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Foreign. You're now listening to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. Straightforward, no nonsense business advice, completely on filtered. Grow your business, grow your life. Now here's your host, Brian Fullerton. Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. And it's your host, Brian Fullerton here hanging with you guys and good morning. Well, welcome back to episode. Let's see right here. 800. No, 800. 952. Looking at the fully send unfiltered podcast on iTunes. 952 episodes. Holy freaking cow. That's. That's a lot of shows. That means we're going to be rounding out a thousand episodes in what, about four, let's see, 12 episodes a month. 12, 12. That's 48. So sometime around July, August sometime, we'll be doing a thousand episodes of the podcast. If you guys are new here, welcome. Just want to say welcome to the fully sound filtered podcast. This whole thing started like six years ago, right at the dawn of COVID I think Covid and the world was getting shut down two weeks later after we announced the launch of the podcast on February 28th, 29th, I think it might have even been a leap year. And we dropped with seven episodes or so. And since then, three and a half or so, maybe going on 4 million downloads now for the podcast. Real downloads, real show, real listens, real people listening in. It's. It's absolutely wild, absolutely crazy. And I just want to say thank you guys so much for making the show what it is. Star date, captain's log, where we at? Well, it's the spring rush. We've got another week or two until we're going to be mowing out there. One little side rant is I love when everybody's quoting, you know, 24 weeks, 25 weeks, 26 weeks. On quotes that I compare against for commercial sites and bidding. We're at 27 weeks typically. And this year for sure, we could do 28, if not 29 weeks because spring is early, a good two weeks here in Michigan, and that, that's very, very exciting for us, I'll tell you that much. But that being said, we might tackle our residentials a week or two early, maybe even just get the rest out, get a little bit of training and get some mo time in for everybody. You know, a couple extra grand in revenue, that, that always helps. But commercial, we're not touching anything until the last week of April because that's what we sold. 27 weeks. And that's already Hard to do in its own right when everybody around you is selling off 26, 25, 24 weeks on some of these quotes. It's absolutely ridiculous. But it is what it is, right? What I wanted to do, do and talk about for a few minutes on today's show was talking about hiring, talking about adding team members, and maybe even address the elephant in the room about why you're afraid to hire. And it's really costing you everything. You know, I want to talk about the fear of hiring. I want to talk about control, payroll, the numbers behind it, really, the conversation about, you know, having somebody on your team and what's the best way to say this? Like, being responsible for their freaking life and livelihood, right? In some ways, talking about marketing and, you know, and adding that person to your team, talking about SOPs as they come on and, you know, talking about reviews and expectations, like, there's a lot there. And I know last week or the week before show, whatever it was, we talked a lot about hiring. In fact, I know we did a show talking about the difference between 1099s and W2s. I have a YouTube video dropping today on the exact same topic. Similar but different. A little bit more of a visual aid to that, but there's a lot there when it's talking about hiring. And I get it. I get the anxiety. Excuse me, I get the apprehension. But that doesn't mean that it should bottleneck or hold back or hamstring your business indefinitely. Some people, interestingly enough, bite the bullet right out of the gate, and hiring is like, no big deal, you know? Now it's interesting, like, let's say there's 10 or 12 fields of business or portions of the business that you have to master while running a business and being an entrepreneur, a CEO or founder, sales, marketing, hiring, you know, operations, you know, there's. There's so many different hats that we all wear every single day. And some people master hiring, like, right out of the gate, they're like, yeah, sure, I gotta hire some people. I know I can't do this whole thing on my own. And they force gump their way through it, and they make a process that evolves on its own and usually more reactive than, you know, intentional, right? If you will. But some folks, I don't know if It's a year, two years, five years, 10 years even, that you run your business, then you realize one day, oh, crap, like, hey, I should probably hire some people, and what do I do? And I'm afraid, and what if I get it wrong? Or what if I hear the wrong guy? I don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to do. I don't know what to an interview to conduct. I don't know, you know, the best process for onboarding. I don't know when he should start. What do I say? Like, how much do I tell this guy what to do? And, like, that's all real. That's all super real. And again, it's kind of like one of those deals where