← Green Side Up
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- [00:05]
Jason Lee
Welcome to Green side Up, the perfect podcast for small business entrepreneurs looking to cultivate success in the landscaping and tree care industry. Join Jason Lee, a seasoned landscaper, and Jordan Upkavage, a true tree whisperer, as they share their wealth of experience and insights to navigate the challenges of growing your business. Get ready to hear real life stories, practical solutions, and invaluable advice that will empower you to thrive amidst the chaos of entrepreneurship. And now, let's keep the Green side Up with your host, Jason Lee and Jordan Upkevage.
- [00:47]
Good morning, Jason Lee.
- [00:49]
Jordan Upkavage
How are you? Get the stretch in.
- [00:53]
Jason Lee
It must be natural because that was not planned.
- [00:57]
Jordan Upkavage
I'm doing good, man. I'm in the sky frog kitchen again and I've got a. I don't know how cold it is, but it's pretty cold. I've got my little little buddy heater on a 1 pound propane tank sitting in the chair next to me and trying to stay warm this morning.
- [01:13]
Jason Lee
Yeah, I saw that, man. It is. Well, it is. It's now after 6am but we started this song and dance pre 6am and it was 43 degrees. That may be very warm for some of you, but for me the 43 degrees pretty damn cold. But you got a nice little heater, buddy, and I don't. I am in my home office that's far away from the fireplace and the central heat and air doesn't work the greatest in my home office. And I have single pane windows so I have a nice little pork jacket on and not moving a lot. I'm staying right here, keeping my arms to my side.
- [01:57]
Jordan Upkavage
But if you fall out of your chair like an iguana, know what happened?
- [02:02]
Jason Lee
It just shoot me with a CO2 powered pellet gun. So you we were going on a roll on some fun things that I was looking at and I was asking a whole bunch of loaded questions and you said, well hell, let's just start the damn podcast. So do you want to just pick up the conversation that we were having or do you want to do a nice intro on what the hell we're going to talk about today?
- [02:27]
Jordan Upkavage
No, screw the intro. We'll pick up where we left off.
- [02:31]
Jason Lee
Okay, well, lawn and landscape.com and lawn and Landscape is a magazine. Is that right, Jason?
- [02:40]
Jordan Upkavage
Right, correct. A magazine. And then they also put said magazine on the Internet digitally now. But yes, it is still a print publication. We get it in the mail monthly. Pretty sure it's monthly.
- [02:53]
Jason Lee
So if anybody goes to lawnandlandscape.com I said, wow, there's a picture right on the front page. And I'll tell you what's in this picture. There's a picture of a average looking gentleman on a yellow hustler zero turn lawnmower in between some hay bales that is doing a wheelie like a hot rod on a drag strip. A Z turn doing a wheelie. And this average normal looking guy happens to be our buddy Dan. I go holy crap, that's Yankee Dan. So how the hell is Yankee Dan popping a wheelie on a zero turn lawnmower on the front page of lawn and landscape.com and then I look on to the left here where there's some words it says going for gold in Florida. Jason Lee, in partnership with the Florida Nursery Growers and Landscape association is hosting the inaugural landscape rodeo this February. I go, holy hell Jason. You are on the front page of lawn and landscape.com and if you click the link then it brings you to the full article. And there's a whole bunch of words that I didn't read but I see that we got a link in here. There's a sky frog landscape link in here. Who is also the co host of greenside up podcast. Maybe that's a backlink. Backlinks are good from hiding.
- [04:20]
Jordan Upkavage
Allegedly your backlinks are good.
- [04:23]
Jason Lee
He got a picture of a skid steer which appears to be flipping a tractor tire. Then there's the barrel racing and the Ziggy D zag obstacle course from a zoom and a whole bunch of other words that I didn't read yet. But that is what baffled me, Jason, that Yankee Dan, Yankee Dan is popping up on your hustler's e turn on the front page of long and landscape.com.
- [04:51]
Jordan Upkavage
the non landscaper made it to the COVID of COVID the landscape magazine.
- [04:56]
Jason Lee
And to be fair, we had. Dan's a decent look. He's a good looking guy. I wanna, I gotta beat him. I can't like let him know that he's a good looking guy or he's never gonna let it go. His head's gonna fly off. He's a good looking dude.
- [05:09]
Jordan Upkavage
So we had media day last Friday at Dan is the owner of the venue where we are hosting the landscape rodeo. And so we had media day last Friday. Media content capture day. So our ultimate goal was to set up some events, run trials, make sure some of our plans can come to fruition. We ended up setting up the barrel racing, the skid steer tire flip. We did a two person mower relay which worked out very well. We set up a pallet stack challenge with the mini skid steers. So all of that worked out very well. The only event that's still a hang up man is the three on three backpack blower soccer. And I might have to cancel it. So why that's. It's because it's not easy. It's not easy. We can't find the right ball. We keep practicing it with different balls at the shop but like the guys just go full like it's awesome to watch because they're going wide open at it, fighting with backpack blowers, trying to get this ball to score in the net. But then at the end of it it's so hard, like no one scores. So if no one can score and win, then we can't just have guys running around killing themselves physically with backpack blowers chasing, chasing a ball around and no one's, no one wins.
- [06:28]
Jason Lee
So hold on, figure out, let me break this down. Why, why can they not score?
- [06:35]
Jordan Upkavage
So, so a traditional soccer ball for them, it blows around with the backpack blowers but they end up blowing so much dirt and grass on top of each other while they're trying to blow the ball. That was a bad thing. Then I tried a blow up ball from like the bouncy ball bin at Walmart. Like a beach ball sized ball. Like very airy, bouncy, light rubber. It is extremely light and it is entertaining to watch that ball get blown around. But then as soon as it breaks force from the force field of six BR600 backpack blowers it shoots off 20, 30ft. And so we tried building a wall around the soccer field with pine straw bales and that helped. So that ball was too light. And then I had an exercise ball at home that I'd bought for Wilder and we kick it around the yard. Like one of those ones. Yeah. So and that was, that was better. But then it was a little bit too big. Like it didn't blow. It was heavy enough not to blow around crazily. But then it was a little bit too big. So now I've got a 16 inch kickball at home and that's going to be the next like next one to try. So it's like a little bit smaller than a beach ball size. Kickball, dodgeball, kickball. And so we're going to try that. I've also thought about like taking a beach ball and putting some water in it to help it keep weighted down. But the ultimate, my ultimate if I can figure out how the guys are make the rules where anyway, where someone can score and it can actually be a game. Then we're going to roll with it
- [08:10]
Jason Lee
because it's okay, I get the ball problems. But why are nobody scoring?
- [08:17]
Jordan Upkavage
Because either the ball shoots off out of out of bounds or out of control or it won't move fast enough. The back and forth between the backpack blowers of different teams, you know, the ball won't move. It's either moves too fast or it won't move fast enough.
- [08:33]
Jason Lee
So it's either uncontrollable or the defense is too strong.
- [08:38]
Jordan Upkavage
Yes. So we got to find a happy medium. Anyway, we're still working on it. It's not.
- [08:48]
Jason Lee
So has anybody gotten close to scoring?
- [08:52]
Jordan Upkavage
Yes. Yes.
- [08:54]
Jason Lee
Okay, I have two ideas. One, can you just make the goal bigger? What if you don't even have a goal? What if you just have an end zone and if you make it into the end zone, it's a point.
- [09:14]
Jordan Upkavage
Okay.
- [09:16]
Jason Lee
Right? Yeah, make it in the end zone. That's a point. Okay, that's it. Make the goal bigger. Right. And then the ball having not done any of this and thinking, you know, when you were in public school you'd play dodgeball or we played this game called Bombardment, but it was like the same thing as dodgeball. The ball was foam and it was not air filled rubber. It was like you could like take a bite out of it and it was that kind of yellowish cream colored, squishy foam. And then the shitty balls, they were usually like blue. And then the outside edging would kind of come off on the shitty old ones and you get the little blue flecks on your hand. Did you have those kind of foamy balls?
