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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 Upcavage.
B
What's up, dog?
C
What's happening, Jordan? Good morning.
B
Good morning, man. How, how are things in Gainesville, man?
C
We're banging away. We're. We're wrapping up. We've been working at Blue Springs State park where we've installed about 7,000 square feet of Belgard turf block, which is the honeycomb night pavers that you can either put grass, grass or gravel, pretzel shaped things.
B
They remind me of pretzels.
C
Yeah. So we, we laid a whole bunch of pretzels on a roadway at the state park, and that is going to be used as a kayak launch so people will drive down and launch their kayaks.
B
Seven thousand. So that's like seventy feet wide by a hundred feet long. Yeah, that's seven thousand.
C
It's a nine foot wide road with a cul de sac at the end. I don't know how long it is. It's not a super long road, but it's 7,000 square feet of road. And we'll come back.
B
A football field. No, it's nine feet wide.
C
Yeah. Nine feet wide.
B
How do we figure out how long it is? A rectangle. Seven thousand divided by nine. Is that how we do it? Just 770ft?
C
You're trying to break my brain this early in the morning.
B
770ft times 9 would be 7,000. So it's 9ft wide by. So a little longer than two football fields.
C
Okay. Yeah.
B
Does that sound right?
C
Yeah.
B
That's a lot of damn turf block.
C
It is. It's. I think we've probably gone through 60 plus pallets, something like that. Whatever gets us to 7,000 square feet.
B
So how many pallets fit on a semi?
C
Probably 12 or 14.
B
So you're banging down six semis.
C
Yeah.
B
That's a lot.
C
I know. It's a lot of pavers. Yeah.
B
What do you. And then does your Kubota pick it up or does the Avant.
C
The Avant and the Kabota will pick it up.
B
The Avant you brought to my house that'll pick up a square of pavers.
C
Yeah. Picking £4,000. And it doesn't like it when it picks up £4,000. But yeah, the pallet palace of pavers, it'll functionally pick up and move 3,000 pound pallets without a problem.
B
And yours is an Avant 5, 28, 860.
C
I.
B
What are you, four feet tall, Jason?
C
Eight.
B
Okay. So it'll. It'll pick it off of the. You could lift it that high and offload a semi with a cube of.
C
We didn't. It would probably be a little sketchy if we had to unload the semi. But the pallets on the pallets are either one stacked on the ground or two stacked on the ground. So we've been functionally picking them up off of, you know, a too high pallet bouncing around the job site. It's a little. What's the woods? It's a state park in a construction site. So it's a little uneven. So if you get into some uneven territory, you know, with the Avant, it might get a little tippy. Dude. We also have a Kubota out there.
B
Does the semi offload with a piggyback forklifty thing or are you offloading the semi?
C
The semi. All the pavers were already staged by the time we showed up, so they got offloaded with the piggyback. All right.
B
Are you bringing in subs for this job?
C
No, we did it in house. We were going. We were going to bring in our favor, so. But it's. Anyway, these things are pretty fragile until you get them on the ground and fill them with rock. So we decided to just do it in house.
B
How many guys are on the team doing it?
C
3 to 4, depending on the day.
B
So you have two main guys bending over, picking the stuff up and laying it?
C
Yeah, yeah. Probably two guys laying. Two guys cutting everything.
B
You gotta.
C
Oh, there's nothing straight. We had to cut the whole. Yeah. Both sides of the whole thing. Going around the roundabout. Yeah, there's a lot of cuts.
B
Holy crap.
C
Yeah, but it's unique. It's fun. There's a lot of work.
B
Do they about it? Is their back hurt or. It's. No, no problem.
C
It wasn't a problem.
B
All right.
C
It was definitely. There's definitely a lot of work. Work going down.
B
Yeah. Work is work though.
C
Yeah.
B
I guess it's like something cutting trees.
C
It's something new. Something new for them. And it's a big job. So big jobs are fun.
B
Yeah.
C
So then we got 140 pounds of grass going down so Zoysia, you subbing that out? We did. We've got a crew guys that are almost done. So they've been laying grass the past two days. I think we had nine trucks. So 80,000 square feet. It's almost two acres of grass. Jesus. Yeah, a lot of dirt. A lot of dirt to cover up.
B
How do you, when you're estimating that to like lay this turf block, does it your same cost per foot or, or production rate per foot or how do you estimate production rate?
C
And I, I just.
B
You'd guessed.
C
Pull it out of thin air. I guessed. So, you know, we're working on this. Bryce. We're working with this, with Bryce. So this is a partner, partner job with Bryce Haberger landscapes. And so we're coming in and working with Bryce and he already had a contract number. So we put our plug our number in and I based the number off of whether I was using subs or I guess production rates for our guys. And the number came out to be pretty similar. So we picked a number and went with it. And I think for the most part we've hit our production rates.
B
Well, that's pretty cool. It's always interesting to me on estimating how long something's going to take or estimating volume of debris and then seeing out after the fact, how accurate are you?
C
Yeah, so I think for me, I was fairly accurate because like these things are. All right, so you got this pretzel, right? Each pretzel weighs 59 pounds. So then I think it's 2.6 square feet.
B
It's a big.
C
Yeah, yeah. So you're covering compared to a APM, which is a 6 by 6 and a 6 by 9 paver that you lay in the T pattern, you have thousands of bricks. Like now you only have hundreds of bricks. Every time you touch a brick, and if you carry one in each hand, then you're covering five square feet every time you're carrying two blocks over and setting them down. So like laying, covering, square footage wise, it lays pretty quick. But then the complexity of the cuts and how fragile they are, you know, we got to a point where we're probably laying, I don't know, thousand square feet a day, but then it takes an equal amount of time to come back and cut, cut those cuts. So like I told the superintendent, I said, well, I said we're hitting our production for getting pavers on the ground. I said, but I have no idea how long it's going to take to make all these cuts. And it took a while.