if you just continue to put your big toe in, eventually you psych yourself out, right? I don't know if you guys ever, like, been to the pool or a roller coaster. Probably everybody listening in. But also, like, crazy stuff like skydive or cliff jump or shoot a firearm, you know, like, eventually you have to, like, do it, dude. You have to, like, pull the trigger. You have to jump in. And more than likely the first time, you're not going to get it right. You're going to be afraid, you're going to be scared, you're going to miss. But, like, that's expected of anything in life. And just because you start a business or just because you are like CEO, founder in your profile on Instagram, like, doesn't automatically mean that you just come with a set of skill sets to, like, make it happen or to, like, be successful, right? And I think that's pretty obvious, but sometimes we just hold ourselves to this, like, ridiculously unattainable standard, right or wrong, and it's okay to, like, look back or to examine and realize, maybe I don't know what I don't know, or maybe I don't have it all figured out. And what I wanted to do is talk about a couple of different things that I think jam up a couple of major areas of hiring. And I just want to talk just kind of casual today for 10 or 15 minutes on this topic because there's no greater conversation that I'm having right now with so many folks other than sales and marketing and pip pipeline, commercial bidding, residential bidding, of course, like getting sales. But then the other side of the conversation, side of the coin is hiring great folks, leveling up your team, investing in training, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? Because again, go figure. As Sam Gimble with Atlas Outdoor says, there's basically two ores in the water, right? Like sales and marketing and people. People in sales and marketing. And that's, you know, an oversimplification for sure. But I want to give you guys some encouragement today that, hey, maybe I'LL give you a couple things that give you some different perspective and maybe challenge your way of thinking a little bit. And maybe that empowers you to make that first hire, make that second hire, maybe let somebody go that is weighing your organization down or whatever. Right. And you can make a pivot to add some fresh blood to the team. All right, so I want to go through a couple examples here. First things first, I just got to say there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Like, I'm really, really excited about everything that's going to be releasing and coming down the pike over the next couple of weeks and months. Excuse me. In no particular order, Element and Granum are going to be doing a tour and going throughout the country. We have like six or seven or eight different tour stops. More information to come. That'll drop by end of the month. I do got to just tease it because I'm super, super stoked about it. A lot of folks were asking if we're doing spring shop tour series this year. I am not. I'm not because I'm focused on my business and everything that goes with it to level up. But I will tell you what, I also knew that we're going to be doing these shop tours with lmn. So we're going to be approaching, excuse me, in a little bit different fashion this year. And so there's going to be 6, 7, 8 different shop tours across the country. We're going to be doing a two day event. It'll be pay to play, but you'll be able to see a behind the scenes look at some of the best facilities and shops and businesses across the country. So more on that to come. Number two, as you guys know, equip expo promo code. Brian saves you 50. Get registered for that. That'll be coming October 20th through the 23rd, if I'm not mistaken. On the dates. That's gonna be awesome. Little save the day. Get registered now while your tickets, like 12 or 15 bucks. Can't beat it. Launchpinner Academy live November 7th. That's gonna be going on in Novi, Michigan. Save the date there. Tickets are going to be going out here hopefully around mid May is the goal. Another one together in the trades. Get your ticket at together in trades.com. we are rapidly closing up on hotel rooms and tickets here in a couple of weeks. So if you do want to go together, get your tickets there. Excuse me, what else out there? Man, there's, there's like a lot, a lot going on. Last but not least, and we'll talk about this in a quick minute. When we get back is the SOP bundle and that is going to be going live. The content's going live here on the 22nd Wednesday. All right. And we are, as you can imagine, beyond stoked to share that with you guys. It will be a game changer for the entire industry. I do really believe that. Right. I'm gonna hear from today's showdown sponsors and announcements. We're doing a little bit of an ad play here for a quick minute. When I come back, I want to talk about that and also how it relates to hiring team members. Go figure. So it's going to be really fun discussion here and I promise to keep it tight and a fun, entertaining show for you guys on this beautiful Monday here in Michigan. All right, let's just really quick, let's hear from today's show sponsors and announcements, and then we're going to come right on back.