- [10:07]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah, no, I know, I know what you're talking about.
- [10:10]
Jason Lee
Do you think that would be an appropriate bowl?
- [10:13]
Jordan Upkavage
We could try it. But what you're saying with the.
- [10:16]
Jason Lee
You're not having what you're saying.
- [10:18]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah, what you're saying with the end zone though, could very much. That might be able to, to, to help out because then even as we, we had squared off the field with pine straw bales, the ball was getting stuck in the corner. So then it's just like, oh, we're designing all of this as we go. We're making this up. Like there's no regulation. There's no three on three backpack blower soccer regulations for us to follow. This isn't the Ocho. The. The Ocho. And we're having a dodgeball tournament.
- [10:43]
Jason Lee
So it's espn.
- [10:45]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah. So we're, we rounded off the corners to make it more like a hockey rink. So that, that helped with the ball getting stuck. But your idea of the field and ends on.
- [10:56]
Jason Lee
I don't know.
- [10:57]
Jordan Upkavage
I'll let you know. I don't know. I'll let you know when we're recording this Friday at your house in Tampa. And I'll let you know how that worked, because we're going to try tomorrow morning. That could be a very feasible thing because the guys have a blast doing it. But then after five minutes of battling, it's like a UFC fight. It's like these guys are dead. Like they're gassed. It's like it's, you know, they're tagging each other in. You're in. It's like, okay, like. But they're. I mean, they're. They're getting into it, but it just proves the point of the level of fun of it. You know, the guys are having a blast doing it. So, getting back to the media day, you know, Michael, Luke from Sky Palm Studios, and for our listeners, Luke does all of our social media for Sky Frog Landscape, and they capture content and video and then edit all of the content that we capture internally. Luke is going to be sponsoring, anyway, the Landscape Rodeo. He's going to be doing the videography for the VIP dinner and the day of the event. So he came out to do some drone. Drone footage. He did still photos, which is how he captured, you know, Dan doing his wheelie. So Pablo, who is the black sheep on Instagram, and then Garrett with Psalms Lawn Care, both. I think they're in St. Cloud. Pretty sure they're in St.
- [12:11]
Jason Lee
Cloud.
- [12:12]
Jordan Upkavage
One of the Orlando, but not Orlando places around there. So they came up and gave everything a whirl. We took video, everybody. But, you know, it's kind of at the beginning of it, it's like nobody knows what to do. So it's like we finally get all the set up in the arena. We set everything up. We got straw bales, we do this, we do that. And then we got the Dallas and wanted our. Our dealers to participate, our sponsors, so that they can, you know, really see. See what we're doing. So we had Alta equipment brought out, mini skid steer, and then our skid steer that we're going to be using, which is going to be a Takahoochi track machine. I'm not sure which mini skid will be in an event yet. It'll either be a Toro Dingo or. Or probably in a Vermeer anyway. Toro Dingo, Ditchwitch or Vermeer, not sure yet. But. I did not. I did not. I'm not. I'm not gonna say anything. They are coming on as a sponsor of the event.
- [13:15]
Jason Lee
Heck yeah. Go Vermeer.
- [13:18]
Jordan Upkavage
I did, I did not call them and they bought my silence until after the event. So I still own my machine so that we can continue that. So I guess later on in our podcast life.
- [13:30]
Announcer Sam
This isn't your average industry event. If you can drive it, cut it, trim it or haul it, it's time to prove it. Introducing the first ever landscape rodeo. A high energy hands on showdown celebrating the skills, machines and people that power Florida's green industry. Join us February 19th and 20th at Ancient City Farmstead in St. Augustine. Watch or compete in head to head challenges like zero turn barrel racing and three on three backpack blower soccer. Plus precision equipment runs that put real world skills on full display. Kick things off with a VIP dinner on the 19th featuring a mouthwatering low country boil. Then its full throttle competition on the 20th hosted by the Florida Nursery Growers and Landscape Association Frontrunners chapter. Proceeds support scholarships and training for the next generation of landscape professionals. Show your skills, support your industry. Sign up now@thelandscaperodeo.com that's thelandscaperodeo.com but the
- [14:28]
Jordan Upkavage
salesman, the salesman called me for a sales call last week and I told him very specific thoughts of mine.
- [14:34]
Jason Lee
Let me tell you on something. You're ignorant to cancer.
- [14:39]
Jordan Upkavage
So. And then he thought it was very entertaining and he's like, well, I'm going to keep calling on you forever because you never know when you might need something. I said, good man. I said, call me, call me every six months. So anyway, but then he talked to another one of our members and he invited him out to demo day and he brought a couple of mini skids out and ran them around and so they'll be there anyway. They'll be there at the event. But as we kicked off media day, we started with the Zero turn bail racing that I was trying to get somebody that hadn't done it before to like jump up and, you know, do it. So nobody, nobody jumped at the opportunity. So Aaron, Aaron Alvarez was there and Aaron, Aaron's not shy, so. And then Aaron had been there the first time we tried it. So she got on the mower and ran the course, showed everybody the, the pattern and then we started running it. Gravely Mowers was there. Eric brought out a. Oh, I don't remember what model zero turn we ran.
- [15:37]
Jason Lee
Was there in person.
- [15:39]
Jordan Upkavage
Yes. Yep. So he can't. He came up with and I don't know, the Gravely models I think a 2, 2520 turn. But then he brought this monstrosity of a walk behind mower that or stand on mower that looked awesome. So I don't, I didn't pay attention to how wide it was. But as these big fat, like, you'll see some of the videos, these big fat, wide stance tires. So it looks gnarly. It's like it's got dragster tires on the back of it. And so we ran that in the two person relay event and that did extremely well. And then I told Eric, for the sake of this, the barrel racing, we ran some with his zero turn. Then it's just like, ah, we're gonna beat this up pretty good. Like, let me stick my. Let me stick my hustler back in here. And so then Dan really enjoyed himself on the lawnmower and has no fear of anything. So everyone was a little bit timid running the course. So then including Harry, you know, gator hunting Harry, not Harry was there. Yeah, well, both Harry's were there. So Harry, love, our chapter president, front runners. Harry was, you know, Harry was there. He hauled over all the straw bales and bravo came from big trees. So.
- [16:52]
Jason Lee
So why was, why was alligator hunter Harry there?
- [16:56]
Jordan Upkavage
Why not? Because he hears me talking about this landscape rodeo. Not so.
- [17:00]
Jason Lee
And it's close enough to him, he goes, hi, Jason. I want to see that.
- [17:03]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah, 100, 100 hours. 100 hours on the boat, gator hunting. Listen to those talk about the landscape rodeo.
- [17:09]
Jason Lee
Okay.
- [17:09]
Jordan Upkavage
So he came, he came over, help set up. And he's a, you know, besides running the airboat, you know, he runs equipment for the core, you know, on the weekends, you know, most of his excavator stuff, but like he goes up to Kings Bay and does giant dirt work and stuff. So he's definitely a multifaceted equipment operator.
- [17:26]
Jason Lee
And I just came up with a new idea for another event, but I will tell you that when you're ready.
