then goes into the staffing and recruiting.

Staffing is the same as marketing for clients in other industries. It's just you got to build that step, those steps out.

Speaker B

00:33:51.640 - 00:34:00.920

Yeah, we've been talking about that internally, that we, we should be spending as much time and effort marketing for employees as we would clients.

Speaker A

00:34:01.400 - 00:34:05.880

Yeah, your industry, I'd say double. Like you wouldn't hurt yourself Spending double the effort.

Speaker B

00:34:06.040 - 00:34:06.480

Yeah.

Speaker A

00:34:06.480 - 00:34:11.040

It seems so foreign because you're just like. But they're employees, they just show up.

Speaker B

00:34:11.040 - 00:34:12.600

And work like they should.

Speaker A

00:34:12.920 - 00:34:19.560

It's just that shift of mindset that the government's fighting against you. Whether it's intentional or not doesn't matter. But.

Speaker B

00:34:19.839 - 00:34:20.079

Right.

Speaker A

00:34:20.399 - 00:34:23.039

You now have that beast that you're fighting against.

Speaker B

00:34:23.039 - 00:34:23.759

Oh yeah.

Speaker A

00:34:23.919 - 00:34:43.279

Is. Is that that lazy dependent state that the government's putting people in. And so you got to overcome that inertia.

And you're not going to pull people off a couch. You cannot advertise enough and pitch them enough to get them off the couch. So you have to snag them from other companies.

Speaker B

00:34:43.759 - 00:34:44.879

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

00:34:45.119 - 00:35:26.630

And then I think the next step is once you get the testimonials, once you have the landing page, jobs page, and you have the bench is start doing some small Facebook ads just in your geo area. You know, the age, you know, the economic level, you know how far the.

I mean, I think it was Corey, I think his location's right on the edge of a neighborhood. Literally these guys have to drive out of their neighborhood to leave their community and they drive right by his shop.

And so three or four of the guys live in that neighborhood that work for him because it's a two minute commute.

Speaker B

00:35:26.870 - 00:35:27.270

Right.

Speaker A

00:35:27.270 - 00:35:50.500

So like I bet there's a GEO targeting, whether it's zip codes specifically or a five mile radius or something around your shop or certain neighborhood. You just go run some ads saying, hey, looking for a better job. Hear how great it is to work at Wellspring and stuff.

And yeah, just a couple bucks a day and you'll get some, get some attention.

Speaker B

00:35:50.740 - 00:36:21.590

So we're doing that. We're running hiring ads on Facebook. We have a video, we do some testimonials on that video.

And then one thing we're about to do, which I've never done before, and that is direct mail to certain areas. So like I can figure out where our guys live and then we can do EDDM to those areas. The postcard saying, you know, now hiring. And. And we're. Why not?

Right? Yeah, that's great. We're not gonna be. We're not gonna exactly like what you.

Speaker A

00:36:21.590 - 00:36:24.310

Do to get clients. So just do it to get employees.

Speaker B

00:36:24.870 - 00:36:30.950

Yeah, yeah. So we're rolling that out now and trying to just get way outside the box.

Speaker A

00:36:31.270 - 00:36:55.279

That's it. You're exactly right. You're going right down the right path.

And I think the more testimonials, especially of the roles you're hiring of those guys in the crews, the more power you'll have to attract people. Because it's just. They're like, man, somebody that thinks like me, looks like me, they like working for this guy.

And that's just the power of social proof. It just works so well.

Speaker B

00:36:55.520 - 00:36:55.960

Yeah.

Speaker A

00:36:55.960 - 00:37:10.520

To take away the concerns. And we have a video of you saying why you do this business and why you like working with these guys. I mean, that they get to know you and.

And trust you. And I think that kind of. That kind of stuff goes a long way.

Speaker B

00:37:10.760 - 00:37:14.840

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good stuff. I'm taking notes, by the way, so.

Speaker A

00:37:14.840 - 00:37:17.880

Good. Melanie, we're recording, so you can go back and listen to it.

Speaker B

00:37:17.880 - 00:37:18.440

That's true.

Speaker A

00:37:21.640 - 00:37:29.640

Yeah. So what else? I mean, I think that's really the biggest bottleneck for you is the staffing and the throttling of expansion.