B
Do you have. Overall. Do you have a band on the outsides?
C
Yes. So we're laying up against a ribbon curb, which makes this. So there's concrete curbing on the. On both sides.
B
Oh, you gotta squeeze it in an already laid concrete.
C
Yes.
B
Ah, that's. And it. It's already laid, so it's not like you can just snap a string, a chalk line and cut it and pour it. You gotta nestle it in there, which
C
is tricky for the guys. Did a great job. So.
B
Huh.
C
You know, running two. And once we get. Once we got going running, you know, we got two cut saws. So you got two guys cutting and expediting.
B
They run water in their cutsaw or just let the dust go everywhere. John, no one does water anymore. That's just.
C
Well, I mean, you can, but, I mean, we're out in a construction site in the middle of nowhere, so it's better to have dust than concrete mud. Yeah, that's it. Either have dust or you have concrete mud. One of the two. Unless you have the fancy saws that have vacuums on them, which they make dustless saws. Pretty fancy. We're not there yet. Yeah, that's what we're doing in Gainesville, Jordan. And I'm recovering from being a little ill this week, so. Well, my frog has lessened my voice, I think, today than it was yesterday.
B
And it's less in your voice now than it was 30 minutes ago.
C
Well, perfect.
B
Yeah.
C
The first words that I. Well, we had a half a podcast episode before we pressed the record button, so.
B
We did. We did. But it was one of the coveted podcasts that don't get recorded, where we talk about things that we probably shouldn't broadcast everything in the ether, you know, like. Like truck talk, campfire talk, you know, fishing stories.
C
That's right.
B
How we really feel about things. Well, that's exciting. Jason, I. You. As the. The whole conversation that we just had about production rates, I mean, that was just genuine off the cuff. That was not. Can. I really didn't. I didn't know I was that good at math until I just proved it to myself that I can do basic division pretty well. So I have another unique project that we're in the estimating phase for. Did I talk to you, Jason, about a project for the city of Tampa where they're going to be replacing water mains throughout certain parts of town and all of the rules with the city and, like, tree roots and protective radiuses, and then we have.
C
No, you had water. You had a couple weeks ago. Where There was a water main break.
B
Yeah, we had a water main break. Unrelated.
C
Okay.
B
All right, well, so we had a water main break a couple weeks ago and it ate part of the road and we cut a big tree down. Well, unrelated to that is a, it's called the Soho. So South Howard water main replacement. So same part of town, different road, miles away. And this is in like Soho or Howard and the Veterans Expressway. You know all the bars on Howard, McDonald's and the drunk people in the college bars, Southampton. Okay, so they're replacing a bunch of the water mains that are in the roads. And the water mains tee out to fire hydrants and the water mains tee out to individual water meters that feed houses. Then you have water main, little umbilical cord, water heater. Then you have white pipe to structure. Okay, so the city of Tampa has very strict tree protection rules. If a tree is 5 inches in diameter, it's protected. If it's smaller than 5 inches in diameter, it's not protected yet. So if you have a 6 inch diameter oak tree, Hong Kong orchid, magnolia tree, okay, so five inches and bigger, it's protected. You are not allowed to have excavation within a 10 foot radius of a protected tree. Okay? So no digging. If the tree trunk is 5 inches to 23 inches in diameter, that's a protected tree. If the tree Trunk DBH is 24 inches, it is now considered a specimen tree. And the Specimen tree is 24 inches DBH to 31 inches DBH. And there is no digging within a 15 foot radius of a specimen tree. And then if a tree is 32 inches DBH or larger, it is considered a grand tree. And there is no digging within a 20 foot radius of a grand tree. So the city has hired Kimmins Contracting, who I do a lot of work for. Kimmins Contracting is the one who hired me to cut the tree down. That resulted from the water main blowout
C
a few weeks ago.
B
I, if I ever talked about doing for, if I did biomass biofuel removal and herbicide a year and a half ago, that was through Kimmins. So they're over a six figure contractor to us. You know, over six figures a year is what we make out of Kimmins. And I have weaseled my way into being their tree guy and usually only estimate because we have a very clear, trusting relationship and we get shit done and we pull off miracles and we're not a problem. So they just don't give a damn about anybody else. Because if you call independent tree service, they get what they need quickly, without problem. So it's a perfect relationship. And I will. The relationship I have is if Kimmin's contracting, if anybody from Kimmin's calls and I'm eating a sandwich, I will spit what is in my mouth on the floor, and I will answer the phone. And they know that, like, what do you need? I'm on the way. And that's a wonderful relationship to have. So this new project and SoHo, they're replacing the water meters, the water umbilical cords, the main line, and the fire hydrants. And there are trees that are within these certain protective radiuses of the meters and the fire hydrants and what have you. And the city has a policy where they must abide by their own rules, and they can't do things that they can't have special exemption and force builders and commercial people and homeowners to do things that they're not all. And they have to just play by the same rules is what I'm saying. So this got put in my lap on. All right, Jordan, hey, we got this assignment. Let's go drive it. Here's our trouble areas. What do we got to do? And I'm like, do you have anything on paper regarding an arborist or like to evaluate them? They go, nope, we don't have a tree inventory. We don't have nothing. We have the tree shown on the plan by the surveyor with the estimated dbh, and surveyors are notoriously incorrect. And we got to pull this off. What do we do? I was like, well, we need a arborist report that evaluates the tree, the problem within the protective radius, and how we're going to do it. And I'm not going to do that for you because I don't have the white collar time to do the consulting that it's going to take to do. And I said, but I know the guy that does, and his name is Ricky, and Ricky does incredible work. And I said, we need to bring Ricky in and have Ricky's team do all of this stuff. And that way, when they see the problem area, they can specify how we address the problem area. And that way, I'm not specifying my own work. And Kim and said, jordan, that's a great idea. So I brought Ricky in, and they said in to me, they said, jordan, we don't want to set up another vendor. We want to bill through you. So what we want to have happen is, Jordan, you're going to invoice us. We're going to pay Jordan, and Jordan's going to pay Ricky So we want to. And we want to on paper, work with Jordan Upcavage and pay Jordan Cabbage. Cool. I can be your middleman. That's like an easy layup of you can mark it up is what that meant to me. And I was going to. To not have to middleman it. I was just going to hand them off of here's the straight referral. We're bros, right? Kimmin's independent. We're bros. Here's I'll do you a solid. And they said we don't want to do that. Just we want to build for you.