- [17:32]
Jordan Upkavage
So. So everyone was being a little bit timid on the mower and it's just like, all right, I know someone that is not timid. So Dan was in his office and I called him up. He's like, hey, you want to come run the mower later on? Brooke is a big coordinator. She's like, Dan ran out of the office when you called him. It's like, of course he did. It's because it's a lot of fun. So Dan comes down, man, and he'd already, you know, he, he. It was Dan, Paul, Aaron and Brooke. I think the first time we tried it out in the rodeo arena, so, you know, Dan hopped right on and he, he knows the deal. So I mean, he laid into it and, you know, he pops a wheelie, he runs the course, he's flying around, Ric Flair hollering and, and he's got a couple of videos he did on his meta. I don't know if you're familiar with the Metaglasses. The cameras, the glasses with cameras. Yes. Yeah. So Dan was wearing those. We'll have those videos coming out on social media soon. But then I think Luke was. Luke had his regular video camera out and like, after he saw Dan, I mean, we'd probably run like 10 repetitions of this event and nobody had made the mower stand up, which I still don't know is. It might not be a competitive advantage to like run it that hard. No. So it might actually be slower. And that's what we're gonna have to find out for the competition. Like, yes, it's good for photos and it, you know, whatnot. But it might not be a competitive advantage. But as soon as Luke saw that, he's like, hold on. He's like, I gotta go get my still camera for this. So then he got, he got one picture of Dan standing the mower up. So whatever Matt made for a. It was a little long version of how Dan ended up on the COVID of Lawn and Landscape magazine. As soon as I saw, as soon as I saw the photos come through on Google Drive and like that was the first one. It's just like, oh, this is definitely worthy of. Worthy of. And that's the one they picked. Like, I didn't pick any of the photos, you know?
- [19:23]
Jason Lee
Yeah.
- [19:24]
Jordan Upkavage
So the guy, I just did an interview guy, wrote the article, sent him the photos. And I'm glad he waited for the photos from our media day because, you know, they're better than the ones we got from our shop.
- [19:35]
Jason Lee
So, yeah, I could just see Dan in his office talking with some buddy about a 32 million dollar deal. And he would interrupt and be like, hold on, hold on. I got something really important I got to do. I'll call you right back. And he'll end up multi million dollar phone call to go run a lawnmower.
- [19:56]
Jordan Upkavage
100. And that's how fun the landscape already is.
- [20:01]
Jason Lee
Yep, yep. So I was thinking, you said Harry, and Harry runs an airboat for the Army Corps engineers. Do you need another event, Jason?
- [20:16]
Jordan Upkavage
I, I don't know if Harry can
- [20:18]
Jason Lee
bring an airboat on a trailer. You get a Massive pile of leaves. Start the airboat. If you blast all the leads everywhere, then you got to rake them back up. It's a speed rake challenge and then the fun of it is you get to get blasted by an airboat at the same time.
- [20:37]
Jordan Upkavage
I don't know.
- [20:39]
Jason Lee
Anyways, you ponder that and shoot it down later. So when is this landscape rodeo? I'm@the landscaperodeo.com Beautiful website by the way. Who'd you, who'd you have do this?
- [20:52]
Jordan Upkavage
Intrigue Media is our media sponsor and they made the website.
- [20:57]
Jason Lee
Damn.
- [20:57]
Jordan Upkavage
Looks good. That does. They did a great job.
- [21:01]
Jason Lee
So the landscaperodeo.com remind everybody where this is and when it is.
- [21:05]
Jordan Upkavage
This is at Ancient city farmstead in St. Augustine, Florida. Competition day is Friday, February 20th. We have a VIP dinner on Thursday, February 19th. We are encouraging everyone to sign up as soon as possible. We might run an early bird special on competitions. I will have that out on social media by the time people are hearing this. If we are, we're already making the events a pretty low cost of barrier to entry. But our goal now is to get teams signed up and people registered because we are ordering competition shirts and I don't want to get stuck with too many or I also don't want to run out on our first event and fail with having shirts and swag bags for competitors. So we are encouraging everyone to sign up by February. I think third is pushing our date to order shirts then have them ready by the by the competition.
- [22:03]
Jason Lee
Okay, so thank you for that. That was instruction I did not have. Now I have some instruction from you. So the roadie The Thursday the 19th is the VIP dinner sponsors crawfish boil, crawfish racing. Sun's going down, having some cocktails and beers. That's Thursday the 19th. Then the rodeo is on Friday the 20th. Okay, what time does the does the rodeo. What time do I need to be there? I as in competitor need to show up on Friday the 20th.
- [22:43]
Jordan Upkavage
So we are going to open registration at 7am so we're going to have to herd everybody through the cattle gates. The competition will start we will either kick off at 8:30 with an opening ceremony or 9 o'. Clock. So competitions will start between 9 and 9:30. We're going to run a three to three and a half hour competition gap in the morning. Probably have a little break in the middle of the day or we're going to stagger the break in the middle of the day. Judging wise, depending on number of competitors that we have and how things are going and then we'll have another competition window in the afternoon from 12:30 to 1 to around 4:30. 4, 4:30. So then after that we will have a tallying of the winners, will have an award ceremony and then food trucks will be there. We're scheduling that now, I believe from in some sort of facet from 11 to 7. So there'll be food trucks there for lunch, there'll be food trucks there. If everyone wants to stay around and mingle after the award ceremony, I think we're going to keep, you know, an optional networking reception, dinner type scenario going until 7 or 8. So.
- [23:58]
Jason Lee
Okay, so if I want to participate, I need to register so you know that I want to participate in this. Okay. And I'm doing this with you now. The landscaperadio.com. there it is. Sign up today. Click that button. And then there's the description. February 20th, buy tickets. Okay, So I can buy a spectator ticket to come watch. It's only a whopping $10. I can buy a VIP dinner ticket to come do crawfish and racing and drinking, which is between 6 and 9pm that's only 50 bucks and you get a badass meal. Okay, got that. And then I would individually register for each event. I didn't know that, like legitimately I did not know that until right now. So I can sign up for the skid steer precision course, the mini excavator deal. I have here a wheelbarrow walk behind lawnmower relay race so I can sign up for backpack blower soccer that we just solved. I think solved the problem. Truck and trailer irrigation assembly trenching challenge, Isuzu truck operations, zero turn mower barrel racing. And I can sign up for the event that I want to participate in. And it's only $5 per event. So if I want to run a zero turn lawnmower in a barrel racing event, it costs me five dollars a bucks.
- [25:41]
Jordan Upkavage
Five bucks.
- [25:42]
Jason Lee
If you have not had the life experience, such as myself, of running a zero lawnmower in a racing environment, you're telling me I can potentially break your for five bucks and run it as fast as I can.
- [25:56]
Jordan Upkavage
Five bucks.
- [25:56]
Jason Lee
That sounds like a pretty damn good deal.
- [25:59]
Jordan Upkavage
No, so. And the goal with that is, you know, it's just some people have made the comment of why is it so cheap? And it's just like, well, we did that on purpose. We have great sponsors that have come on board so far. And I think year over year we're going to continue to have great sponsorship and support through this. You know, Tony Bass, super lawn Trucks is our title sponsor. Tony's coming in. He's. Max is going to be bringing down an Isuzu for one of their super lawn trucks. For the Isuzu truck operations.
- [26:27]
Jason Lee
We get to drive one of the SLTs.
- [26:30]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah. So. And then, and then, I mean, going down the list, man, and I need to start getting the list so that we can thank some of these people properly. You know, Alta Equipment, Dynamic Equipment Group, Gravely, you know, they're all coming in as platinum sponsors bringing equipment. We got Heritage Landscape Supply Group, Site 1, and the list goes on and on. But that's our main, you know, the support of our sponsors is how we're putting this event on. So the, the cost of entry. Yes, that's a. There needs to be some sort of pay to play and not just a free for all, but I think at five bucks an event, if you want to do 10 events, that's only 50 bucks. Like that's not. That's a pretty good deal to come out and have a day of fun. And so we wanted to keep it reasonable for an owner operator. If you're just out there by yourself and hell, you might just cut grass part time but make it very feasible for you to come and participate in the event. And then if you know Brightview or Sepra, I was emailing with Isabelle with Sepra last week or two weeks ago, they're talking about bringing eight or 10 guys. So, you know, people are. Larger companies are bringing 8, 10, 15, 20 people. Then we also want to make it where, you know, it's not a. Not a deal breaker. Deal breaker for their budget also. So I think it's, I think it's pretty good across the board. And then we are doing, for the landscape decathlon, it's going to be the lowest average rank across 10 events and there's no limit to the amount of events you can participate in. You can participate in everyone if you want. But the winner of the landscape decathlon gets thousand bucks cash prize.