Speaker B

00:37:30.360 - 00:37:30.760

Right.

Speaker A

00:37:31.320 - 00:37:33.960

What else? Any other big fires or headaches you got?

Speaker B

00:37:34.640 - 00:38:55.190

You know, I think one of our. The big things that I've been thinking about lately and kind of narrowed it down to.

And that is, you know, we have the same number of staff in our office that we had when we were, you know, 50% less revenue. And so one of the things that's really kind of become evident to me lately and that is just investing in office staff. Right.

So, for instance, our conversion rate's low. We need to get our conversion rate up. Well, if we just don't have the manpower to get to those leads fast enough, then we need that manpower.

So right now, what we're really doing and what I'm really doing is investing in more people in the office in two ways. One is bringing in the admin person. We're all completely maxed out in the office. I mean, 100% maxed out.

So we'd be stupid to think that we're going to grow another $500,000 without doing something different. Right.

And so that's been a big thing that I've just really kind of been pushing downward on cost and kind of not had this mentality of, wait, I shouldn't keep my costs down. I should invest more in these people so we can grow in these positions. So we're getting some admin help in the office.

I've never hired an operations manager before, so we're posting right now for an.

Speaker A

00:38:55.190 - 00:38:57.430

Operation that's gonna free up so much head space.

Speaker B

00:38:57.430 - 00:39:05.170

Oh, my gosh. Cause literally, I'm not joking. In the fall, and again, I feel like I just got qualify everything as 2020 is a little different.

Speaker A

00:39:05.170 - 00:39:06.730

However, doesn't matter. It's all Good.

Speaker B

00:39:08.730 - 00:39:28.170

I'm not joking. 90% of what I was doing someone else could easily do.

Like this morning I almost went and replaced a broken valve cover on an irrigation system that got cracked. And I'm like, this is. It was close to the office. I'm here, I can overdo it. And I'm like, that is, that is not.

Speaker A

00:39:28.410 - 00:39:34.650

Start a pool with your buddies in academy and say, hey, anytime any of us goes and does this, we got to give each other 50 bucks.

Speaker B

00:39:34.950 - 00:39:36.230

Something. Yeah.

Speaker A

00:39:36.310 - 00:39:39.870

Because that's all you're doing. You're just stapling 50 bucks. They're 100 bucks to that.

Speaker B

00:39:39.870 - 00:39:40.230

Right.

Speaker A

00:39:40.470 - 00:39:41.750

That cover when you do it.

Speaker B

00:39:42.150 - 00:39:52.710

Yeah. So you know, it's stuff like that. And so I need this literally 90% of what I was doing, someone else should be doing. Yeah, I know. And.

And so we're trying to get an operation.

Speaker A

00:39:52.710 - 00:40:58.470

Yeah. That operations manager is going to be huge. One thing you saying you're not your close rates down.

I think hiring somebody that is a sales more focused. You're not gonna hire a salesperson. You don't want a salesperson. They're not gonna fit in your culture.

They're not gonna have enough business to focus on.

But you want somebody who has almost like a account management focus that they are the lead for all the sales when the busy season hits in March and April and they'll have plenty to do elsewhere. But this is where a lot of guys say, oh, I'm gonna hire a full time salesperson. It's like, it doesn't work. They can't close as well as you.

They need more pay, they need more leads. They get fidgety if they don't have leads to deal with. Right.

You guys just need that band, that spike window of when the calls are ringing off the hook and your support staff aren't real motivated to follow up with them. If you have that business account manager type role, they'll be more excited to. To follow up with them.

Speaker B

00:40:58.790 - 00:41:12.070

Yeah. So we have one. We call them a client manager. We have one client manager. But historically they just get hammered.

Like they just, they just don't enough hours in the day. So that's the other thing is looking. Should we hire another client manager?

Speaker A

00:41:12.070 - 00:41:12.630

Yep.

Speaker B

00:41:12.790 - 00:41:16.550

You know, how would that, what would this look like? What would it cost? And then where?