C
That's cool.
B
So we bring Ricky in and to do his initial inventory. He. He like audited the. What the surveyor did and then marked up and captured what the problem was, the conditions and the solutions. And a lot of the solutions of replacing the water meter within the protective radius is there's no root damage that can happen during excavation. So it's a lot of air spading of or alternative construction techniques. Right. You don't have to air spade it. I guess you could do it with a directional bore or a alien, I don't know. But you can't just open trench it. So he put together this wonderful report and I. He invoiced me and I invoiced Kimmins. And then the city came back with comments after they looked at the report and what would be like reasonable construction. Yeah, that's a small tree. It's no big deal. Just. Just open trench it. And if it's a big route, we'll call you. And if it's a little root, we won't. But that doesn't fly anymore. And, and what the city wanted is a certified arborist to monitor all construction within the protective radius. So now what they want is a certified arborist to watch everything happen that is within this protective radius. And they want tree fencing. So if it's a specimen or protected, we want snow fence around it. If it's a grand tree, we want chain link around it. Like, okay, so the bid got to for the production to do it all got to be north of like $140,000 is what my proposal came out to be to include Ricky, to include air spading, exploration, tree trimming. It was like 140 or 150,000 is what it came to 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, when, or where to start, or are you looking to add a new tool to your PHC toolbox?
C
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.
B
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C
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
B
R O.com so I gave them my bid to do all of it, knowing that Ricky has already done a portion of it, haven't gotten paid yet. And the city spit their coffee out. They said, how on earth could this cost so much money? And Kimmins knows how it's going to cost so much money. Look at all this crazy stuff you asked us to do. So to airspeed for all of these, like water meters. Airspading doesn't go down very deep. You can get down to like 12 inches, no problem. Pushing deeper than 16 inches is very hard to do because gravity sucks the sand particle back down. And it's just hard to get deeper than that. And we have to fish and noodle these poly pipes from the main to the meters is what we have to do. So the way I approach this is with a vacuum truck to air spade. And then you have, you know, snuffle off, I guess over here, sucking all the stuff out. And I told Kimmin's that and it was in my bed and the city thought that was insane. You don't need snuffle off, I guess to do this.
C
You could.
B
We do we air spade all the time. And Kimmins is laughing of like, you've never air spaded. You spec it, you talk about it seminar, but never one of you have actually ever run an airspace to try to pull this off. So don't tell us that. It's simple and it's easy to do. So when my final number came in at 140, 145, had a phone call with my people and the big boss, the guy with the blue pen, gets on the phone with me and he goes, jordan, these people are fucking crazy. He says, I see your number, it's Fine, bro, I get it. But we got to be at 125. What do we got to do? And I said, john, his name's John Z. And we have blatant, honest conversations. I said, john, I can get to 125, but here's how I'm going to do it. Every bit of markup that I put on Ricky's number, I'm going to take that out. Every bit of contingency that I have in my bid, I'm going to take that out. And if I take out all of my markup and all of my contingency, I will be nuts on 125k. And he says, jordan, I appreciate that we can get this done. Says, what I want you to know is if you find yourself in a bind, you just let me know and I'll take care of you, right? I was like, thank you, John, I appreciate that. And I said, john, this might go really easy and maybe with snuffle off, I guess I get my shit knocked out in four days, but maybe I'm in planning on it taking 14. So maybe this is a home run and I'm going to fucking crush it. Or maybe this is going to be a royal shit show and I'm going to have to mobilize 25 different times because the city of Tampa is being a massive turd and it's going to kick me in the dick with numbers of mobilizations. So. And he goes, jordan, I know what you did. You did exactly what I would do and I got the PO for this job. And I actually happened to have my meeting today at 11 o'.
C
Clock.
B
I have my meeting with Matt to plan the start of this project next week. So there's another phase. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm. I'm really taking the wheel here. But where I'm going with this is there is another phase of this happening. And I had a two meetings with them so far. I had another meeting yesterday and they are like, after this whole event with the city of Tampa being very strict, then they like, well, we're not getting our ass burnt on this one again. We're going to bid all this on the front end. Well, the first section of road that we're doing, they plugged 125,000 just for consulting and monitoring. And after looking at the plans and doing a Google street view parade, I said, that is a very generous plug number and we're not going to use half of it for consulting. But what we don't know is maybe there's A grand tree that has to be removed. And then we have to go to city of council and we need more reports and then a representative at 8pm on a Tuesday to then lobby this to the city of Tampa council about what we got to do. So it's like keep the number. The second course of roadway, they plugged it $225,000 in consulting and they said, jordan, is this enough just for consulting work? And I said, yes, it's probably enough. It's probably enough to cover everything that we ever need to do. But if you can keep that plug there, it's there if we have to have it, but we don't have to bill at all. And getting to that number and me telling them it is an absurdly generous number. They appreciate the candor and the trust that we have and know that I'm not trying to like, if you got 125 on the plug, I'm going to get exactly 125. Right. That's not the relationship that we have. We're going to take what we need and do a really good job and not be piggies about everything. But it was super exciting and it was the first time I have ever had over a six figure number for strictly consulting work that would then be milled through me. That was kind of cool. I'm sorry I took the stage for so long.