- [28:05]
Jason Lee
So what do you mean the lowest of events?
- [28:07]
Jordan Upkavage
So we're going to take the average across 10 events. Like the rankings like this will be ranked like when we went to college and did the, the NCLC. So across 10 events, we're going to take the ranking of how you place and average that out and that's going to be our metric to determine who is the best. So it's. Well, it'll be the. Yes, however you look at it, but yes, the closest to one.
- [28:34]
Jason Lee
Oh, I get what you're saying.
- [28:36]
Jordan Upkavage
Yes. So the closest. Closest to one.
- [28:38]
Jason Lee
As in first place.
- [28:40]
Jordan Upkavage
As in first place. So you might have nine events where you come in the top 10. But then if you have one event where you do really bad, that might throw your ranking off. So it's going to be. And I. That's the best metric I've come up with so far to track this and we'll see. See how it goes. But then we also for our other events, we have our pretty belt buckle here, which I've got to get out to our committee and we got to vote on that. But the sample turned out pretty good, so. But all the other events at least have belt buckles.
- [29:13]
Jason Lee
That is a metal laser or machine engraved belt buckle. Like Genuine belt buckle 20, 26. The Landscape Rodeo with your logo with
- [29:27]
Jordan Upkavage
the belt loop on the back and the little peg. Yeah, Genuine belt buckle.
- [29:31]
Jason Lee
Yeah, genuine.
- [29:33]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah. So anyway, that's going to be the prize for the rest of the events. Depending on registration and how much money is raised from registration, we're going to try to kick back some of that registration money and cash prizes.
- [29:44]
Jason Lee
Oh, okay. So if I win an individual event, I win a belt buckle. If I sign up, if I want to win a thousand dollars cash, I need to sign up for 10 events.
- [29:57]
Jordan Upkavage
Yes.
- [29:58]
Jason Lee
If I want a grand, if I want a chance to win $1,000. Don't register for five, you got to register for 10.
- [30:06]
Jordan Upkavage
And I'd register for 12 or 13 in case you really suck at a couple of them because we're going to
- [30:12]
Jason Lee
take the lowest of those away.
- [30:14]
Jordan Upkavage
Yes. So that would be my suggestion. For $1,000 cash, if you want to put for $60. If you want to. If for all of our industry people that like to scratch scratchers and play the lottery, if you bet on yourself for $60, you could turn 60 into a grand. You never know.
- [30:34]
Jason Lee
Yeah. So that's like 94% left over.
- [30:38]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah, it's worth a shot. Come have some fun, you know?
- [30:41]
Jason Lee
Yeah. Okay. So in my personal duties, I got Thursday night on Friday. Do you need me? I'm asking you if I am about to register for 10 events on this website or if I need to be a judge and hold a stopwatch and like go around and do things I probably should.
- [31:01]
Jordan Upkavage
Definitely. We might. Yeah, we're gonna need you to hold the stopwatch.
- [31:04]
Jason Lee
Yeah, yeah. All right, well, I'm gonna register for 10 events anyway, and then I'm gonna hold a stopwatch and if I have an opportunity to run an event, then I'll run an event. And if I don't, then I won't or I'll give it away to somebody else.
- [31:17]
Jordan Upkavage
And you're definitely going to do barrel racing. I mean, that's.
- [31:21]
Jason Lee
I want to do that.
- [31:22]
Jordan Upkavage
And I. And I'm pretty sure we're going to do. Because I was trying to think of. What's fair is I was talking with Justin Walsh, with RJ Walsh. RJ Walsh is their business anyway, down in Napoli area, west southwest Florida. I think they did really nice landscaping down there. Met him at the convention last year, but FNGLA convention. But I was talking with him yesterday to see if he was coming. He's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna come up with the wife and kids. It's like, man, I said, I don't need you to come with your wife and kids. I said, you can. I said, I need you to bring a team. So he's like, all right, let me see. So I guess he'd talk to his guys and call me back a couple hours later. He's like, all right. He's like, we're coming. We got our team. He's like, but we need to know what's up. Like, we need to know. He's like, are we running? And he had a laundry list of questions. You know they run foot controlled bobcat skid steers. He's like, are we playing with PlayStation controllers? Are we driving real skid steers? I said, I guess you're playing with PlayStation controllers. He's like, this type of shit. I need to know because we're coming to win. I said, I like your enthusiasm, buddy. I said, I like it. So he's ready to go.
- [32:20]
Jason Lee
But so I was. I'm going to register. So action plan. I want. I listener want to participate at the landscape rodeo dot com. I need to go to the landscaperadio dot com, click the sign up today button and then I need to buy either a spectator ticket, a VIP dinner ticket for Thursday night, or I select the number of challenges that I want to participate in. And then I hit apply and I punch in my credit card with my email first and last name and then I am officially registered as a participant. Okay, question. If I want to participate in backpack blower soccer but I don't have a three person team, would you say, if you want to do it and you don't have a team, sign up anyway, we'll figure it out?
- [33:17]
Jordan Upkavage
I don't know. The short answer would be yes, we will figure it out. That is yes, we will figure it out 100%. We are. Especially with that we are making that up as we go.
- [33:26]
Jason Lee
Yeah.
- [33:26]
Jordan Upkavage
Because I'll be figuring out I can jump in on it. Yes. And then. Yeah, it's either we will pair you with someone and you can participate on a team, or if it doesn't come to fruition, I will have five bucks in my pocket to give you back if you show up.
- [33:39]
Jason Lee
And.
- [33:40]
Jordan Upkavage
And it doesn't come through. But I would say sign up.
- [33:43]
Jason Lee
Yeah. And we'll kill.
- [33:44]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah.
- [33:44]
Jason Lee
I'm going to do lunches three days before to make sure I got swole quads. Okay. So I'm going to head up to St. Augustine as in the participant. And Friday we're going to have a blast. And I don't want to drive home on Friday or where do I stay?
- [34:04]
Jordan Upkavage
So we have a room block at the Renaissance Marriott from World Golf Village and the link is not up yet on the website. We just got it back last week. So we're going to put the link on the website. If you're listening to this and want that link, shoot me a direct message on Instagram at the Landscape rodeo or greenside up on Instagram or email us@v landscaperadiomail.com we can get you that room link. Rooms are like 149 bucks. Okay.
- [34:33]
Jason Lee
I was a lot really quickly and I didn't track. You said it's the Renaissance Marriott Golf Village. Okay.
- [34:42]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah.
- [34:42]
Jason Lee
So here it's World Golf Vintage World golf village, Renaissance St. Augustine Resort. And that's 500 South Legacy Trail, St. Augustine, Florida. That looks like a really nice place.
- [34:57]
Jordan Upkavage
Oh, it is. Yeah.
- [34:58]
Jason Lee
Like, it looks like a resort. It's, I don't know, 15 stories tall, 12 stories tall. It's big. It looks fancy. It has 3,300 Google reviews and it looks nice, looks expensive. And what is the room cost per night that you got?
- [35:18]
Jordan Upkavage
$149.
- [35:21]
Jason Lee
$149. Okay. They're going for 240 bucks on like Priceline and Expedia. So you're getting 100 bucks off. Oh, and then they have here $180 on the official site. You're at 150 bucks. So that's really cheap for some place that looks really nice.