Speaker A

00:41:16.550 - 00:41:49.210

Well, and then the beauty is that client manager can do upsell stuff through the summer, in the fall cleanups, whether it's getting them or getting them lined up for next year's fertilization, weed control, kickoff, all of that so that, that client manager role, they're able to proactively, when they've got downtime, just start reaching out to customers and saying, hey, you know what, this customer has been with us five years and they've, they've added on all these other features, but they, they're not on fertilization or weed control. Let's do a campaign out to them, we'll send them an email, follow up with a call, stuff like that.

Speaker B

00:41:49.770 - 00:42:30.580

Yeah. And I think for me, see if I can remember my train of thought that I just had the, for me, it was.

And I'm sure other, many owners have had this too, is say, investing in that other client manager. Right. So now we have this overhead and is it going to work out? You know, like.

And I keep kind of, that's always the fear that's tentatively work in that direction. And what I'm trying to do is what I've been working on is kind of turning the corner on, hey, look, we can always pull this back if we need.

Of course, you know, and I kind of forget that. I kind of think, oh, we're going to commit to this. Oh, and then it's not going to be profitable.

Speaker A

00:42:30.580 - 00:43:02.290

It's because you're a loyal person. You don't want to jerk somebody's life around. You understand that? But I've never seen this kind of growth expansion backfire in a company like yours.

So you may replace them because they don't perform, but you're going to keep that role over time.

And so, yeah, these are the leverage points of investing in these people is how you're going to get to two and a half million and have more free time than you know what to do with and more cash than you've probably ever had. And it just feels so counterintuitive.

Speaker B

00:43:02.930 - 00:43:23.290

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, because there's so much I want to do, all these dreams and goals and, and things I want to implement, and then I go replace a valve cover on an area, you know, it's like, well, and so this multimillion dollar thing I was going to go pursue all of a sudden, I don't know, you know, I mean, you're laughing because you get it, you know.

Speaker A

00:43:23.290 - 00:44:19.820

I know. I totally get it.

Well, and the reality is that all companies, all employees of all companies are always at capacity to maintain what they currently have. And you have to add energy somewhere else. And usually that's through some other person, some other employee, contractor, consultant, whatever.

Like, and that's 90% of what I do with Clients is just stay focused on. We're adding this because this is the most important thing to get to the next level. Let's get back to this. Hey, hey. We're getting back to this.

Okay, You've got some fires, let's put them out, deal with them. Let's get those handed off so you're not dealing with them anymore. And let's get back to this, because that's how growth happens.

And so, yeah, you going and covering, replacing a cover is just maintaining what you've got. And you can do that all day long.

And a lot of people do that all day long and they maintain a good job and they're happy and fulfilled with it, and that's fine. But you're never going to be fulfilled with that because you're too much of a visionary.

Speaker B

00:44:20.140 - 00:44:24.780

Right, right, right. And so I need to free up, obviously free up my time so I can go pursue those things.

Speaker A

00:44:24.780 - 00:44:27.260

And it's that shift. It's that shift from.

Speaker B

00:44:27.710 - 00:44:27.950

No.

Speaker A

00:44:28.190 - 00:44:40.830

What is this hourly rate worth if I do this task now? Because the proactive, bigger stuff that I'm going to get to is always worth at least a thousand bucks an hour, if not more.

Speaker B

00:44:41.310 - 00:45:05.030

And then the other thing that kind of ties in that, which just really became so obvious to me in the past year, and that is training. Right. So we hire these people or we hire. I hire someone and then I train them 30%, 50%, 80%.

And I'm not getting to that 100% because, you know, I get comfortable with the way they're doing it and then I'm off doing something else.

Speaker A

00:45:05.750 - 00:45:06.950

Follow through. So.

Speaker B

00:45:07.830 - 00:45:11.430

And so the having that time to really, truly commit to the training.

Speaker A

00:45:11.830 - 00:45:42.970

So I think that operations manager should be able to take that up, because that operations manager needs to be your little Napoleon that's just finishing everything and keeping the trains on time and everything going. And that follow through is key because guys like us.

My wife always teases me because, like, I go fix the biggest issue, whatever the fire of the day is, and then I walk away. She's like, are you done? I'm all, I fixed it. She's all, but it's not cleaned up. I'm like, I totally forgot. Like, I just. I solved the problem.

The beast is killed.

Speaker B

00:45:43.210 - 00:45:44.210

Yeah, I gotta.