C
No, that's exciting.
B
I feel like we needed the backstory to understand that I have two. I have a quarter million dollars that was discussed as I'm sitting on the side of the road in my truck yesterday on a zoom call. Quarter of a million dollars in consulting work plus future airspace, plus future removal, plus future trimming, plus future stump grinding. I was like, holy, this is kind of cool. Yeah.
C
Thank you city of Tampa for replacing some water mains.
B
Thank you, Rules.
C
Yeah, thank you, Rules. Thank you, Rules.
B
I don't know, man. So that's exciting. A couple weeks ago I was talking about, I did a live, so it's recording, and made one of my proposals very sexy with a video for a particular, very particular client that I was hesitant to do business with. And we have to do a bunch of hand carrying stuff and do it the hard way. And I think I made a comment that in my head of the sales process, I was like, oh, okay, this one little low branch on the adjacent podocarpus. We can't touch that. Do not touch this branch. Now. This branch is going to smack you in the face every time you walk past it. And it is right in our Drop zone. And I made a comment that was like, oh yes ma', am, we can do that. Into my head it goes, that'll be another thousand dollars. And I was like updating my notes on my phone when I was bidding the job. And to cover my ass, I made a live switch recording that did a beautiful broadcast of how we're going to do the job. I had to give this customer a list of every piece of equipment that's going to be on the job. So I sent them links to Avant, Nifty Lift and Giant of, of all of this. And surprisingly, I got the job. And we are starting that today. So after I take my kids to school, I will be trotting down to South Tampa to set this job up. It will likely take two days to do today and tomorrow and then I'm going to meet with Kimmins after that and solidify Snuffleuphagus and air spading for hopefully next week mobilization one. We're gonna see how that goes.
C
So, and after, after you explain the templates and live switch to Aaron and I. Yeah, last week or the week before. Yeah, it's cracked another code. It's great. Hey, let me plug, Let me. Yeah, now we're just making AI templates for whatever videos we're doing and it's going light years beyond what it was doing on its own. It's like, oh, let me make a softscape template. As we're walking around and doing plant counts. Let me just talk about my plan counts and this and that. And then after you plug in the template, it spits out, I mean, pretty much. I mean, I guess that's how you're getting to almost proposal ready. But I mean it's, it's generating, I don't know, it's, it's on the fly, generating everything that we need, plant count wise, plant species wise. And then, so then as an experiment, because I think, I think you told me that it identified palm trees for you.
B
It did, it did.
C
And so then I told Aaron, I said, well, Jordan says it identifies pine or palm trees. I said, so we went and did a, a site visit for a house on, down in Georgetown by my parents house on the river. So we went out there and met with the guy and looked at some landscape lighting and we looked at cleaning up his pool deck and put polymeric sand and sealer down and all this stuff. And I told Aaron, I said, we'll make a template that asks to plan ID all of the existing plant material that was on the job site and it did. Down to the species every. Every time.
B
How accurate was it, though?
C
It was extremely accurate. Really? Oh, yeah. Down the, down to Phil, you know, down to Philodendron, to Ilex, the Protocarpus, to. I mean, it also plugged in as we were talking because when we were talking about plants that we were going to plant. So it also included those that weren't there. But every plant that was on the site it correctly identified as Ilex species and Protagarbia species.
B
So it's at least getting down to genus. I mean, you can't ask a camera and a robot to like, what do you. This magic?
C
No. Or you might you say, hey, I don't know if you prompted. Prompted. So anyway, that was really, that was really cool playing with the. Getting the templates lined up because now we can, we can definitely streamline some stuff, so.
B
Well, that's cool. Now people like. Well, let me not say with people I like looking. I'm not even going to say that you want to hear something wrong with, with Live Switch. I don't want to just like constantly jerk things off and not say what problems are. And I will tell you I had a problem with Live Switch And I emailed MacKenzie, who helped us on board with starting Live Switch and getting a login and like learning how to do it. And I will just tell you this email that I wrote earlier this week and I got a. I wrote an email on March 24th at 1:11pm I got a response on March 24th at 2:50pm so about an hour and 40 minutes later I got an emailed response which is pretty freaking good, right? Yeah, that's really good. So I said, mackenzie, I have been having an issue while using Live Switch that has become overly frustrating. My recordings are getting interrupted when I have an inbound call that comes in while making a recording. And Jason, I get a lot of phone calls. Is there a way to fix this? When this inbound call happens, Live Switch automatically stops and ends the recording. I must then either one, start from the top with a new recording. Hoping I don't, I do not receive another interrupting call or two, start a new recording and pick up where I left off. This step will result in two recordings or two videos which is slightly less professional in appearance. Is there a solution to this? Jason, this has happened to me several times where I am 50% through my walkthrough around the house recording what we're going to do inbound call. And it's even worse. Like you know how Florida just had. I don't know if it was all of Florida or my county, but there was a special election, a runoff election. Tom Cowell County. Okay. Anyways, there's an election. So I'm getting all these election texts and phone calls, and it was absurd of what was happening. And this has been like, eaten away at me of this, my getting interrupted. And then I have two recordings and then I gotta stop what I'm doing and redo it. It was just.
C
I.