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All right, fam, well, let's jump right back on into it here as we talk a little bit more about the hiring process, adding team members, some mindset tweaks and shifts. I'm really, really excited about getting into this here today and talking to you guys a little bit more about the SOP bundle. And this isn't a pitch on today's topic to get you to get the SOP Bundle. Far from it. I just know that a lot of the stuff that we are going to be talking about is absolutely going to be resolved with a lot of the resources that are in that SOP bundle to come. Before we do, a quick little note, I on my coffee table here where my podcast mixer is, I have a copy of the Plow Plow Kid book, which was a fun story about my son crew who started A lawn care business called the Momo Kid, right? Which. That's the. The Momo Kid book. It was a cruise, lawn care, and. Excuse me, the. The Plow Plow Kit. Dude, I can't clean my throat for some reason today. As soon as I hit record, my. My voice just, like, shatters, right? I don't know why. The first book was Momo Kid and, like, a lot of you guys scooped it up, okay? Super grateful, super thankful for that. Round two was the Plow Plow Kid. Okay? Like, we're getting pummeled with snow every day. The snow machines. Snow machines. The plows are going out front. Our guys were linking up, excuse me, like, literally every single day. And my. My son crew was just like, as excited about lawnmowers as he was about plow trucks. And so we got the Momo Kid. We got the Plow Plow Kid. It's based off a book. Oh, my gosh. Pout Pout Fish. Okay. If you guys are having kids or new kids or babies, get the book on Amazon. Pow Pow Fish. It's our favorite book for our kids, for sure. Art bar, none of. So it's a little playoff of that book. That was what inspired the Momo Kids. So it's like momo mo, and it's a lot of fun. So anyway, quick, shout out to Matthew's mowing. He got invited in as a big. Basically, like a big kid or a big, you know, and I think he was able to read to, like, a, you know, classroom full of kindergarteners or first graders or second graders, I don't know. He's tagged me on Instagram, had some great photos, and he was reading Momo Kid to the class, and I'm like, dude, that's so freaking cool. Like, that makes me grin. Excuse me. Like an idiot. Because I'm just so excited, so stoked. Like, that's the coolest thing ever. So shout out to Matthews Boeing on today's podcast. And I told my wife, I'm like, imagine the scene, dude. There's like 15, 20 kids, you know, in a little horseshoe, and that's up front, you know, with his. His mowing outfit on and his uniform and his Cujo's, you know, like usual. And I'm just, like, thinking in sync, you know, imagine 15 little kids just going, mo, mo, mo. Like, dude, that's. That gives me joy. Like, that brings me joy. That's what the book was all about. So my kids love it. Your guys, kids love it. And thanks to Matt's mowing, Matthew's Mowing. Another 15 or 20 kids were able to read that last week. So quick little shout out and plug to Matt for that. Like I said, folks, I. I love hanging with all of you. There's so much good stuff going on. And again, I enjoy building my business with all of you guys. And I know you guys are out there, you know, putting bricks in the ground, doing cleanups, going to training, going to conferences, building a big business. Like, dude, we're all doing this thing together, and it's a lot, a lot of fun. I wanted to talk to you guys about some of those common issues when it comes to hiring team members. Now, I know it can be very intimidating, but it doesn't have to be for me personally. I somehow lucked out by running a Little Caesar store about 20, 25 years ago, whatever it is. By now I was 18 years old, and I got, you know, shifted into a shift manager, assistant manager role pretty quickly. And we did some open interviews. And, you know, I had a lot of store managers that were above me that continuously, like, churned and burned through the system every, like, six to 12 months. And so, like, I would be there for one year, two years, three years, four years, five years, whatever it was, at Little Caesars. And I would often take point. I'd be like, hey, obviously, you're just learning how this whole thing works. You've been a store manager here for 60 days. You don't even know how to spell Little Caesars. I'm, you know, the sage. This is my little dwarf kingdom, or what do they call it? And let me. Let me explain the hiring process here. You know, so I would interview candidates, and I was 18, 19. You know, I had no idea what I was doing, but that's what I did. And then I became a co manager and then a store manager. And, you know, through that process, dude, I probably saw, I mean, literally 100 people come and go. In fact, I literally wrote a list out one time of all the people that we remember that came and go at one store alone was, like, 60, 60 or 70 people. And I mean, like, I knew first name, last name. And I'm like, oh, yeah, Latoya this, Johnson that, Michael this, Derek this, you know, Katrina this, Michael that. I mean, like, literally, dude, you're like, that's a lot of people that come and go through that mill and some way, shape or form, like, hiring people. I got it seared into me that it was like, no big deal. It's just like, what you do, it's just part of the process. No different. Imagine this. No different. Then get into a property, cut, trim, edge, blow. And, you know, you pack up and go. And you're like, dude, I could do this blindfolded. And truthfully, that's how the hiring process, like, feels to many of us who have done it two times, 10 times, 100 times, 2,010 times, if you know what I'm saying. It's just something you do. It's just another part of the business. And I do understand. Trust me, I get it. It's intimidating. It's scary. You're like, like, what am I? What am I responsible for? What do I say? What if he sucks? What do I do? How do I get this guy paid? You know, like, a lot of unknowns. And the