Speaker A

00:45:44.210 - 00:45:45.450

I gotta clean the carcass out.

Speaker B

00:45:46.820 - 00:45:51.700

Yeah. Hey, let me ask you a question. So what's magic about the 2.5 million?

Speaker A

00:45:52.820 - 00:47:39.610

Oh, yeah, good point. So two to two and a half million is all of the key staff are close enough for you to keep a close relationship with.

But the fires, the moles that you're whacking every day aren't that big. When you get past it into 3 to 5 million, the whack a moles get significantly bigger.

And if you don't have key managers that can deal with them themselves and make decisions that you trust because they're capable, like they're another level up, then you get stuck at 5 million. And so I've never met a business owner at 5 million who's happy they don't exist. Oh, wow. Because the problems are just that much bigger.

You can't knock them out and say, oh, here's the answer, go deal with it. Oh, here's the answer, go deal with it.

They literally just sit there and then they start stacking up and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to go crazy. And so you bounce back down to three million, two and a half million, let some people go.

But a lot of times if you don't develop those managers, then you get up to the six or seven million dollars mark, you abdicate all this responsibility to these people that are supposed to be managers and they can't make those decisions. They make bad decisions. You're burned out because you've just been had this line of moles, you've been knocking out of problems that come every day.

And so then they make bad decisions and then you go back down and it just becomes this big yo, yo between four and six million that you never break through. And the irony is, if you had effective managers, you'd break through and hit 10 million. And it just goes and happens. Right.

Because you no longer are the truly the bottleneck of having to solve all the biggest issues in the company.

Speaker B

00:47:40.090 - 00:47:41.370

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

00:47:41.770 - 00:48:49.290

And at two and a half million, the team's small enough, the margins are great. I mean, you could probably pull out half a million a year, no problem. Be in the office 10 hours a week if you wanted, and you've got a good business.

So I've got a client in another industry. She's got a manufacturing company.

They make a clear coat for metal products, so window frames, copper dome of the Arizona Capitol building, all sorts of uses. And she was at just under a million when we started together back in late 2014. She finished 2014 at like 900 grand or something.

And last year she did two and a half million. And in 18, we 17, 18. We changed essentially all of her key staff and she developed an operations manager.

And so in 19, she and her husband took 12 weeks of international Vacation and nothing. No fires, no problems. And so she now lives the sweet life of. Has great staff, has no problems, everything's running like a clock.

And she's got good margins.

Speaker B

00:48:49.850 - 00:48:57.050

Nice, nice. Well, I look forward to, I mean, I'd love to get to, you know, I don't know if we can get to 2 million this year. We're certainly going to try.

Speaker A

00:48:57.470 - 00:49:56.670

Yeah, whatever. So a good example was Josh Robertson. Last year he was right around you one and a half. His goal was to add 20%. He's a steady guy.

20% is a good manageable growth.

When Covid hit, we were really uncertain and we did some analysis and we figured he could drop down to 900 and still be profitable if he needed just cutting back. And one thing that changed, he was trying to get rid of a lot of his architecture project or his installation projects and.

But he took them because he's went back to prostitute mode. Right. Like, didn't know. Like.

Well, we, we kept waiting for the shoe to drop last year and I said, just raise the prices like crazy on all of your installation jobs. And so he ended up getting to 1.9. So he went past the 20%, whatever, the 27%, 28% because of the installation projects.

And then since we priced them so high, he ended up with 32% net profit.

Speaker B

00:49:56.750 - 00:49:57.470

Oh, wow.

Speaker A

00:49:57.710 - 00:50:21.080

Yeah, so it just was a double benefit. But that was a lot of pushing and that was a lot of marketing. And So I think 20%, 20, 25% for you guys is a healthy.

Because otherwise if you go faster right now you might be over investing to take market share. And I don't know that you need to. So in two years you should be at two and a half million, no problem.

Speaker B

00:50:21.880 - 00:50:25.000

Yeah, I take, you know, I'm like everybody else, I get so impatient.

Speaker A

00:50:25.240 - 00:50:29.480

Everybody's impatient. But first we put on ourselves. It's all make believe anyway.

Speaker B

00:50:29.560 - 00:50:30.600

Right? Right.