B
At some points, I got so damn frustrated, said, screw it. I'm not doing a recording on this one. I'm just gonna go type it. I'm all angry, like, how dare you interrupt me? And what? MacKenzie replied to me. She said, hello, Jordan. Unfortunately, since we're browser based, third party app interruptions. Third party app interruptions. Do Disturb the audio and video of a live Switch recording. Cool. She admitted it. I would recommend turning on your Do Not Disturb on your phone before taking recordings or beginning a live call and turning it off after the recording. This way when someone calls, it won't disrupt the recording. We are working on an app for the future that will allow you to have more control over this. I will update you when that is live. So what MacKenzie said is, I've never done this before, but all I have to do is turn on my do not disturb and then my shit won't get interrupted.
C
Well, there you go.
B
Problem. No problem.
C
No problem.
B
So now I just have to Google how to turn on do not disturb on an iPhone and then I'm not gonna have an issue. So I. It was just comical to me, Jason, that this little piece of heartburn has been burning deep inside of me for like two weeks. And I got so worked up and so pissed off, and all I had to do was ask what the solution was. And it was. It was that easy this whole time. So there you go. If anybody's using Live Switch and enjoying all of the wonder of the genie in the lamp and you are getting interrupted making a recording, just turn on your do not disturb and it won't happen anymore.
C
Sounds pretty simple.
B
So now you know, Jason. So when you and Aaron are going on your monologues, you can prevent the experience that I had.
C
Okay, that's good to know. I'll make sure I pass along that information.
B
Yeah. Okay. What other life changing stuff do we have?
C
So the past three weeks, we've covered different sales topics, kind of going through from start to finish, from inbound call to invoicing a customer. And so while we've been talking about that and working through that in real time at skyfrog Landscape. That is something that we are currently working through that process and identifying who is managing what portion of that. So it was quite fitting yesterday afternoon when we have our leadership meeting this morning. I'm prepping for it, you know, and it's, everyone wants to know, we're just identifying. Everyone generally knows what they're doing. But there's just certain points through the process that we've kind of described the past three weeks of who's going to do what in this instance, when this specific portion of that process happens, who's going to handle this, who's going to handle that. And so I sat down yesterday afternoon with my notepad and I started drawing arrows and working through the workflow. And then I said to myself, well, let me just stop. I said, there's smarter things to handle this scenario than me and my notepad and going back to my brain and all this process. So instead of going in the Chat GPT, I'd been to leanscaper a few weeks ago, which we talked about. And so leanscaper has its own AI model. So I logged into my leanscaper account and this is not a plug for Landscaper. This is just what I did yesterday instead of going to ChatGPT. And I plugged it in and said, hey, I need to make a workflow for this scenario, and gave it its description. And then it asked me if I wanted to do it in Quick mode or Deep mode, which in leanscaper is. Quick mode is just going to be chatgpt, spit you out an answer for whatever you plugged in, and that's going to be it. Or you go into Deep mode and ask you questions and you have some feedback and you can manipulate it a little bit more and alter it. So I went into the mode and spent about 10 minutes and then spit out the magical workflow of how everything's going to happen. And so now we at least have it on a very detailed, much more detailed than I probably would have gotten on my legal pad. Workflow from start to finish, from sales call to invoicing. So we're going to sit down this morning as a group and we're going to go through and go for who generally identifies and handles all these different workflows. And then the main thing will be figuring out what triggers, you know, who's handling when the deposit is paid. Like getting down to the, you know, this is not the minutia, but it's just like, okay, when the deposit is made, that triggers the Job to be scheduled. Okay, well, who's going to, how are we going to know when the deposit is paid? Who's going to handle. Is it going to be the office that notifies operations when the deposits paid or is there going to be a place where operations can easily see that the deposits paid in single ops? Like so we're going to go through. We're going to go through.
B
The office doesn't have to wear the burden of informing them operations to notice that as a scenario.
C
As a scenario, yes. So that's. But that's what we're going to work through. So like we've, we've talked about the past three episodes, we talked about the general flow of all this. But now today, what we're actively doing in our meeting this morning is sitting down and like going through those trigger points of like, okay, when this specific thing happens. And that's just the example of the workflow. You know, who's doing this. And then once we've. And then also spit out a whole bunch of accountability measures and things to track. And if anybody is interested in seeing that document, shoot me a message on Instagram or email Jordan, and I'd be glad to share it.
B
Greensign podcast gmail.com.
C
yeah, so it's a.
B
Do you have that document in front of you right now?
C
I don't.
B
Can you be. I want to see it, Jason, and I really don't want to email myself and you just send it to me so I can continue to be dependent tree service and just don't do what doesn't work for you and do do what works for you. My whole business and life model of have, have Jason is the infantry and if he doesn't die on the front lines, I can, I can walk across the minefield.
C
Yeah, no, I'll definitely do that.
B
It's Jason Lee, the minesweeper.
C
But it's going, you know, but it's taking it from concept, which we've, we've talked about the concept and beat that up pretty good. But then going in and figuring out the details and then it also, you know, the accountability portion of it and it's not even. Well, it is accountability. But, you know, if we're monitoring this process on a weekly basis, like it just avoids any hiccups and it's building the system. And then once it's. What is the book? Atomic Habits. It's like whatever. However many times you do something four times or seven times and it starts to become a habit. It's like if you can just build this into a workflow that sticks every day and every week. Then it's trying to figure out how to export this thing.
B
You have it in a googly drive.
C
I've got it in. I don't know what this is. It's a. Yeah, I got it in something. It's in landscaper, which is still. So I was telling, well, I was telling John Burns about landscaper and I mean it's, it's a, it's AI for landscapers. It's a great. Yeah, it's a great thing.