- [35:44]
Jordan Upkavage
No, I think it's a. It's a really nice hotel for that price point.
- [35:47]
Jason Lee
Okay.
- [35:47]
Jordan Upkavage
Of room.
- [35:48]
Jason Lee
And how far away is this from ancient city farmstead?
- [35:53]
Jordan Upkavage
Five minutes right down the road. So not. Yeah, right down the road. So that's the closest hotel to the venue. And then Those familiar with St. Augustine, the hotel is very close to I95 and then one exit south is State Road 16. And then there are a plethora of hotels down off of thinner. Yeah, the intersection of State Road 16 and 95. So that exit, that exit, there's a lot of hotels and options to stay.
- [36:22]
Jason Lee
There's a golf course right there, hence the name. So you could, if you're into golf, you can go golfing the next day on Saturday if you want.
- [36:31]
Jordan Upkavage
Yep, they've got some. I should know the golfy stuff, but they have some sort of golf hall of fame and lots of golf things here. Yeah, we've had some questions.
- [36:42]
Jason Lee
You just head west on Nine Mile Road and cross 95 and you're there. Yep, it's right there. Okay.
- [36:49]
Jordan Upkavage
We've also had some questions about RVs. There are no RV hookups at this venue. There are some RV parks that are not far. Believe that information is on the website. If it is not again, email us@theleanscape radio.com and we can get you set up with that info.
- [37:06]
Jason Lee
Okay, and how many events total do we have here on the line?
- [37:12]
Jordan Upkavage
21 or 22.
- [37:15]
Jason Lee
Plan Healthcare seems to be all the buzz in the green industry right now. Are you like many business owners that don't know how or where to start or are you looking to add a new tool to your PHC toolbox?
- [37:26]
Jordan Upkavage
Mitigro is an innovative product that focuses on root and soil health. A different approach than loading up the ground with more npk. Mitigro is a blend of mycorrhizae, fungi, bacteria, vitamin B and iba, which is a rooting hormone.
- [37:39]
Jason Lee
The concept is simple. More roots equals a healthier and more robust plant. This simple concept is exactly why both Jason and I have incorporated Mitigroup into our PhD programs. Deep root applications on my end for mature or struggling trees, soil drenches and spray applications for when Jason installs trees and installs new sod.
- [37:59]
Jordan Upkavage
Give Mitigro a shop for yourself. Their product is easy to apply and no special licenses are needed. Visit mitogrowpro.com to learn more. That's M I T O G-R-O-W P R O.com 22 times 5 rate. 2 times 5 is 110. 1 10.
- [38:18]
Jason Lee
Okay, so if I want to participate in 22 events, it's going to cost me only $110. 22 events is a frickin lot. If I want to participate in 11 events, cost me $55, not a big deal. 10 packs, eight packs of cigarettes and I can get 11 events, then I'm going to overcome a little bit of gas to St. Augustine. Gas is under $3 a gallon. We got that going for us. And then I can find any hotel that I want. But if I want a really nice hotel, cost me 150 bucks. So if I'm going to spend 50 bucks ish in a registration, I'm going to sleep at a really nice hotel. I'm now at 200 bucks. I'm going to buy some lunch. I'm at $220. I can have a badass weekend for $220 or I can not stay in a hotel. I can spend $50 ish in a registration and I can buy myself some lunch and overcome a little bit of fuel. For under $100, I can participate in a incredible first time ever event. That's what I'm. That's what the math breaks down in my squirrel brain.
- [39:38]
Jordan Upkavage
No, you're right. That is the math. Your coral brand is correct, sir.
- [39:42]
Jason Lee
Or we can take that hundred dollars and we can go blow that for 11 minutes at the nudie bar instead. And no one's going to really remember those experiences. I would rather put that into the landscape rodeo and race a zero turn lawnmower because then I'm, I'm gonna one my wife won't be pissed at me for, for doing that investment. And then I'm gonna laugh and chuckle and have much more jocularity and networking than if I just go.
- [40:18]
Jordan Upkavage
I hope that's gonna be an awesome clip on opus clips right there, Cliff. And clipping out that video. Here's our landscape rodeo commercial.
- [40:27]
Jason Lee
These are your options. Yes. Okay.
- [40:31]
Jordan Upkavage
All right. So now that we've had a full episode about the landscape rodeo, which is good because this is coming up and it's, it is of high priority. But before we wrap up the episode we had recorded last week and we were waiting on the Mitre grid people to come to your house to shoot some video. And we thought we were going to be podcasting and did not end up podcasting. So that was our teaser last week that we would have a Mighty Gro episode this week. And maybe we should reach out to them and see if they want to record this Friday. Knowing their email. Email. They mentioned that in one of the time slots.
- [41:12]
Jason Lee
Yeah, Max and Anna. I'm getting my yes. Right, Max and Anna.
- [41:19]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [41:20]
Jason Lee
Okay. I'm gonna write myself a note. Email Max. And I'm very curious to see how the video recording footage is of Max sliding down my zip line in the backyard with a bag of mitigro going mardago curious to see how that turns out. Yeah. Well, I'll just tell you quickly about Mitigro because we're. We're 39 minutes in and that happened really quickly. And so I don't think I'm going to get to cover any of the stuff that I wrote on my piece of paper here. But you mentioned Mitigro and I want to briefly talk about it. I've been using Mitigro for over a year. When did we really see the Mitigro people at synced?
- [42:13]
Jordan Upkavage
About a year ago?
- [42:14]
Jason Lee
Was it in the winter? It was cold, There was snow on the ground?
- [42:17]
Jordan Upkavage
It was right now. Yeah.
- [42:18]
Jason Lee
Right.
- [42:19]
Jordan Upkavage
Sync live is next week in New Orleans this year. So, yeah, it'd been about a year ago. Okay.