Speaker A

00:50:30.600 - 00:51:30.860

It really is the curse we put on ourselves.

And my buddy Adam, he's a software developer and he's working with a client I just had a call with, and the owner of that client there in Austin, they want to push. He's like, we got all these things to do. We need, need to get this done and this done.

And Adam is a really good software development manager and he's like, let's fix all these bugs. Let's build a really solid foundation.

Let's get this code in a way that we have a staging server and all these things lined up because it makes everything go faster later. It's like the old, I think it's a Tai chi thing, like go slow to go fast. Like it really is counterintuitive, but it works. And it just.

You don't make as many mistakes. You don't have the change orders, you don't have the bugs going out. You're not putting out the fires.

And like my client Teresa, like, it, it felt like, oh, we're going slow. But she's got unlimited time, freedom now and profit and who cares? It took an extra year. Maybe she had that goal.

Speaker B

00:51:30.860 - 00:51:32.659

Like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A

00:51:32.659 - 00:51:33.540

So much easier.

Speaker B

00:51:33.940 - 00:51:43.840

Yeah, I agree. There's some times in the past where we've.

I've tried to do this big push and growth and then customer service and quality goes to hell in a hand basket and we had to pull back. And I agree.

Speaker A

00:51:43.920 - 00:52:31.210

Great story. So Derek Sivers, he had started this company called CD Baby in the late 90s. It was a dot com. It was mail order CD service for music.

And he told a story on Tim Ferriss podcast about living in Santa Monica. And he would get up every morning and ride his bike down the boardwalk and put his head down and just sweat and burn out.

And it was just his sprint workout. 20 minutes. He'd get to the end and he'd stop, maybe have a coffee, go back.

And one day, after years of writing that, he's like, I just don't have it in me. So he just cruised and he looked around and he noticed. Huh. I never noticed that over there. I never noticed that part over there.

And he gets to the end and it took him 23 minutes instead of 20 minutes.

Speaker B

00:52:31.370 - 00:52:32.010

Oh, wow.

Speaker A

00:52:32.010 - 00:52:55.480

And he enjoyed the journey a whole lot more.

And it's not that we need to stop pushing ourselves to stretch and grow and get healthy, but so what if it takes an extra six months or an extra year and we enjoy the process and we're not stressed out and we're not burning out our staff and whatever. So I know that guys like us don't have to worry about being lazy or letting off the gas too far, but I think that balance is good. So.

Speaker B

00:52:56.120 - 00:53:07.970

Yeah, that's a good story.

Yeah, I think, you know, because right now, and I can see the tents, the stress, and some people in the office where we are just, we are maxed out and I'm like, you need.

Speaker A

00:53:07.970 - 00:53:09.050

Some, you need some office.

Speaker B

00:53:09.210 - 00:53:11.450

I don't want, I don't want somebody to quit, you know?

Speaker A

00:53:11.450 - 00:53:26.650

No, that's the last thing you want. I mean, they're all good people. They all will die for you.

But why I Mean it, you got a good business, it's profitable and I think slow and steady over the next two years to two and a half million is a no brainer.

Speaker B

00:53:28.170 - 00:53:30.090

Good, good. Well, appreciate that.

Speaker A

00:53:30.490 - 00:53:40.300

So did we hit, hit all the marks for you? Anything else you got that we, we didn't solve any world problems? That in your life with the big.

Speaker B

00:53:40.300 - 00:53:58.620

Stuff, you know, you don't need to get down in the nitty gritty stuff like you know, hey, what, I'll ask you this. So what's your prediction for 2021? And pull your crystal ball out.

What do you think's going to happen with the employment market, the economy, you know, as it pertains to service companies?

Speaker A

00:53:59.420 - 00:54:32.830

Yeah, yeah, I think it's going to, I think we're in a K recovery where the top of the market's going to move on just fine and the bottom of the market's going to be destroyed.

So I think there's going to be a lot of people that maybe are in your workforce category that eventually will want to work and have a spot to work for you. I don't know. I mean it's one of those like I had a buddy on a call this morning and we both said we just can't.

We've got to quit being surprised by the insanity of policies.

Speaker B

00:54:33.170 - 00:54:33.570

Yeah.