reality is, like, that's all true, but just like we approach cutting grass or building a patio or plowing snow or anything else that we do in life, like, there's usually a system or a process to get it done. And so I wanted to just let you guys know, if you don't know, to not be afraid, to not be scared, to not be overwhelmed on this entire system and process, because as long as you have a roadmap, a workflow, a checklist or whatever you want to do, whatever you want to call it, then it shouldn't be intimidating. Right? It shouldn't be intimidating. Okay? And I get it. I know why you guys don't want to hire anybody, or at least majority of you guys. Number one, you don't trust anybody out there, and you don't think anybody's going to care as much as you or do as good of a job as you. So you keep everything on your plate, and you continuously just become the bottleneck. Like, totally understand. Another one that I wrote down, fears of why to hire. Afraid of payroll. You know, that. That extra payroll. 500 bucks a week, 800 bucks a week, thousand bucks a week, 50 grand a year for. For a team member. Like, that's intimidating. Like, who's gonna afford that? How can I afford that? I don't even know my numbers alone to barely get this thing to make profit with me. And last year I made 50, 60 grand in the business. And now you want me to hire somebody, Brian, and pay them 30, 40, $50,000 a year? Well, then I won't make any profit. No, that's obviously not true, because that person will bring in additional revenue that you can count on. And if they bring in 100 or 200 grand in revenue, then that 25% of that revenue that you Bring in can go now to payroll. They're going to pay for themselves, especially if they're a B plus or a player like that revenue is going to. They're going to pay for themselves by generating that revenue for you. Another one I wrote down here. You don't know how to lead yet. It's not hiring. It's not just training and managing. It's correcting, right? Most guys, let's be honest, like, they avoid hiring because deep down they know they've never led anyone before. Now again, whether you were thrusted into that position from school or sports or an activity or video games or football in the backyard, like, some people just kind of gravitate towards leadership roles. But if you've never been in charge, if you've never called the shots, if you never quarterback. Like when I played football as a kid, I was always quarterback. I don't know why, I don't know. I just was always quarterback. When I played roller hockey back in the day, often, like, I was center and jokingly called myself Steve Ironman, right? Because like, he was the awesomest goalie. Cheese Opie. It's the awesomest hockey player. That's great right there. He's the most awesome. I was thinking about Osgood, awesomest hockey player ever behind. And besides like Federoff and Datsuk and all these great, you know, Red Wings players back, you know, 20 plus years ago, right? Like the glory days. And like, I, I would go with our team, we'd get in a little huddle, be like, okay, here's the thing. You go left, I go right, we go this, we go that, go around the net, blah, blah, blah, and we score. When I played soccer, I just, I don't know, dude. Like, I wasn't, trust me, I wasn't like trying to be the leader. I was just like, hey, I'm noticing some things here. I'm realizing how we can be more effective. Anybody in, you know, And I was like, yeah, and just kind of like organically become a leader, right? But if you've ever done it, it can absolutely be scary. Another one here I put, obviously this is the big one. You just don't have the systems in place to hire. You don't have a training process. You don't have job ads, you don't have job descriptions, you don't have a way to do reviews, you don't have a way to do scorecards to know what good looks like. You don't have, you know, excuse me, a new higher orientation, right? So it all feels very Chaotic instead of structured. Right. Does that make sense? I think that's where a lot of folks in like, hey, I know I want to get a guy. I just don't know what to tell him or I don't know what to do with him after 30 days or 60 days or 90 days, you know, all I know is like, he's gonna want 25 an hour. I want to pay him 20. You don't know why you even want to pay him 20. You don't know why that guy even wants 25. You don't know how to vet if he's even worth 25. You're afraid to even say, hey man, no problem, we'll come on in, we'll think about that. 25, I'll put you in at 22. You got to earn the, the other $3 after a 60 day, 90 day probation based on these skill sets, these metrics, and this 30, 60, 90 day conversation. Right? But you're like, I don't even want to like challenge somebody to tell them they're going to take less because they, they know what they're at. And I'm scared and I'm intimidated. Like, dude, absolutely, for sure. Okay. But again, we don't have a system or a process. And so again, it feels chaos instead of structure. Another one here I wrote down. You're scared of making a bad hire. You've heard the horror stories or you've even had a bad experience. You've had an extremely bad experience. You know, somebody smoking weed, drinking, a fist fight, you know, even wilder stories. Your, you know, your teammates that you hired, like, break into something, steal something, destroy something, total. A truck or a mower, like, you know, dump it into a pond, right? Like, hey, I get it, you know, why even bother hiring another teammate when all you're going to do is potentially have these same kind of headaches along the way. So you're, you're like, hey, you know what? Instead of even, just like chancing making a bad hire, I'm just not even going to do it. Stay small, keep it all. And that kind of rolls into my next one. I've got a bunch more. But my last one is you're just comfortable with being where you're at, you know, hey, like 150 grand in revenue business, like, isn't too bad, Ryan. Like, I'm making 50, 60 grand off of this thing. Yeah, I work five days a