← Fullerton Unfiltered
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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.
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Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Fullerton Unfiltered podcast. It is your host, Brian Fullerton here hanging with you guys and good morning. Well, today's podcast episode I wanted to piggyback off of a topic and a discussion that was from last week down in Arlington, Virginia where we had a two day seminar with LMN in Granum, myself and Sam Gimble. And we really laid out the roadmap to help folks grow a more successful business. We had about five or six different modules and sections. One was operations, one was people, one was AI, one was habits. And we, if you've ever been to like the element masterminds, we're following a workflow of a workshop where it's not just, you know, speeches and somebody talking at you on stage, which there's a time and a place for that. And you know, sometimes they do panels and you know, different conferences and events have different themes and purposes. But the main goal and the main reason for this one was to really give you guys tangible, you know, action steps and action items to help you grow your lawn landscaping business. And a lot of it was, you know, self discovery, A lot of it was discussionary, a lot of it was, hey, what's one or two things we need to fix this next week? What's one or two things we need to really stop making excuses on? What's one or two things that we can start having other people own, you know, in the business? And again, with the five or six different modules with two or three different action items per section, by the time we get to the end of the workbook, there was like 18 different things that you have a roadmap to kind of work on or address or look at over the next 90 days or then some. Well, one thing that you know, outside of the idea and the theme and the goal with that to me was the big takeaway that I got from Friday afternoon about 11:30 after the day one workshop and the day to half day shop tour, seeing a successful company, right, that go figures ran with element, that's the idea is the testimonies that folks shared at the end of the day and a half two day experience. And that's something I wanted to talk about here for a couple of quick minutes was, you know, you're not too young and you're just earlier than everyone else in terms of it's not too late to start, it's not too late to try something new, it's not too late to implement, to change. It's not too late for you to risk. Here's a big one, here's a big takeaway. I've heard in life, like risk looking like a fool, right? To try something new or to fix things or to address things or to admit you don't know anything or that thing or something at all. And I know it sounds kind of aha and kind of no brainer, but truly, like, when's the last time we've spent any amount of effort trying to look the fool or trying to do something new or tomit. I have a problem, right? And I wanted to spend just a couple of quick minutes on that because it relates to the testimonies that everybody was giving. Friday afternoon, four or five folks came out and again, outside of the yard, it's about the size of an acre. We've got a couple tables set up beautiful, like 82 degree sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. You know, everybody's just coming on up, you know, a little round robin at the tail end and. But then, you know, after a day and a half, two days of this, folks, it's family, right? I mean, that's the big thing with like Element versus maybe some of the other CRMs out there. It's not just hype and pomp and circumstance. It's not a enterprise level software. It's. Dude, there's a group of people, community behind what we're doing here with the Granum folks and LMN and the workshops and Gimbal and I like, dude, we're invested. Like any question you have, any time, any place, we'll do the best we can to give you the roadmap to help help you out. We're not, you know, perfect. We don't have it all figured out. But I've accomplished a couple things. Gamble's accomplished a lot more. And I'm pretty sure like between both of us and the rest of the team there, and even some of the folks that are participating in the class can help give you a roadmap. But what was really exciting to me was how many people came Friday afternoon at 11, 11:30 and said, here's what I'm going to do tomorrow. You know, admittedly we've never done this before. Admittedly, we don't know where we're at financially. Admittedly, we don't have a concrete sales and estimating process. You know, admittedly, we've never done a stretch and flex in a morning rollout, right? And it was a really heartwarming conversation because, you know, there's. There's nothing more powerful than, you know, the power of a testimony, right? As they say. And that's why your church on Sunday morning gets people up and says, like, hey, change my life. You know, I've accepted this into my life and I'm not the same person I was, or this is why I got baptized, or this is why I'm doing what I do now. And this is why I changed course, changed past, or, you know, veered away from the other thing that wasn't serving me