Speaker A

00:54:34.450 - 00:54:55.970

So if they keep printing money, who knows? I mean inflation may run away. Who knows what ends up to the buying power.

Eventually there's going to be a glut of your workforce out there wanting a job because the bottom just falls out of their world, man.

Speaker B

00:54:55.970 - 00:55:15.250

I'll tell you, I hope so. I don't really hope so, but I just hope it becomes easier and then the flip side of that is too.

And nobody, well, that's not many people talking about this, but that is the average person on the street doesn't seem to understand how high their cost of living is going. Because of all this, we're going to.

Speaker A

00:55:15.250 - 00:56:12.540

Go through so much stagflation like we did in the 70s. I mean interest rates, they're saying they're zero, but the stock market's going to keep going up. But the buying power is not going to change.

The buying power is going to go down and, and we're going to go sideways for a while. So yeah, it's going to be bumpy.

I just keep telling everybody, just stack your reserves if you need to put it in some metals to offset whatever inflation is happening. But no, I would hire that next. And going up, you've got people coming in with money. So I. I wouldn't have any concerns about. Oh, shoot.

My system says my connection's unstable. I hope it's recording. I'm going to kill everybody off my network.

Speaker B

00:56:12.540 - 00:56:16.260

Yeah, we got a little hiccup there for a second, but we're. You're back good now.

Speaker A

00:56:17.460 - 00:57:22.460

Yeah, sorry about that. So anyway, I just. I was saying that the. Your market's a growing market, so it's. You're. You're in a rising tide.

And so I would invest in that growth confidently, knowing that, I mean, there's a lot of money coming into Austin. Your. Your business is not going anywhere. And so this was my reality last year with all of my clients. None of them were considered essential.

We said, screw it. We said, we're all essential, and they all grew up.

And so taking that mindset forward again, measured growth, you don't have to go invest an extra hundred grand in overhead a month and buy a whole bunch of new equipment just for new equipment's sake, but I would definitely invest in growth for you. No problem. You're not going to have any issues with your marketplace. And that's where the K recovery.

The K recovery says that we all went down, but the wealthy in the top end of the market are going to go back up and be fine, but the bottom end of the market are going to go into some kind of pseudo depression for their world.

Speaker B

00:57:23.180 - 00:58:31.640

Yeah, that's interesting. I'll do some research on that, because it's, you know, I'll tell you, like, two things that we're seeing in the market right now.

And that is if when I drive around, like, say I drive around the neighborhood, our competitors are just some dude in the truck. I'll see 20 of those before I see a properly branded vehicle from a legitimate business and Austin's expensive place to live.

And so, like, I just interviewed a guy just a few minutes before we started. No experience whatsoever. He's working part time at an Oakley store in the mall, making 10 bucks an hour.

And he's coming in here asking for the same pay that my crew leaders are getting. And it's like, I don't know why he thought he was going to get that. I don't know what he was thinking.

And then when I told him what I was willing to pay him, he basically was not interested in the job anymore. I'm like, how do you go from $10 an hour, and I'll pay you significantly more than $10 an hour?

And then he still doesn't want it, and he doesn't care that he has no experience.

Speaker A

00:58:31.960 - 00:58:48.980

This reminds me of Jim Rohn, the old business philosopher, Ziggler's friend. And. And he just says, don't try to understand it. Just be fascinated and move on like it does. That kind of stuff doesn't make sense.

He says, don't ask why liars lie. That's why we call them liars. They just lie. So move on.

Speaker B

00:58:48.980 - 00:58:49.820

That's great advice.

Speaker A

00:58:50.060 - 00:59:11.910

That's great advice. I just. It used to drive me bonkers, this. I'd see the potential in people. I'd want to help them. I'd want to lift them up and.

And I'm just like, not my monkeys, not my circus. I can't make sense of it. I feel bad that his parents didn't do him a favor giving him a perspective of a work ethic.

Speaker B

00:59:14.950 - 00:59:42.990

Yeah. That's so interesting. I have the same conversation internally all the time. I used to want to help so bad.

I went so far as to buy people alarm clocks and they still didn't get to work on time. And then this is a lesson I learned, by the way, and I'll share it here. And that is.

I had one of my really great crew leaders come to me during that time and he said, why do you spend all your time with these losers? He goes, why don't you spend time with us instead?