- [42:24]
Jason Lee
So I've been using Mitigro for about a year and I did not see any profound difference of oh, my God, the trees. 180 degrees different. It was blended into a plant health care formula that we have going on. And trees look good. There's fertilizer involved, there's liquid organic matter. There's chemicals and potions. And mitigro is one of the potions in the cocktail. And I saw general tree improvement. Nothing ragingly drastic when it comes to improvement. And I didn't expect to see anything ragingly drastic. I expected with trees in nature to see plateau of decline and gradual increase is what I expected to see. Well, we took Mitigro, folks, Max, Anna, Todd, Chad, to several of the properties I'm working on. And I showed how I was using the product and they said, okay, Jordan, well, that's great. You're applying a maintenance dose per the label in your formula. That's good. Hey, some of these trees you brought me to, these are really awful. They're in bad shape. I would suggest you hit these plants with a very aggressive dose of mitigro, not just what you've been applying. So for instance, we would put two pounds of mitigro per hundred gallons of water and we would apply one gallon of potion per diameter inch. That's what we were doing. That's how the math worked with our other chemicals and our fertilizers. And that rate was in conjunction with the label. And they said, jordan, we are going to increase that. We're going to do 4 pounds per 100 and you're going to do 3 gallons a diameter inch. So here's my math and tell me if this is right. If I was doing 2 pounds per 100 at 1 gallon an inch, now I'm doing 4 pounds per hundred at 3 gallons an inch, that is 10 times the rate. Excuse me, that is 6 times the rate that I was applying it because I doubled it and I went from 1 gallon to 3. So 2, 4, 6, right? So I have in on a 15 inch tree I'm putting 45 gallons of sauce down. On a 30 inch tree I'm putting 90 gallons of sauce down. So I have six times my rate of mitigro which changes how I estimate it based on x many dollars per diameter inch. Now I don't think that I if I am selling you Jason and your trees fertilizer at four times a year, I don't need to super blast mitigro four times a year. I could do it once a year, I could do it twice a year. So what I've learned to do is I created a new line item in single ops and ooh, let me just read this to you because I invented it, I invented it yesterday on how to put this in my proposal. So I created an item called Mitigro booster application and I have for instance 32 inch live oak near the southeast corner of the house one time application as a booster to the 2026 Plant Healthcare program. Mitigro 0.64 ounces per gallon. 3 gallon per inch times 32 gallons equals 96 gallons. Mitigro is a water dispersible broad spectrum biostimulant. The product includes a combination of biologicals, mycorrhiza, cytokinin, bacillus A plus iba, which promotes new fibrous root growth to aid nutrient absorption. And I'm charging that at $20 a diameter inch. So for $640 I'm putting 96 gallons of sauce on the ground and that will overcome the cost increase of the chemical because I'm putting down six times the amount. And the way I'm applying it is two different ways. I can either do deep root, pump 96 gallons into the ground dia deep root or I can do it via drench and turn the hose into a fire hose and super soak the drip line or as much soil space as I can. The motive is not to just mist it across the top. The motive is to then irrigate the tree. So if I think that I have a 30 gallon pot and I'm going to dump, you know, three gallons into a 30 gallon pot, I'm going to get 12, 16 inches soil depth wet. So the mindset is if I'm super soaking it, I want it to pool on the top and percolate down. I want to irrigate it at least a foot 18 inches down. Get 18 inches soil depth wet with Mitigro because that's where the absorption roots are, the fibrous roots. And that's how I'm applying the booster application. Once I get that in, then we have either winter, spring, summer, fall or just a spring and fall normal. $8 an inch for the fertilizer, the liquid organic matter and back to the normals that we're doing. So I've been incorrectly dosing the mitigroth to see the drastic changes on certain candidates. So to try to like how do I sell it? That's how I figured it out. I'm going to sell a one time Mitigro booster application and then I will have my spring and fall fertilizer applications after that. So that's how I have addressed the ignorance on my end and my inaccuracy to then use the product accordingly. For trees I need a crazy change in. If I don't need a crazy change in and I just want to keep the normal health going, I could use the rate that I was historically using. So that was a very from last, what day was that?
- [48:50]
Jordan Upkavage
Is that Tuesday?
- [48:52]
Jason Lee
It's a very educational event and eye opening. If I was not using enough product on specific trees, I am asking miracles for.
- [49:03]
Jordan Upkavage
I checked because obviously I haven't done any large deep root tree applications. But we've been using it on turf grass and seeing great results, especially on our sportster field at the Boys and Girls Club. The biggest win for me is that I grew the canopy of the turf grass in much faster than the previous year. All things and still like you said, using a concoction of all the other things, you know, all of our fertilizers and top dressing and our normal program. But the success rate that we saw this year of growth and root establishment was the biggest, the biggest result for me. As I said, I grew the canopy in much faster and then I probably have because no matter what on these fields the heathen children are going to trample the grass to smithereens. The 12 year old football players, the high school lacrosse players. These fields take a beating. And so, you know, a couple weeks ago I was out and I was walking the fields. I was like, there has to be 30 to 40%, 50% more grass left than, than last year at this point. I mean last year at this point I pretty much had bare, bare dirt across, you know, maybe a third, third to a half of one of these fields with just little sprigs of grass. That we grew back in. And now there's, you know, the grass is in wintertime, it's dormant, it's taking a beating. But like, I'm starting off this year of growth for these fields at a much better place than I was. So I checked the rates with, you know, Max and Chad of what I was putting out there for the turf grass, and they had sent me some rates and I purposely went out at the high rate slash, probably a little bit higher. And I just told him, I said, listen, I said, I'm just doing simple math. I said, you know, I don't know how to measure this stuff out properly. I don't have any scoops, I don't have whatever. But I said, I took your rates and it was close enough that if I just split, you know, a one pound bag between the two tanks on my Z sprayer, I said, that put me at a little bit higher than. Higher than your rate. They said, that's perfect. I said, well, I said, I'm getting results, so I'm going to keep doing that. And I think we're going to, we're going to introduce it into our residential lawn applications this year also soon.
- [51:18]
Jason Lee
Yeah. And it's a fun experimental phase that we're in. And, you know, medicine is a trial by error and success. So doctors practice medicine, arborists practice arbor culture. Culture. So I am simply prescribing something to a patient, I. E. A tree in my situation, turf in yours, and I am watching to see how that patient responds so I can keep doing what I'm doing or change what I'm doing. So what I learned in the exercise with Todd, Chad, Max and Anna is I was not. The trees were not responding to the prescription that I. And they were not responding to the way I wanted them to respond for what I was prescribing. And I learned I was not prescribing enough antibiotics or whatever. And so we changed that. So, yeah, it is fun to try things and observe and then continue or change what you're doing. And I have. My eyes have been opened and I am changing what I am doing. Hence everything I just laid out.
- [52:25]
Jordan Upkavage
Hey, I think I sold my first airspace job. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Where I'm going to talk to you after this in Cedar Key. Oh. So, yeah, so I'm going to talk to you after this and make sure that I follow your prescription for that correctly.
- [52:39]
Jason Lee
So, Cedar Key. Is this where you played with Live Switch?
- [52:43]
Jordan Upkavage
Yes. Yes. So yesterday we were out. They have an arborist that's going to be Doing some cabling on one of their trees.
- [52:52]
Jason Lee
Ooh, I'm gonna judge the out of that. I'm going to want to see pictures so I can.
- [52:56]
Jordan Upkavage
I'll send them. So. And I don't know this person at all, so. But he's also been doing some. Who is it? Consult, Salting, Duran, Duran, Durant, Duran.
- [53:08]
Jason Lee
I don't know.
- [53:08]
Jordan Upkavage
I don't know. I don't know a company name. I just had a first name and I talked to him on the phone a little bit yesterday.
- [53:13]
Jason Lee
Okay, Dynamic. Do we know?
- [53:17]
Jordan Upkavage
But I don't know. I don't know any of the questions to ask. He. I know he said the word turnbuckle. I don't know. Anyway, I don't know anything about cabling, so I'm not your guy to answer any of those questions. And I don't know the questions to ask. But anyway, so he's going to be doing some work on the trees, some dead wooding. They own three houses in Cedar Key. There are three very large live oaks, two on one property that are generally I would consider very healthy. And then there's one that is extremely stressed. And I don't know if that's hurricane damage. The house was built 20 years ago. Don't know that any of the history behind it. Besides, this tree doesn't look that heavy. Lots of sprouts. I don't think so. It's on the highest ridge in Cedar Key. So yeah, there wouldn't have been any flooding, but yeah, very big. Lots of sprouts, lots of. Yeah, I don't know. I got some. I'll send you the live switch video and see if there's anything that you can take away from it. I would like that. And so. But I think that aer spading can only help coming back in with whatever concoction of compost and improving. What was Jerry's. What was the saying? The fixing the roots helps the whatever.
- [54:34]
Jason Lee
If you save the roots, you save the tree.
- [54:37]
Jordan Upkavage
Yes. So that's pretty much. I didn't have that in my pocket to tell the lady, but that was one of my explanation was it's like we need to fix this at the root level to help what's going on up here.
- [54:47]
Jason Lee
Did you restore the forest floor to cultivate a media to invite roots, fibrous roots to grow?
- [54:56]
Jordan Upkavage
Jesus. You're have to write this down for me. Like that's.
- [54:59]
Jason Lee
Well, we're recording it on Thursday. Listen to this and you will. If you save the roots, you save the tree. And then you will restore the forest floor to create a media to invite new fibrous regrowth.