week, eight to ten hours a day. My back's hurt, my shoulders, you know, toast, you know, and you know, when it's a rainy day or a rainy week or you know, I have an equipment breakdown, it's no big deal. I, I work a couple late evenings and work a couple Saturdays. I know it's a little bit straining on the family unit, but my wife just understands I'm self employed, Brian. Like no big deal. And I know she's got her own career or she's a stay at home mom, you know, and she's got the kid or two kids or three or four kids, but you know, daddy's working, right? Like that's what dads do. Look dude, I get it. Like I'm not putting that up, I'm not putting it down. Not saying one way is right, one way is wrong, like not at all. But you're just comfortable with it. You're like, hey, 150, you know, grand solo, making 50 to $80,000, not too bad. And again, hopefully you're making 50 to $80,000. There's a lot of people I've had a lot of email exchanges with and text messages with in the last 90 days. Always happens this time of year. Post wrapping up books from the previous year, getting final tax bills, realizing maybe quarterly payments weren't made or made on time, payroll wasn't paid correctly. Maybe you're just taking withdrawals out of the business and you didn't set anything aside for taxes and now you have a 2 grand, 5 grand, 10 grand, 20 grand tax bill. And you know, you're like, dude, I don't even have 20 grand left over. My account says I, you know, made money, says I made $60,000 last year, but I don't have a single dime to my name about what he's talking about. And now I'm gonna have to make payments and penalties and of course I still have to pay my regular quarterly taxes on April 15 and June 15 and September 15 or whatever the, the quarterlies are this year. Right? Like I get that, I've been there, done that, you know, so again like, well, I'm comfortable where I'm at. Well, when the rubber meets the road, like are we even really making any money? You know, and that's a tough question for anybody out there. It doesn't mean if you're small, it doesn't mean if you're medium sized, doesn't mean that you're just have a two and a half million dollar business and you're supposed to be making 300 grand profit. Like nothing's assumptive, nothing's promised or guaranteed to you, right? And it's A lot. It's a lot and a lot and a lot and a lot and a lot and a lot, right? Like, I just gave you eight or so examples. There's dozens more. Hundreds more, right? What do you do with this guy? What do you do with. When it's women and ladies and, you know, they have different needs and wants, for sure, and different attitudes and temperaments and FMLA and babies and, you know, just left brain versus right brain people, right? Personalities get involved all this stuff. Dude, you're like, man, is it worth it? Is it worth it to hire? Hell, is it even worth it to run your own business When I can just go work for regional or national making 50 grand as a crew lead. 60, 70, 80 grand. Maybe as a supervisor somewhere. 100 grand if you. If you're really, really, really good. You know, maybe you're an ops manager running a department. Maybe. I don't know. But what I'll just tell you not to, like, be the military here and, like, break you all down and leave you hanging. But what I'll just say is, yes, you can. Yes, you can. You can do all the above. It's just like a muscle, right? The more you use it, the stronger it gets. And the more you continue to do something, the better the skill set that you develop to be able to handle that task or responsibility. It is not fair to you guys, to yourselves, to go and grow a business. Think about how many things you've had to learn. We're talking about hiring right now. There's 10, 20, 30, 50 items or topics or nuances right here alone where we could discuss and debate and dissect. Now talk about equipment. Now talk about how to do hardscaping. Now talk about finances. Now talk about sales. Now talk about marketing. Now talk about advertising. Now talk about trucks. Now talk about relationships. Now talk about your marriage. Now talk about being a dad. Now talk. Talk about being a great son. Now talk about being a great brother. Now talking about being a great community member. Now talk about being involved in your church and your. Your spiritual walk or your religion or your church or your community, right? There's like a thousand things you got to get good at. And I get why people don't want to work with people. Trust me, I get it. And as Sam Gimbel recently said on a show and many, many other shows, he said, this is. You quickly realize you're in landscaping. Us as owners, we go from being in the landscape business to being in the people business. And the people that we steward and lead are in the landscaping business, you see that evolution right along the way. Now, just like anything in life, you have two options and we'll kind of wind it down here, but you got two options. One headed on, straight on and just tackle it, task yourself with it and learn how to get better. And the other one is ignore it, don't worry about it, circumvent it. Why bother? I don't need to do that. Not interested. But I'll just tell you, at the end of the day, you're probably going to have a small life in one way, shape or form. You're going to be having a small life. And by the way, it doesn't matter if you're a business owner or an entrepreneur. It doesn't matter if you're an employee and a team member working at another great organization and you don't want to deal with folks, right? Like, you can't get higher in another company without similarly working well with people and leadership, period. Like, you can do any job at any company and probably make 30 to 50,000. Your life will just be limited to anything you do self employed or working at another team at around that 30 to 50, maybe 80 grand mark. If you're like a technical, high level, technical engineer, right? Mechanical, industrial, electrical engineer. But eventually you're going to have to deal and work with people.