B
Oh, well, that's kind of cool, man. That's like way cool. And did they. Are you paying for it or are they comping you for a period, promotional period of time to use it to buy the whole bag of worms. It's like three grand a month. Right.
C
So it's, it's free to use anyone. So anyone can go on leanscaper.com and set up an account and start using Lana. AI and dabbling in the program. Joining their accelerator program is where it comes with the fee.
B
And that's, that's the Ponzi scheme.
C
Maybe that's. Well, that gets into where they're fast tracking you into learning, learning their program. So that's like weekly meetings of them teaching you one item of the program. It's. We're building an SOP for how you start your morning rollout. We're building an SOP for. They're showing you how to build out things inside of. As you work through different. Well, I don't know how they do it, but I'm guessing they go through a operations section and the sales section and as they're going through different portions of. Of business workflow, they're showing you how to build things out in leanscaper and then functionally use the program. The thing that I thought that was pretty interesting was that they're adding it getting to a point where they have like a crew interface where like if you have a. Check the checklist of your morning checklist of items or our end of day checklist for our truck, it would be hosted like our crews already have tablets that we run single ops on. So in an example would be in leanscaper, the end of day checklist would live in live on the tablet now.
B
Yeah.
C
So the guys would just check it off on the tablet. There's no more of our paper shenanigans that we're doing. And then, you know, if there's a missing piece of equipment, it would go into, you know, broken column or missing column and then that would alert a manager that hey, we have a missing piece of equipment. So like they're trying to streamline so
B
it doesn't go four days without being noticed. Until I forgot to tell you boss, it was hot or I was in a hurry. It's the finalizing and actually doing the process and that then the chainsaw that was forgotten at the customer's house is recovered faster than relying on the customer to say hey Jordan, you guys left a chainsaw here. Here's a picture I thought you might want. Hopefully prevents that.
C
Yeah. And I think as they, as they build this out because I mean we looked at it, we looked at leanscaper like the month that they rolled it out and yeah, there wasn't that much stuff in it and then now all of a sudden a year and a half later they got piles of stuff. So that's cool. But anyway, so I sent you the document. You can take a gator whenever you or give me feedback later and I'll let you know how our meeting transpires. But I think it's anyway, it lays everything out pretty, pretty smoothly.
B
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C
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B
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C
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B
did a webinar last Thursday. So last Thursday afternoon single ops asked Jason, myself and a lady named Priscilla who is in the Massachusetts area. I if I get this wrong, I'm sorry but I think it's the Boston area or somewhere in Matt, Massachusetts that has a Priscilla's business is Lynch Landscape and Tree Service and they do very high end landscape design, build and install and arbor culture. And if I remember correctly I think they have three tree crews that go out and they are a multi, multi million dollar a year business large outfit, over 100 employees if I recall correctly. And we did a webinar for single ops, the three of us with tcia. So the tree care industry of America, we got to meet those folks. And we had a series of questions of three business leaders, Priscilla, Jason and myself about business and processes and hiring employees and some really good general questions on what it takes to run, you know, successful businesses. And it was a live webinar from last Thursday. I think there were over. There were several hundred people in attendance and it was super fun because I was out of town. I was on spring break for my kids spring break. We were in New York City. So I took this webinar in Central park with really tall skyscrapers in the background. And it was pretty cool, talking about running businesses and processes. And as we're doing this recording we have teams working in Tampa. So it was just pretty cool to be on, quote, unquote, vacation. It's a working vacation. Like I'm working the whole time, you know, on the phone or setting some things up. My operations manager was on vacation too. So John was on vacation, he was out of town. And I said, John, I'm going to set the world every day so you don't have to. The only thing I need you to do when we, when you are on vacation for this week is to do payroll and send that over to me so I can email it into our payroll service. But I was set in the world last week, which was refreshing to do. I'd do it the night before and that way early morning it would be ready to roll out. And we, I contacted tcia, I spoke with Lizzie and I asked for the recording of that webinar that we gave and I have. Lizzie was traveling. She was flying from New Hampshire to Fort Lauderdale because TCI is in Fort Lauderdale this November, so it's in the beautiful Sunshine State. So she was flying yesterday, sent her an email and asked for the recording. So if we're able to get that, we will likely launch that episode next week to rebroadcast the TCIA webinar that we did. So hopefully you can hear from me, Jason and Priscilla about some real life questions and answers from three different businesses across the United States. So hopefully that works out and we can share that with you guys. That was exciting to do last week. And also with TCI being in Florida, Lizzie and I had a Zoom call earlier in the week about what a potential partnership of TCIA and the Florida chapter of the ISA could look like and having some. Because TCIA is in Florida this year, this November, some sort of sharing of booth space. We give you a booth at Treece Florida, which is in June, and then you give the Florida chapter ISA a booth at TCIA in November and Fort Lauderdale and maybe some sharing of promotional stuff and what it could look like. So I had that meeting with Lizzie earlier in the week, intentionally. We had that on Tuesday, because today at noon. So I have my 11 o' clock with Kimmins about Snuffleupagus and air spading. And then at 12 o', clock, I got a Trees Florida meeting because I'm on the planning committee for Trees Florida, and I'm going to broach the subject to the Trees Florida Planning committee of here is an opportunity for a partnership. Is this something that we want to do and maybe do some trade? So that could be super cool if it works out. Lizzie also asked for, like, kind of some help. I don't want to make a bold statement, say she asked for help planning tcia because she didn't. But she said, jordan, we need a tree that we can rig in the. Call it an auditorium for climbing. At tci, there's always a tree inside the building. And they're climbing the skeleton of a tree or they're doing a brace rod or a cable demonstration or some cutting of tree branches. And they take a tree that's, I don't know, 20 inches in diameter and they strap it to the ground and climbers climb this tree skeleton. They're like, do you know where we can get a tree? And, like, crane it on. You'll cut it down, crane that, cut the branches off, leaving hat rack ish or whatever it's going to look like. Put it on a lowboy, bring the lowboy to the place, crane it up, and we'll rig it and set it. Can you get us a tree? I was like, you know what? Can can I know, but I know some people in South Florida and maybe if. If there's other things that you need, I can run it by the Florida chapter of the ISA and ping that around the resources that we have and maybe we can put you in touch with some people that would be less cold. Call Y on your end or use you as TCIA using your own network. Maybe we can also ask for our network and get you some answers easier. And she was super stoked about the potential of us helping facilitate, putting TCI in touch with some good vendors to do that. So it was just super cool to get in on some. Some Big things on the front end and I'll be sharing that during my team's meeting with the Trees Florida planning committee later today.