right, or was serving me, but I wasn't serving him right, that kind of stuff. And it's very, very powerful. Now, you're a little preachy here on a Monday morning because Sunday was yesterday, but it's very, very powerful stuff. And for me, like, the big takeaway was seeing all the things that folks were doing and going to do and said they were going to do and already started doing. A couple of folks that signed up with Element on the spot, they knew they're ready to go. Some were graduating from other software, some of them were making a lateral from other softwares that were just not a good fit. And then the other side of it was Friday morning, a couple folks, you know, locally, right, all the folks that were plugging in, you know, had a. We didn't start until about 8:30, 9 o', clock, so they were doing their morning rollout with their crew at 7, 7:30, 8 o' clock in the morning. And then we're able to come on over to the shop tour and like, hey, we just like, literally implemented our first stretch and flex at our first team meeting and our first rollout, like, literally that day. Like, how cool is it to go to something on Thursday and not only sign up or apply or do whatever on Thursday night or to start, you know, there's a couple of folks that had teams of folks that were like, hey, you're doing this from now on. You're doing this from now on. I'm. I'm no longer going to get in the way. There's a couple of conversations like that, heated conversations, right? And guys busting each other's chops, and I'm not going to name names, but there are some cool dudes. They're like, you're holding me back. And the guy's like, dude, you're right, I am holding you back. But you also need to do this and it's like, fine, I'll do this, you do that. And seeing folks define roles and have clarity and you know, have accountability and know what good looks like, right? That kind of stuff, it was just awesome to see the progress. And so to see folks implementing that their Friday morning, you know, for example, the stretch and flex and the morning rollout, it just made me realize. Some of these folks, by the way, were 27. Other folks were 37, some of the folks were 45, some of the folks were 50. For real. There's a couple great couples there, you know, a little bit older, 45, 50, 55 years old. For sure, for sure, for sure. And they see people that were open minded to trying something new and to admit that, hey, like we're doing a million, million and a half or 2 million, but we don't have it all figured out or we're going to listen and hear and then apply and then execute it just made me think like, you're never too young to learn a new thing. You're never too young to learn in business, right? You're never too young to learn marketing, you're never too young to learn software, right? And at the end of the day, like it made me happy seeing those testimonies. And that's what I wanted to talk about for today's show was that, look, we're all growing these businesses out there and there's a lot to learn. And I don't know if you guys can feel this sentiment that I'm going to share for the next half of this podcast, but there's a lot that I didn't know. There's a lot that I still don't know. Let's be honest. Obviously, right? But there's a lot that I did not know the same time two years ago. And it has made a tremendous difference. It's made all the difference in my career, in my business and in my life. And you want to talk about imposter syndrome or feeling behind or not knowing what you don't know or seeing if you can hang or man, these people are sharp or these people are smart or God, I'm the dumbest guy in the room anybody ever, you know, if you admit it, felt those same sentiments. I know I have, you know, like, I don't even know if I'm should be here. I don't know if I belong here. Or you go to a conference from LAL all the way up to a leanscape or event or grow and you're like, man, like I probably have the smallest business here. I don't know. I. I don't even know if I qualify to be here. If these people really knew who was here in the seats or who I am or where I'm at or what I've done or where I've been from, they would tell me to, please, sir, you can exit the building like it's Las Vegas. When you start counting cards, you know, sir, wrap it up, you can pack it up. You're out of here. Nobody does that here. Nobody's here to do that in the industry, in the community, broadly speaking, but especially not at some of these great events that I've just named. And including the Granum workshop that we were talking about, you know, there was glossary terms where we're like, hey, does anybody know this number? Who. Who feels confident or comfortable sharing their number? And crickets, you know, who feels pretty good about this and maybe two or three hands, and then you ask the. The more obvious question, right? Like, hey, who. Who feels like, hey, we've got some work to do, and I've really got to learn a little bit more about what these numbers mean in my business. And again, a lot of it, we're talking operations and finance, LMN and how to build a successful operational business. Gamble was crushing at that. I did the LMN demo for about 15, 20 minutes. Wasn't a pitch. It was just, how's our workflow? How's our estimating process? How do we do our bids and quotes, scheduled jobs, crew invoice, right? And again, like, when I say two, three years ago when I went to an Element event, and Liz goes, hey, like, so tell me more about lmn. And I'm like, yeah, it was probably like five or ten minutes about lmn, but let me talk to you about this Mark Bradley guy. For me, like, that was my message when I was there at Arlington, and I hope that was communicated and felt that. Oh, yeah, like, Element's great, and Granum is awesome. And the people, though there are very passionate about helping you grow and win and succeed. And obviously, that torch was passed to Mark Bradley with Leanscaper, right? As they've, you know, passed that torch to. To lmn, if you will. And leanscaper, Mark Bradley and them are doing something very similar, but entirely different at the same time. But your boy's up there leading and Gamble's up there leading, and I'm like, dude, I did not know a lick of this information just two or three years ago, so I want to share a couple More thoughts here for a couple of quick minutes. This is just something that's on my heart and on my mind to let you guys know, like, you're never too late, you're never too young, you're never too old, you're never too this, you're never too that. To start learning how to grow a successful business and to really start educating yourself and dialing it in and giving yourself the opportunity to draw a line in the sand and to really level up with your identity, your business acumen, who you are, what you can do. And again, seriously, the changer stars. All right, so that's just really quick. We're going to take a quick commercial break. I'm going to get a sip of water here. We've got a lot going on here this weekend at the Fullerton household. So I want to make sure that I'm, you know, being productive with you guys and our time together. I don't take it for granted that you guys turn on the show over the weekend. By the way, when we were at Arlington, three or four people alone were asking about cycle cpa. I am going to do a quick little plug for those guys. There was a lot of conversations about bookkeeping and financing and finances. And of course, knowing your numbers. A couple different folks we're sharing. One guy had a 3 1/2 million dollar business and he was an accountant by trade, by background. Then he got into landscaping and, you know, he gave a, you know, three or four minute pitch about finances and accounting, chart of accounts, all this conversation about bookkeeping. And at the end I was like, yeah, yeah, what that guy said, it was Mike. Awesome guy. If, you know, you know, and Mike was a successful business owner. And, you know, it was a great conversation about green industry firms, green industry related firms and bookkeepers. I was talking to another buddy of mine named Tyler. He's looking to make a pivot to cycle cpa. Fantastic folks out there with Carla and Joseph. And you do save 200 with promo code Brian if you sign up. All right, so give them a shout cyclecpa.com they can help you with your bookkeeping, of course, your taxes. I actually have my monthly review here this upcoming Tuesday, which is very exciting, but it was exciting and also shocking. Right. Again, as you go to the conversation, say, who here's like, got a quality bookkeeper? Who here feels like they've got a good handle on their books or their taxes? And, you know, it's, it's a little light from what we would hope or expect or what maybe what you Listening in would think that everybody else has it all figured out, from 2 million to 5 million to $10 million companies. And folks, I'm just gonna be honest with you, like, we're all learning, we're all growing, and it's not like any one person has it all figured out. So don't ever feel that way going into these events or while you're at these events, you know, and that's the cool part about the way we do these workshops. By the time we're all done, everybody's cool. Everybody's community, everybody's family, and everybody knows each other and everybody's exchanging phone numbers because we're all going to do this thing together. And that's what this is all about. All right, so let's do this really quick. We're going to hear from today's show sponsors announcements. I had to give a quick little plug for Cycle, another quick plug for Granum promo code. Brian saved you 10 with LMN. If you use our code, I will do my best to help you every step of the way to answer any questions. Do a demo with you. Of course they've got their sales team and I usually refer a couple folks to a couple different guys, Troy, Steve and whatnot that help me with our element conversations because they can do a demo with you and show you how the platform really works. So if you're looking for all that, shoot me an email, shoot me a dm, shoot me a text, we'll get you hooked up. But I just want to talk about that for a couple of quick minutes because it was very relevant to the last couple of days conversation. So listen really quick. We're here from today's show sponsors announcements. I want to wrap up a couple more thoughts on this and then we will wrap it up for a quick Monday podcast show as we all rush out the door and get this week going.
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Mowing lawns is the easy part. Growing a real lawn care business. That's where most guys get stuck. At the Lawntrepreneur Academy, we hand you the Playbooks, pricing tools and SOPs Brian Fullerton uses to run a high performing crew so that you can stop grinding and start growing. Free webinars, commercial bidding, training and the full SOP bundle are waiting. Head to lawntrepreneuracademy.com or use the link provided in the podcast description and build the lawn care business you actually want.
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As we come on back here, I wanted to talk for just a couple of quick minutes with you guys and wrap up the thought that it's okay to, to look like the fool. It's okay to ask questions. It's okay to be the new guy. It's okay to even be doing 1, 2, 3, $4 million in business and admit that you don't have it all figured out. I think there's an incredible power there. I think there's an incredible testimony there. I couldn't be more happy and more proud of that person. Not the, not the admitting that you don't know. That's not the win. The admitting is not knowing and then learning or choosing to learn that makes me most excited, right? Just admitting, hey, like, I don't know what I don't know, like, there's no pride in that. There's nothing to be proud of there. It's the. I don't know, but I'm going to find out. I don't know, but I'm going to try, right? To me, that is what I got so fired up about as folks were delivering these testimonies. And believe it or not, like, I get invested, I get excited, I'm an excitable human being. And when folks were there sharing about what they already did and what they're going to do, it just made me, you know, get this, this is right, this feels good. This is what it's all about type of conversation, right? And as you guys can imagine, here's the thought that I just wanted to wrap up with for two minutes here, is that it's not like you come into business with the experience of knowing these things, right? It's not like after a year or two, you're doing good long maintenance, good snow removal, good landscaping, that you just automatically understand how to be a quality, successful entrepreneur, business owner. And while that seems very obvious and no, duh, admit, you know, to yourself, here's what I had to admit. I haven't spent that much time learning the language of business or the glossary of business or how to actually run a successful business. Now, sub 200 grand, you know, your owner, operator, minimal overhead, maybe you can pull 60, 80, 100 grand home, like that's okay. But eventually you do have to grow up. If you decide to scale to learn these numbers and to be successful, or let me rephrase it, you don't have to, but I'll just tell you you're going to eventually jump on a landmine or get caught in a bear trap at 2 to 5 million and your business will stall out, your culture is going to suffer and your growth will peter out. It's happened to almost every person that has not got invested and involved and leveled themselves up as a business owner between software, tech, stack culture and operating, having a quality operating system. And I can introduce you to guy after guy after guy that's like, yeah, we grew really fast to 2 to 4 to 5 million. Really fast to 2 to 4 to 5,000,000. And some people, it happens at a million, right? So be forewarned, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. You're like, oh, I don't need that element stuff. I don't need that leanscaper stuff, folks. It exists for a reason. It's not like folks are like, you know, we've got nothing to do. Let's go find a pot of people that have businesses between 2 and $10 million and sell them something they don't need. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like that. Like these things exist for a reason. You know, they always say like a warning label is because something like happened, you know, like they put on a floating. It says, don't put on your foot. Like what, what person would put a floaty around their ankle and then have the kid, you know, jump in the pool and he, you know, poor kid, you know, floats feet up. Obviously, unfortunately, that's probably happened. That's why warning labels exist on this stuff. My kids are of that age where we're pulling up pool floaties and I'm thinking to myself, why would somebody even think about that? Well, clearly somebody has, right? But you got to realize as you get in the business, like landscaping has its own terms, snow removal has its own terms, and language construction has its own terms, language. I, I was listening to the almonds podcast and they were saying something about a plumb bob. Like, I, I don't know what a plumber plumb bob is. I don't know what it does. I don't know what it does. You give me multiple choice and I still probably would not get it right. I'm not in construction, I'm not in hardscape, I'm not in landscape. I don't know what that is. I've been embarrassed to admit it because it's probably something that most like, you know, 10 year olds probably know about if they're, you know, working outdoors or something, or a car heart kid. I don't know. You know, there's things that they say and I'm like, I have no idea what that means. But I'm not a landscape guy, I'm not a construction guy, I'm not a hardscape guy, you know, Other things to admit. Accounting has its own terms, Software has it its own terms, you know, software. And in the language of business, ebitda, right? Like it's a running joke. A couple years ago, I'm like, what's, what's an ebitda? And today folks are like, oh, like everything's EBITDA this and multiples that. And sure, I now know the language of business in that regard. But folks like I was embarrassed to admit to Mark Bradley, you know, two and a half years ago at a dinner, I'm like, you know, after spinning the dream for two hours, I'm like, hey, Mark, like, what's, what's an ebitda? Like, I. Bro, I don't even know what you're talking about, but it was like I had two options here, like fake it and hope I get it right, or just admit it and then watch somebody else light up that wants to show you, wants to educate you, wants to, you know, steward you and coach you or mentor you. And that's usually what I found in this industry, right? It's not like you gotta go study a glossary term or, you know, EBITDA for idiots, you know, as a book or something like that. Although it might be a helpful read for some of us, like myself. But what I'll just tell you is just keep exposing yourself to the conversation. Just keep exposing yourself to these folks. Just keep showing up. You don't have to understand everything immediately, right? But continue to read books, listen to the podcast, watch YouTube videos, take notes, right? Google the words that you don't understand. Ask chat GPT. And then Ask Chat GPT. Hey, you know, explain this to a third grade leveler, to a golden retriever. Or they put it in basketball terms or put this in NHL hockey terms, right? For some of us out there, you know how it goes. But one thing I just wanted to say is that it was such a. Again, one thing that stuck out to me the most was, yes, it was like a community. And yes, it was a great time. And the conversations and the presentations and then the side conversations and the break conversations, the lunch conversations, the dinner conversations, the seeing everybody at the bar at 10:30 at night conversations, right? Yes, those are all fun and cool. But for me, the big takeaway was, here's what I'm going to do on Monday, here's what I'm going to do on Tuesday, here's what I'm going to do with my team, here's what our team's decided to do. And I'm thinking to myself, that guy's 50 years old, running a one and a half million dollar business, him and his wife and six people, but he's going to go back to his team on money. Admit, dude, I don't know everything. We don't have it all figured out, but we're going to try. We're going to try to do something different. To me, like, that is what it's all about. That's encouraging. It's the, it's the, it's the effort to try, right? And that goes back to the whole, like, man in the arena quote that I was able to read out loud a couple years ago at launchpointer Academy Live, right? Like, dude, we're all doing our best. We're all trying. And nothing makes me more proud that somebody says, dude, I'm. I'm willing to look like the fool. I'm willing to admit I don't know, but I'm willing to try anyway. And if you just try, if you just give it a shot, if you just try to take one step further, you know, and, and you just try to make some progress here, then your future does have hope. And you don't have to just be average or live in apathy, right? You can move the needle forward. You can change your stars. And to me, like, that was. I just still can't get it out of my, my, my mind's eye hearing four or five, you know, it's like the first one. Like, anybody want to give a testimony? Last couple days, what are you guys doing? What are you guys changing? And it's Cricket and Gamble's like, y', all, somebody come on up here on popcorn and somebody, right? And then first person comes on up and then, then it's in second person, then it's third. Then it's like, dude, we, you know, 25 people that. We can't have everybody for 25, 25 testimonies because, dude, we got to get going, right? It was lunch time and we're getting everybody out the door and back to. Back to finishing up there in the week and in the month, right? But you can't get. You couldn't get enough people to not give testimonies at the end, right? Because there's this, this energy. This is spree decor. And that's something that I'll never forget. This is one tour so far. One tour so far. We've got six, seven, eight more going across the country. Check out the Break Record store on the Element website. But now I kind of get like, Bradley and Lisecki and these Folks. And some folks say, like, how can you, how can you, like, just keep going? How can you go hard? How can you. How can you get sick the night before, have food poisoning and still show up? Or how can you use for 10, 15, 20 years? Like, hasn't the conversation, like, gotten out there? Not really. Not really. If Everywhere you go, 10 or 20 or 50 people showed up in a city and you were able to help people understand some glossary terms, some business principles, and some, you know, software to help them with their bidding and estimating process and to gain consistency and gain clarity. Like, how could you not get addicted to the thank yous, if you will. How could you not get addicted to seeing other people grow and move on? And again, that's something that I'm still trying to keep forefront of my mind as we continue to do all of our content, everything that we put out is to help folks, is to elevate folks. Just like everybody has helped and elevated me, and that's what it's all about. All right, that's my Monday show for you guys. Start. Start doing something new. Pick up the, the phone. I know it weighs like concrete. Call cycle, call element, call somebody, call your guy, call your girl, whoever that is for whatever it is, right? Pick up the thousand pound concrete phone or shoot the thousand pound concrete email. I guess we could say today where you just say, hey, I don't know and I need help. No problem, dude. We've all been there. As my church says, no shame, no shame. We'll help you out. All right, that's what I got for you guys on Monday's show. Just a quick little note. It was something that's still in my mind. I. I didn't get to share as much of, of that as I wanted to on Friday show from the quick debrief, because it was just coming in hot real time, and I'm like, dude, this is just exciting. But the biggest thing for me was the testimonies on Sunday morning and. Or Friday morning, Sunday morning. The biggest thing for me was the testimonies on Friday morning felt like a Sunday morning, if you know what I'm saying. And if you've ever been to church, for my church folks, my church fam and those testimonies share. And I don't care, you know, if they're 25 or 35, those are good. And then the second ones that get me are the other kids. The kids that are, you know, 10, 12, 15, they're getting baptized or accepting Christ like that. That gets you every time. But to me, the only thing more cool than that is the folks that are 50, 60, and 70, you know, that are trying to get get their ducks in a row and get their life right and make right with God and they become born again and they decide to get baptized. Like to me, all of the above gets me crying. All of the above gets me tearing. And don't look at me at church on a Sunday morning when we're doing baptism day or people are answering the altar call. To me, that is what it's all about. Just admitting, dude, we don't know what we don't know. We've goofed up, we've messed up. But you know what? We're going to make it right and we're going to continue to kick butt moving forward. Oh, who doesn't like a good testimony? Amen. All right, folks, that's what I got for you. If you know, you know, if you've been to there, you've been there. If you've been through any of these conferences and meetings or seminars and webinars, you just, you come out of it, you're fired up and you want to run through a concrete wall and you know that you can, you can change your stars. And that's again, that's all about. So I'm drinking the Kool Aid, I'm full and I'm excited. All right, that's what I'm gonna leave you guys today. Love you. We appreciate you and look forward to catching up with you guys here on the next one.
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Are you making decisions based on your gut feeling or are you utilizing your financial data to make the right moves in your business? Whether you are planning to add additional employees, increase pricing, or purchase equipment, it's crucial to have up to date accounting to reference the accounting firm cycle. CPA will not only provide accurate accounting data through their bookkeeping and accounting services, but will also meet and deliver green industry tailored reports to help answer the key questions you are facing in your business. Visit their website cyclecpa.com and mention Brian's podcast to receive $200 off on bookkeeping, tax and CFO services.
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Thanks for taking the time to listen to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast with Brian 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 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 Brian Fullerton and Mr. Producer Production.