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Hey, it's Mr. Producer and I think this is a good place to wrap up for today. Now, the continuation of the episode will be available Wednesday morning. So make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast so that you automatically get the conclusion of this great episode. Brian's going to go into more details on the SOP Bundle, talk about all the hiring forms and employee handbooks, all the metrics and scores cards that will help you scale with confidence. Now, Brian has gone from a solo operator to leading a team of six. And he's going to explain how he does all of that even when real life chaos tries to get in the way. So if you two are looking for a roadmap to a bigger life, a bigger business, then what's coming up on Wednesday is for you. We'll see you back here on Wednesday morning. What would you change in your business if your team could operate with confidence without needing you at every turn? That's the goal behind the LaunchPreneur Academy SOP bundle. This powerful training system was built from real world processes used inside a growing company designed to help you train your field crews, develop your office staff, and create the structure needed to scale. You'll get over 50 field training SOPs covering everything from mowing in snow to trailers, blades and equipment basics. You'll also get office training for leads, estimates, payroll, marketing systems and more, plus over 30 documents and resources to help you build a stronger business foundation. Best of all, it works with the systems you already use.
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The presale window is open now for an incredible $9.99.
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On April 22, the price increases to $24.99. Get in early at launchpreneuracademy.com.
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Thanks for taking the time to listen to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast with Bryan Fullerton. We hope you enjoyed this production. If so, please consider leaving us a five star review for the show. While the techniques and ideas presented here are designed to help you grow a more successful and profitable business, no one can guarantee these results for you. We want to emphasize that entrepreneurship is not easy and the ideas presented here are just the opinions of Brian Fullerton and his respective guests. No one can guarantee success for you. That being said, we hope the ideas presented here help you and motivate you to go on out there and crush it with your own business.
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Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast thanks for listening and
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we hope to see you on the next episode.
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This has been a Bryan Fullerton and Mr. Producer Production.
Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast – Episode 952
"Why You're Afraid to Hire (And It's Costing You Everything)"
Host: Brian Fullerton
Release Date: April 13, 2026
In this episode of Fullerton Unfiltered, host Brian Fullerton dives deep into the fears and obstacles around hiring in the lawn care and landscaping industry. He breaks down the reasons entrepreneurs are reluctant to expand their teams and explores how these mental blocks can bottleneck business growth. With candid stories from his own journey and practical advice, Brian encourages listeners to face hiring head-on and shares how building solid systems—and a willingness to lead—can unlock massive potential for business and personal growth.
Brian systematically unpacks the typical reasons business owners hesitate to hire:
| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Welcome, episode milestone, spring business update | | 06:00 | Introduction to the main topic: fear of hiring | | 08:50 | The two oars of business: people and sales/marketing | | 10:58 | Brian shares his early management/hiring experiences | | 18:30 | Breakdown of most common hiring fears | | 24:55 | Reality check: Are solo operators really making money? | | 27:00 | Embracing hiring as a skillset | | 27:52 | Owning that business evolves to “people business” | | 28:34 | End-of-episode wrap and teaser for next episode |
Brian's approach is authentic, positive, and relatable, filled with down-to-earth anecdotes and a bit of tough love. He’s transparent about his own mistakes but ultimately strikes an encouraging and motivational tone:
“You can do all the above. … The more you use [the hiring muscle], the stronger it gets." (26:48)
Stay tuned for Part 2, where Brian will share specific tools, systems, and resources—like SOP bundles—to make hiring and scaling more achievable.
For those wrestling with the decision to hire, this episode offers clarity, empathy, and actionable encouragement to take the leap and grow your business and your life.