- [55:16]
Jordan Upkavage
It all makes sense. I said all of those things, but not so profoundly and eloquently as you did. But no, that's what we're going to do. We're going to blow the crap out of the dirt. We're going to put the compost in to increase fiber shoot growth. I told Astron if he'd ever heard about Mitigro. He said no, they're trying to stop whatever. They've got an irrigation guy, he's been doing some irrigation. I told him, I said, listen, I said, we can do all of these things for you or we can just put plants in the ground. I. I don't care personally. So now, but now, you know, we're trying to pick scopes of work that we will handle and then not have multiple people doing the same thing. So Duran's going to be handling the fertilization of the tree. I asked about if he knew about Mitigro. He said no. So part of my building the restoring the forest floor, we will be drenching Mitigro is my plan after we do the compost.
- [56:04]
Jason Lee
And do you know how you're going to bid the mitigroup drenching?
- [56:10]
Jordan Upkavage
I'm going to guess $20 an inch. $20 a diameter inch.
- [56:17]
Jason Lee
$20 a diameter inch will cover your chemical cost and labor cost at 3 inches per gallon. 3 gallons per inch.
- [56:25]
Jordan Upkavage
And then should I go out the entire drip line? Should I focus on certain areas? Should I go out from the trunk 10ft and start?
- [56:32]
Jason Lee
What is the diameter of the tree?
- [56:35]
Jordan Upkavage
I don't know because I forgot to take the measurement yesterday. 36, 40 inches. 4050 inches.
- [56:42]
Jason Lee
Okay, so between 120 and 150 gallons. Do you want your office phone to ring more and increase service requests to your inbox? Want to push the gas pedal on your lead volume?
- [56:56]
Jordan Upkavage
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- [57:04]
Jason Lee
Intrigue Media is your solution. Both Jason and I have partnered with Intrigue to help grow our businesses by simply making our phone ring more. Intrigue will build you an up to date website in record time. They had my website live on the Internet. Start to finish in under seven days. Intrigue will crank up SEO for your business, increase your organic Google rank ranking and even handle your paid Google Ads.
- [57:28]
Jordan Upkavage
Intrigue Media is fast tracking lead volume for both Sky Frog landscape and independent tree service. You should give them a try. For your business, visit intriguemedia.com if you want to make more money and crush your competitors online.
- [57:39]
Jason Lee
That's intriguemedia.com do you have root suckers coming up out of the ground?
- [57:46]
Jordan Upkavage
No roots?
- [57:47]
Jason Lee
No.
- [57:47]
Jordan Upkavage
Root suckers? No.
- [57:49]
Jason Lee
So I would probably go five, six feet out from the trunk and then I would start in a five to six foot ring and you do a ten foot wide swath, start dumping your product down and work your circle wider and wider and wider until you run out of chemical. If you can get the entire drip line wet, that is amazing. But I don't know if 120 or 150 gallons is enough to get the entire area wet. But if you can go six feet out from the trunk, because the drip line on this thing, the tree's got to be 60ft wide. It's got to have at least a 30 and 30 foot long drip line. At least or 50, 50ft long radius drip line. Right. Tree could be 100ft wide. If you can capture, you know, a half of the drip line or 2/3 of the drip line from 6ft out to as far as you can go, I think that would be sufficient.
- [58:51]
Jordan Upkavage
Okay, I'll, I, I pretty much apply. It's a small backyard, kind of courtyard size backyard, but still it's a thousand. It's a thousand square feet. Like I measured, because we're going to be putting in like 800 square feet of turf grass in this backyard kind of away from the tree. But like, I plan on airspading all of that area because, I mean, it's within the. Still within the. Within the drip line. Yeah, but I mean, because like you said, the tree's so wide. That is. Yeah, it's within the drip line, but I plan on airspading instead of demoing. It's like, oh, we're not gonna have to sidecut this because I'm gonna blow this entire backyard to smithereens with the airspace.
- [59:27]
Jason Lee
I would kill the grass with herbicide first.
- [59:31]
Jordan Upkavage
Okay.
- [59:32]
Jason Lee
Yeah. Oh, okay. Then it'll be easier to. But it's very difficult to airspace through dense St. Augustine turf because there's too many.
- [59:41]
Jordan Upkavage
It's not. That's not dense at all.
- [59:43]
Jason Lee
Yeah. So if I'm going to air spade and call it root invigoration. Okay, so when you're selling airspace, did you use the word root invigoration?
- [59:51]
Jordan Upkavage
Nope.
- [59:51]
Jason Lee
Okay. Root invigoration, forest floor, blah, blah, blah. Right. Save the roots. We did that. So if I have a grand tree that is 32 inches DBH and greater. If I can get a 20 foot radius, I'm pretty damn happy. If I can get a 25 foot radius, I'm really happy. Going the entire drip line 50ft wide. I don't know if I've ever done one that huge because I don't. I don't have space normally.
- [60:25]
Jordan Upkavage
And I can't do the entire drip line. I can do 25%. If I were to take this tree and draw a circle. I have one quarter of the tree in a pie. Pie shape. I have one quarter of a piece. I have one quarter of a pizza that I can air spade and treat out to probably 30ft. And then there's house. There's house on the other side. There's, you know, the house wraps around it, so I. I can't go all the way around the train.
- [60:53]
Jason Lee
Are there neighbors or just. When you say house, you mean client's house?
- [60:57]
Jordan Upkavage
Client's house.
- [60:58]
Jason Lee
Okay. So it's not neighbor property that you have to go on.
- [61:02]
Jordan Upkavage
Correct.
- [61:03]
Jason Lee
Okay. If there's the 75% of the pie that you can't get to. If you can get to any of that, maybe let's say that there's landscaping there and you can't air spade all of it. And to smithereens it, then take your air spade and I would make snorkel holes and push the airspace down and make snorkel holes to aerate. And that way you're not fluffing the whole thing, destroying everything in your path. So every two or three feet, you plug a snorkel hole to get air down there. Would that apply?
- [61:32]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah, no. I could get around the back side of the tree a little bit doing that.
- [61:36]
Jason Lee
Yeah, I would. Yeah, yeah.
- [61:39]
Jordan Upkavage
Because we're redoing. We're redoing the landscape also. So it's probably 10, 10 to 15ft of bed there for the house.
- [61:47]
Jason Lee
So when you did the. You can send me the live switch link so I can see what we're talking about. Okay. Yes, Just send me the. Send me that. And then if you as a listener are curious on what the hell live switch is, it is Internet, which is wizardry and gypsy magic, per Jason. And you can videotape content, job sites. It is not stored on your phone. It goes straight up to the Internet satellites to document that footage so you don't have to have the storage on your phone that no one has room on their phone to store that amount of media. And then you created some AI prompt for Lucky the black lab to give rust estimate Rough estimates of linear footage, square footage. I've used it on a job for forestry mowing, and it estimated the acreage, and I vetted that estimation off of satellite. It was pretty damn accurate for the amount of information I was giving the camera life, which is cheap.
- [62:57]
Jordan Upkavage
Yeah, we. We recorded it yesterday. The. The property owner's parents were down staying at the house. This is going to be a rental house, someone to bring landscaping in. This tree's on. So anyway, they were down. They're gonna start renting the house beginning of February, and the homeowner's dad was out, and they're just curious and walking around for conversation. He's just like, you know, he's like, I'm a businessman. And he's like. He's like. I always thought it would be good to take notes and, you know, confirm some of the ideas that you're talking about so that in two or three weeks from now, when you come back, that everyone knows the. You know, what's. What was said in the. In the walkthrough. I said, well, sir, I said, we have a new program called Live Switch. And I said, and after we get done with our walkthrough and we figure out our plan, I said, we're going to go back through and document everything that we talked about. I said, and get plant counts and quantities and species. And I said, then AI is going to write a report of every. All of this, and I'll be able to share it with the homeowner. And I said, in that way, we're documenting it that way. I said, because I agree wholeheartedly that we don't want any confusion. So he's just like, oh, man, that sounds fancy. It's like, well, it's wizard. Yeah, it's Internet wizardry. My ultimate goal yesterday was just to capture the species of plants that we had talked about that we're going to put in the estimated quantities that. Talking about walking around. And then. And then I haven't even. I just skimmed through it yesterday because Aaron was prompting it. Lucky was doing its work on our way back from Cedar Key yesterday while we were driving, and so she had prompted it, and it had come up with some linear footages and square footages of some things. So. And I haven't been able to check that yet, you know, for accuracy, but it was. I don't know, for the purpose of documenting what we needed to. And then now I can still give that to our guys and they can at least have a general idea of where plants are going to go.
- [64:49]
Jason Lee
So, so I use it, I record, I do the walkthrough with the client, then I record by myself the whole walk through all the details. I copy the link for the video. I include it in the crew notes section of the work order so the crew sees a three to six minute video of everything that's going to be done on the property. That makes my crew orientation set up so easy to where we don't have to review it anymore. Everything is in the video. This weed in the gutter over here, I can point to document that in the video so we are not missing little details. And with the video it helps to capture the intent of the job, the purpose of the mission. And it kind of solidifies everything and makes it have more sense than just bullet points and lines of acute direction. I also include that in the email when I send the proposal to the client. They have the video link there as well. So it helps me, it helps my crew understand the work order. It decreases the amount of time when I set the crew up because they can watch a full video. I'm not storing any of it to my phone and I'll have Lucky I had it. I made it a prompt, a special report where it will take the video and it'll write the work order for me. I'll cut and paste that into the description box and single ops and all the writings there. And then I take a few minutes and I just edit it and make sure that everything is spelled correctly and that the words line up appropriately. So it saves a ton of time for me for actually writing the proposal because Lucky, the black lab AI dog does that for me. And then when I'm delivering the quote, it separates me from the competition of nobody else is doing that. So my proposals are that much more flashy, sexy, professional and it represents my business even better. So it looks good for the client, it helps me write the proposal and then it really, really helps crew understand the purpose of the assignment and coordination on my end to set the stage. It takes time off because they just watch the video and it's crazy cheap. It's like 160 bucks a month. If you want to play with Live Switch or there's probably a free demo or something like that. So if you want to play with Live Switch, you can go to live switch.com, tell them you heard about Green side Up podcast. You will deal with James Hatfield, the owner of Live Switch. He'll give you white glove service and help you put you in touch with McKenzie who will teach you how to use it or you can send us an email greensideuppodcastmail.com and I'll be happy to help facilitate that, that journey of playing with AI and keeping up with the Joneses. Because there is competition out there, Jason, that we're old millennials now. We used to be the cutting edge stuff, right? We were the poachers when we had typed proposals and not carbon copy. All these damn millennials poaching on us with their computers, okay? We're getting picked off by gen zers and fitting to be picked off by alpha generation people that have all they, they know ChatGPT and AI and that's part of their culture and it wasn't us, right? So we're getting poached by cutting edge stuff. Get the hell ahead of the curve here.
- [68:21]
Jordan Upkavage
So we're, we are actively, Yesterday we were trying to, we're going to be. And then anyway, in future episodes we can continue our sales talks and salespeople and things we're doing at Skyfrog. But we were working on our, just our script in the office, our phone script of, you know, just walking clients through our process and proposal and trying to figure out the best place to. Because I, I, I see it as one of our biggest tools of being able to, if we can get the client to do the walkthrough, a walkthrough video prior to us coming out and getting that information, being able to, even if it's just being able to see the yard. But then if it can gather any information ahead of time and we can halfway build out a proposal or come as part of our, whatever the speed to lead and trying to close work, you know, it's harder for us with a lot of the work we have to do compared to you doing estimating tree work. You always send your proposal before you leave the site and you close jobs because of that. And so we don't always get to do that with landscape design. But if we can increase the amount of jobs by using AI and live switch and if we can get the video ahead of time and speed up that process and we're able to give that even on 30% more jobs and we're able to, you know, have that proposal given on site instead of having to come back and do more work, you know, and send it later or revisit and set up another meeting, then I mean that could just a little, a little turn of the dial like that could, you know, increase our close ratio overall by, you know, 5 or 10%. I mean, it's at this point we're in business, especially at the size that we are. You know, any tweak of the dial could result in, I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially, of sales. So I'm excited for that, and I'm. We're just. We were working on it yesterday how we're going to implement that into our script to make it, you know, not a burden for the customer. And. And I think one of the things we're going to do is have an introductory video for it, kind of like Tony Bass was talking about at Profit Builder with, you know, sending out the. The QR codes and having a video introducing yourself. But have probably Aaron shoot a. Hey, this is why we want you to, you know, this is how it would benefit us and you, if you were to go ahead and do this video, walk around for us. So. And I think if somebody explains it, then they'll be more apt to. To do that. So we'll see how it goes.
- [70:44]
Jason Lee
Yep. Oh, man, I got so much more that I want to cover, but we're at an hour and eight minutes. We don't have time to. To cover that. All right, we need to wrap it up. I have 41 minutes to get to Gibsonton, and it's not possible to get to Gibson in 41 minutes, so I gotta beat feet. I'm going to see you in person in a couple of days.
- [71:12]
Jordan Upkavage
Correct.
- [71:12]
Jason Lee
And we're going to record some episodes with guest speakers. Got a cool one. A guy named Danny, who is a money guy, savings, ira, retirement topic that he's going to really explain to me and try to sell me. And I said, danny, don't try to sell this to me one on one. Let's record it. Because this is going to be great information that listeners may want to hear about how to do a retirement deal for your business and your employees. So we got Danny on. I'm excited for that. And fun thing. Danny used to be an employee, and he worked for me through the summers of college.
- [71:54]
Jordan Upkavage
Nice.
- [71:55]
Jason Lee
So looking forward to that. And then we have some fun. Jason, we're going to go to the professional bull Riders at Amalie Arena Friday night. Sydney bought the tickets, so we got the tickets. We're going to go to the pbr, watch cowboys ride bulls, and then on Saturday, we're going to go to the Gasparilla Children's Parade and catch beads and do pirates and do all of that on Saturday. And then Sunday, it's going to be a high as 78 degrees, so maybe there will be some backyard croquet, who knows? We'll see how that goes.
- [72:26]
Jordan Upkavage
Sounds like fun.
- [72:27]
Jason Lee
All right, dude, you got anything to do to put a wrap other than the landscape audio.com and go ahead register. It's crazy cheap. And if you would like to stay at the World Golf Village Renaissance St. Augustine Hotel, 150 bucks and would if I'm gonna call them and just say, hey, I'm here for the landscape rodeo. Do you think the receptionist will track.
- [72:56]
Jordan Upkavage
I don't. I don't know how that works. I would email email us@the landscaperadio gmail.com and we will send you the link. You can probably call and say that and they would put you on the room block. But I'm not a hotel room block expert as this is the first time I've been dealing with this, so. And luckily, Jenny with Hunter Irrigation is also one of our platinum sponsors, and she is coordinating with the hotel and making all this room block stuff happen. So cool. Yep.
- [73:21]
Jason Lee
All right, any other action items before I arrive late to my construction appointment in Gibsonton?
- [73:27]
Jordan Upkavage
Nope.
- [73:28]
Jason Lee
All right, man, we're good.
- [73:29]
All right, later, as you continue your journey toward entrepreneurial success, let Jason and Jordan be your trusted companions on this uphill climb. Don't miss out on future episodes of the Green side Up podcast. Make sure to hit that follow button to stay updated. For more ways to connect with the guys, check out the podcast description. Description thank you for tuning in. And remember, keep working hard so you can play even harder and keep the green side up.
- [74:16]
Jordan Upkavage
Sam.