C
It seems like a natural, natural partnership. I mean so mutual. Mutual. A natural partnership with. With mutual benefit. Absolutely.
B
We need a symbiotic relationship we to need. We. We need the mycorrhiza to root system interface where we all benefit from that man.
C
It's cool that it's going to be in Florida make it much easier for us to go and run around and oh heck yeah. Take a look at things and elevate and Alps elevate event's going to be in Tampa I think the week before DCIA so might be able to make that one too.
B
Heck yeah man. So yeah we got that going on.
C
I don't know.
B
Yeah. So I got my, my Kimmins airspace job happening today. The planning for it. I got my live switchy difficult customer job that's happening today. Plant Healthcare is clicking right along. I have tasked one of our employees named Brear to kind of champion Plan Healthcare. I sat down with her a week and change ago and taught her how to use single ops and she has reached out to and reset our 2026 Plan healthcare calendar and cleaned up a lot of office admin work that I used to do way late at night and she is absolutely crushing that. And she sent an email to a customer and I want to read this to you because I was pretty stoked about this. Oh, she just sent an email nine minutes ago to a customer that I haven't read. Spring Plan Health Care follow up. Well hell, let me just read you this one. It came in nine minutes ago and the sun's not up yet. I. Okay, here we go. Off the cuff. Hi Nicole. I hope you're doing well. My name is Beer Brear CLO Cloak. I don't know how to say her last name. My name is Beer Clo and I am the plant healthcare technician overseeing the treatment program of your two live oaks. I wanted to share an update on your tree's progress including observations from my visit on March 18th. We're seeing some really encouraging results. Both trees show significant new growth at the branch tips along with vigorous water sprout growth on the trunk and interior limbs. With the trees responding so well, I did want to bring one item to your attention. I noticed that the 10 inch live oak has very dense interior canopy growth. Since the tree is young, this is the ideal time to perform structural pruning to establish a strong central leader in well spaced branches for long term stability. Addressing this early helps avoid more extensive pruning later on. I have attached a few photos of this tree from my last visit as reference here. I suggest having one of our arborists, Jordan RMR T take a closer look at both trees and provide their detailed recommendations. I've CCed our office to help coordinate a convenient time. Feel free to reply with your availability and we'll take care of the rest. So that is a Yahtzee for upsell. That was incredible, right? She attached Pictures from the March 18th and I'm looking at it and hell yeah, this could totally use some structural pruning now. So just stoked that would that that happened that she had the, you know, forethought to send that email. The other one was from several days ago. This was a 6:46am email. Hi Kevin, I hope you're doing well. My name is Brear and I am the plant healthcare technician overseeing treatment program of your 35 inch lower loke. I want to take a moment to share updates from my visit. Encouraging results and it says here additional with the tree responding well. Okay. I noticed a few smaller pieces of deadwood positioned over the front entrance of the roof. I recommend having one of our arborist, Jordan Marti take a look. Sweet. So she's looking at this tree. It's looking great. There's some deadwood right over the front entry and she is. Oh she included a February visit from 2025 and a May visit from 2025 and a March visit from 2026. So she pulled three photos from the history and single ops with what it looks like currently. So the client can see change in the tree that it's working. The trees looking great. There's some dead stuff you need to know about. Gives us an opportunity to engage and be a better provider to the customer. So that was. That's awesome that it's working that way and we're not just robots doing fertilizer with no engagement with the client or opportunity for upsell. So just super pumped that it's working this way and it's new potential for being the best care provider of somebody's trees. And the fact that it doesn't have to all land on my shoulders is magical. So I'm stoked about that, man.
C
Like it.
B
You got any success stories or wins?
C
We're finishing up our moss spraying job today.
B
Ooh, tell me more.
C
So we are spraying, I think it's around 90 pecan trees of various sizes from 15 to 20ft to 45 to 50ft tall at a grove out In Earlton, which is like Lake Santa Fe, Melrose area. So get a grove that we sprayed from. Is Von Meering a long term client three, four years ago and had very good success. And that's a client that probably back in the, I don't know, early 1900s, mid-1900s, they probably had 100 acres of pecan trees. And then over the years that piece of property got sold and divided up. And now there's different owners that have lake houses that have portions of this old grove. So we're spraying another portion of the same original grove just for a different property owner. And so anyway, so we're our fourth day in that they in and we should be wrapping up. So it's a good job going back and looking at the results from what we did three to four years ago versus the trees we sprayed versus what we didn't spray. I mean this is a significant amount of, of moss that's not there. So we're accomplishing our goals of allowing more light to the trees and then reducing weight on the branches to try to keep the decant trees from failing. So it's fun project throwing it in right at the end of offspring season. So the trees haven't started button out yet. The leaves went on the sales call last week and that was the, that was the kicker of hey man, I don't have any high pressure sales tactics, but if you need to sign up right now and if the trees start leafing out, then we're just gonna have to wait till next year. So which is not a problem.