Speaker A

00:59:43.710 - 00:59:46.830

Oh, that's such a gift, man. He gave you.

Speaker B

00:59:46.990 - 00:59:52.990

And so now I still, I have it inside of me. It's just natural that I really want to help develop.

Speaker A

00:59:54.070 - 00:59:57.750

We just care. That's our Achilles heel, is we care. Yeah.

Speaker B

00:59:57.830 - 01:00:14.870

And. But I have to learn to throttle that back.

And then really shift and focus on the good guys and make them feel loved and cared for and take care of them. And then I'll coach these, I hate to call them losers.

Speaker A

01:00:15.590 - 01:00:17.550

Right at the bottom of the barrel. Yeah.

Speaker B

01:00:17.550 - 01:00:24.030

And I'll coach him a little bit and then I'll tell them, I'll say, I'm going to help you as much, you know, for a little bit. But there's going to come a time where I'm going to cut you loose.

Speaker A

01:00:24.580 - 01:00:24.900

Yeah.

Speaker B

01:00:24.980 - 01:00:31.020

And what I say is, you know, you're a grown ass man. You know, you start acting like one. You know, like my wife.

Speaker A

01:00:31.020 - 01:00:53.150

One time I had a stomach flu and I hate puking. And I just was writing on the bed like, oh, I'm so nauseous. And she just walks up to me. She was so tired of hearing me.

She's like, go put up, pull up your big bag, big boy pants and puke. Like, just Pull up your big boy pants and puke. And I went, I'm like so much better. She's like, see? Get it over with.

Speaker B

01:00:53.630 - 01:00:54.430

Oh my gosh.

Speaker A

01:00:55.310 - 01:01:33.030

Here I am, a grown ass man whining on bed, on the bed because nauseous and I hate puking. But yeah. And that's it. And unfortunately we're not going to be able to save all these guys. We're not able to change their lives.

And I love it when it works. But you're in a business, you're not in a non for profit and you're not in a rescue house or anything like that.

And so I think that's where setting the standard of saying, hey, I'm going to keep pouring into my A players and making them better and keep cutting off the bottom and build the bench and all of a sudden, you know what? Life gets a lot easier for you.

Speaker B

01:01:33.190 - 01:01:41.430

And I tell you, as a business owner, I just, I've just really come to believe that are the most important thing we can do as a business owner is just hire the right people.

Speaker A

01:01:41.510 - 01:01:41.950

That's it.

Speaker B

01:01:41.950 - 01:01:44.140

And if we, if we do is.

Speaker A

01:01:44.140 - 01:02:09.850

So easy to thread people. It's the differentiator I plant my stake in the ground on. People say, oh well, is it systems?

Do you have the McDonald's systems and any monkey can do them and like it's all great or is it talent and personality? And I'm 100% on the talent personality side because the system side is so easy to figure out, it's so easy to implement but.

And it's 10 times easier to do with the right people. Right.

Speaker B

01:02:10.410 - 01:02:17.450

I'm 100 definitely infinitely easier flee more fun when you got the right people in place. And it sucks when you don't.

Speaker A

01:02:18.010 - 01:02:39.300

It does.

Well, it's like an old sports analogy that I played baseball my whole life and there was a line I'd heard that a great team can make a bad manager look good and a bad team can make a great manager look bad. And I think, I think, I think that's so true. I mean it just. We see it over and over that the team makes all the difference.

Speaker B

01:02:39.620 - 01:02:40.980

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker A

01:02:41.300 - 01:03:22.050

Well, awesome. Kirk, this was fantastic. Thanks for being the first sacrificial lamb to put your neck out there and I'm honored. Yeah, this is fun.

I'm excited to get the feedback.

And for those of you that listen to this, if you, you're inspired to be be another guinea pig and hop on the podcast and you're doing over a million bucks and want to have a Bottleneck Breakthrough session reach out to me, but otherwise, hope you got some good nuggets from it. Feel free to shoot me any messages. Join the Facebook group Bottleneck Breakthrough Method and I'll look forward to digging in with the next one.

Have a great day. This podcast theme music is an excerpt from triptych of snippets by Septah Helix. It's used under Creative Commons.