B
Do you have to wait? Like it doesn't. Copper sulfate is not going to hurt the leaves, is it? You'll just get not as good coverage
C
and I don't know. Well, it's, it's not as good coverage and then doing it while the trees are leafing out. I don't know. But I'm highly paranoid about causing damage to the trees if it were to do something with the new leaves flushing out. So I just know that it is better to do it when there are
B
no leaves and you'll get better coverage because I. There's a moss guy named Matt in Tampa. He's a certified arborist, but he's the Mossman and I think all he does is spray moss. And he does it year round. Oh yeah.
C
Interesting.
B
Yeah, all the time. Squirts, squirts the piss out of him. And he's got a pump, he's got an 800 gallon tank on a trailer, a big ass damn tank. And he's got A pump. He shoots 60ft up in the air from the ground. He, he does like the whole shooting from an elevated position in a lift. Yeah, everything shot from the ground.
C
Interesting.
B
And then as far as staining. Right. I was concerned about staining. If you were to have overspray, it would leave like a white residue on the water spots like, like calcium on your glass shower door analogy, you know. And he says, yeah, you got some overspray on the front porch or on a car, you just squirt it off with fresh water before it dries.
C
Yeah. Now we've. We did another scenario with. On some big live oak trees that we partnered with Sky Frog Tree Service on, and we'd done it a couple of years ago on the same property. And we're just going back to touch up some stuff. And part of our protocol is, you know, we're around the house or house or pavers, we try to wet it down beforehand just so it's a little bit easier to come off, but wet it down beforehand and wash it off. And we haven't had any problems with that. But it does, does get everywhere and. No, I'm interested. I need to do some research into a pump like that.
B
Do you have a spray company in Gainesville that has all of the stuff?
C
Florida Pest Control probably has a moss setup. I don't know if it's similar to what the Mossman has there, but.
B
No, I mean a retail place that can like sell you the pumps and stuff.
C
Yes, I want an fis. Probably do.
B
All right, well, if you ever get into a bind, there's a place called Tampa Sprayers.
C
Oh, okay.
B
Tampa Sprayers. Let me Google Tampa Sprayers.
C
Not having to get up in a lift would be fantastic. It's, you know, our, our spray truck with our whatever JD9 gun, we can get up probably 20 or 30ft. Yep, that's about it.
B
Maybe it's not Tampa Sprayers. Maybe It's Florida Sprayers. Florida Sprayers dot com. Maybe that's what it is. FloridaSprayers dot com. Ken Miller told us about that place.
C
Okay.
B
And Richie knows where it is. Richie's been there several times. To get a piece of hardware, we need a new click clack adapter or whatever the hell piece of hardware that goes on the rig. He's been there and gotten it.
C
We order a bunch of stuff for spray rigs off the sprayer depot. Yeah. Having an in state place to go pick up parts would be good to. Because generally when something breaks, we need it right away.
B
It's not.
C
It's like it stops. It stops production because we don't have multiple spray rigs to.
B
You could. Yeah, it's floridasprayers.com and they are here in Temple Terrace. They're right off of 301 right there. Well, if you need anything, Jason, you can look at Florida Sprayers, and maybe they can overnight it for you. You could drive to Tampa if you need it.
C
Right.
B
Meow. Or time it whenever. We're gonna hang out as a family and trade off, you know, do. Do a drug deal. I'll pick it up, you know, and then hand it to you when nobody's looking in the parking lot.
C
I like it.
B
Yeah.
C
Like. All right, let's wrap this up so I can get this over to Mr. Producer and we can go to work.
B
Yeah, my phone's. It's popping off, man. Yeah. All right, do it. How do we do. Put a bow on it, man.
C
Thank you, everybody, for listening. If you have any. If you want to contact us, you can hit us up on Instagram. Green sideup podcast.
B
Email jordan@greensideuppodcastmail.com awesome.
C
And that is it. That's a wrap. Boom.
B
Okay, man, let's get to work. You got to make some money. Bye.
A
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. Thank you for tuning in. And remember, keep working hard so you can play even harder. And keep the green side up.
B
Sam.
Date: March 26, 2026
Hosts: Jason Lee & Jordan Upcavage
In this value-packed episode, Jason and Jordan dive deep into the realities of running a landscaping and tree care operation. They share on-the-ground stories from recent jobs—installing large-scale “pretzel” paver projects, dealing with protected trees amid city regulations, leveraging new tech to streamline business processes, and building winning client relationships. Key themes include creative problem-solving, the intersection of compliance and practicality, adopting technology in the field, and the importance of process and team structure to grow a smarter operation.
(00:47 – 09:20)
(09:50 – 26:41)
(28:17 – 34:54)
(35:15 – 43:48)
(44:42 – 52:14)
(52:22 – 57:05)
(57:09 – 63:19)
(63:19 – end)
| Segment | Start Time | |---------------------------------------------|------------| | “Pretzel Pavers” & Project Logistics | 00:47 | | Production Rates & Teamwork | 05:57 | | Protected Trees & City Regulations | 09:50 | | Arborist Reports & Consulting Bid | 17:38 | | AI in Proposals & Plant ID | 28:17 | | Tech Glitches – Live Switch Story | 34:10 | | Operational Workflows & LeanScaper | 35:15 | | Webinar Recap & TCIA Partnership | 44:42 | | Team Member Wins & Client Communication | 52:22 | | Moss Spraying Project – Equipment & Results | 57:09 | | Final Wrap-up | 63:19 |
Contact: