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Are you mowing lawns, running crews, and still wondering where all the money went? You're not alone. Naylor Taliaferro of LCR Media has been there, and that's exactly why he created Profit Accelerator Live. Join Naylor and expert speakers John Pajak and Eric Triplett for two powerful days of hands on workshops designed specifically for lawn care and landscaping business owners in Richmond, Virginia, June 26th and 27th. This isn't a conference where you'll sit in the back and take notes. You'll leave with an actual business plan in hand, knowing exactly what to charge, how to manage your time, and how to attract better customers. Tickets are just $299, but right now you can bring a partner or a fellow business owner free with our two for one special. Tickets are just $299, but right now you can bring a partner or fellow business owner free with our 2 for 1 special. Only 75 spots are available and they will fill up fast. Use the link in the show description or go to profitacceleratorlive.com to secure your spot today. Put more money in the bank and more time in your schedule with Profit Accelerator Live. Here we go.
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Welcome back to another episode of Truck Talk Tuesday on the LCR Media Podcast. I'm your host, LCR Nailer Talia Farrow and I wanted to update you on my, my travel plans here just to, to kind of make a little bit of a point, but it's my 25th wedding anniversary this, this year, this summer. So I know those of you, you know, joke that I don't, you probably are wondering like what in the world, when did you get married? When you were in high school or something. Because a lot of people think that I'm, I look younger than, than I am and when they know that I have kids in college, it's like all mind boggling to a lot of folks, which I guess I'll appreciate looking younger the older I get. But it, it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other. I appreciate the, the, you know, I guess the alternative, you know, if I look old and you know, I don't know, I guess that could be not the best alternative. But I don't really care either way which way I look. But thanks for the, for the compliment. I, I imagine for looking looking youthful, hopefully that means something good about me in my life. But with all that being said, I'm going to be going away for two weeks with my wife to celebrate our 25th anniversary here. And you know, right after the spring rush or kind of like the tail end of the spring rush and then, you know, as we get closer to summer. So that two week chunk there is. It is what it is. Like it's when our anniversary is. So it doesn't really matter what time of the year it is. We still would have been celebrating and we're not going to push off the celebration of our marriage together for anything really, especially work, you know, so she was able to take time off from her job. And of course I'm the boss, I can do whatever I want. But that doesn't mean that I just leave everything high and dry. Right? There's, there's definitely some checks and balances that have to be made and there's, you know, I've gone on some trips, I think essentially every year and I kind of have an episode similar to this, which is this is going to be different, but I have an episode, I think at least once every summer where I talk about taking a break for your breakthrough. Because a lot of us, myself included in the past would just. Maybe not so much in the past, but I know in retail when I my before my lawn care business and I was in retail management, I didn't have as much control over my life and my time off. And you just work all the time and not take time off. And I know there's a lot of landscapers out there in a similar situation where you feel like you can't take time. How can I take time off? Who's going to watch this? Or who's going to get the house, the lawns going to get done, or who's going to follow up on my cruise or you know, you think everything's going to fall apart, but. And that might be the case, but the goal is to get it to the place where you can feel safe going out of town or just taking time off and away from your business. I mean, there's some books about this I forgot. Mike Michalowicz has one. I forgot what it was called off top of my head. But it was essentially that whole concept of how he gradually worked his way, you know, took, you know, a week off and you know, then, then a couple weeks or whatever and just trying to work his way up to like ultimately like not being in town and being gone for like a month or something like that and, and, and coming back in his business not only survived but it actually thrived without him because, which, you know, kind of hurt his feelings a little bit in the beginning until he realized that's actually a Good thing. And, and it's also insightful. Like, wow, I was actually kind of holding my company back. I was the bottleneck. Which you may or may not have heard that before. Those of you listening, I mean, that we are our own worst enemy. You know, we usually us as business owners are the bottleneck in our business. We're, we're holding on to things too long or too tight. You know, responsibilities and decisions and people. Right. We should let people go a little bit sooner. We should have waited a little bit longer to hire people, make sure they're the right people. We're, you know, cautious about giving certain types of responsibility or what we would consider too much responsibility to certain people and delegating certain things. And you know, yes, it is our baby, it's our business, and it is something we want to hold strong to, but maybe we want to hold on to, but it's just one of those things that it can't grow if we don't let it. And your people get more empowered the more responsibility you give to them. And yes, you want to give the right responsibility to the right people and the right amounts. And there's a whole learning curve with that, of course, but that's the whole point. Like we all live and learn, we all get stronger in that process. And that's the whole point of that process. Nothing's perfect. Nothing is going to be perfect. And mistakes help you learn and make you stronger. And so if you ever want to take time off from your business, you have to start going through this process. And it's definitely not the most enjoyable process, but it will be when you take time off and mistakes might happen. You know, things might, might happen, might go wrong or whatever. Like, hopefully that doesn't happen in my situation now, but it is what it is. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm going to be enjoying my time with my, with my wife. And then when I come back, I'll deal with whatever I have to deal with. Hopefully it won't be much, if any, but you know, there's various ways you can do this. Like in the past I've, you know, my, my crew, my crew, my crew leader took care of everything. And you know, we, we did some little check ins here and there to make sure everything was okay and it was fine. You know, there was little hiccups, but nothing, nothing crazy. And we dealt with it. There's actually some employee issues that we addressed after the fact and that my crew leader brought to my attention. And you know, sometimes things get Exposed more when you're not around. Right. Because when the, when the cats away, the mice will play. Right? Something like that. I think it goes. And so being able to step away from your business for some sort, some point of time versus just your regular days off is definitely going to help help it grow and help you grow as a leader, as a business owner as well. The Lawn and Landscape Technology Conference is going to be this July 22nd through the 24th in Scottsdale, Arizona. I for one, have never been to Arizona at all and I've heard a lot about Scottsdale, Arizona specifically. So I'm really excited to go check out another part of the country. One of the reasons why I enjoy traveling for different industry and community events, whether they're ones that I host or trade shows that I'm a part of or speak at. Like I was at Vegas recently for the Con Expo, had a great time networking there and checking out that show as well as that part of the country. You know, there's different parts of Vegas, you know, for better or for worse. And you know where Con Expo was, was, was a different perspective. And it was, it was pretty nice. So I'm, I'm excited to check out Scottsdale, Arizona. Last year I was at the Lawn Landscape Conference Technology conference, and it was amazing. It was, it was focused on the technology in your business. Of course there's the, the automations like robotic mowers and battery operated equipment, but they also have a lot of training as well to help you through those automations and technology, but also just being on the forefront of the ideas and the future of the industry and what are some things that you can potentially adopt into your own business, regardless of what size it is and how you feel about the future and technology and automations, ultimately that's going to help you streamline your business and work less and make more. So I'm going to be there. John Pak from the Profits with Pajak podcast is going to be there. Air trip with the Pond Digger from the Deep End podcast is going to be there. You got Cornell Mac on the attack with Mac podcast going to be there. And then you have Mike and Larry with the side Hots side Hustle Squad side Hustle Squad podcast. There you go. Also going to be there. And we're going to have a great time at Pod Row yet again at the Long Landscape Technology Conference. So if you're going to be there, definitely stop by, say, say what's up? Get on a podcast, share your story or just meet up with whoever we have on podcast we're going to be interviewing all kinds of leaders. Like last year we interviewed Mark Bradley from Element and leanscaper and so many other high level entrepreneurs and business owners that stopped by Podro. So you could even just, you know, stop by and listen. Listen to their story first perspective and then shake their hand and talk to them after the fact. As well as, you know, getting on a podcast and sharing your story. So a lot of bonuses, a lot of great things to come out to the Lawn Landscape Technology conference in Scottsda, Arizona July 22nd the 24th 4th. Check out the link in the episode description if you want to register. Hope to see you there. The LCR Media podcast is brought to you by Toro and they're proud to support the men and women who serve our communities every day with Toro's American Hero program. Military veterans, firefighters, EMTs and police officers can receive 18% off Toro Landscape contractor and specialty construction equipment. It's a program built to give back to the people who always show up. To learn more and see if you qualify, click the link in the episode description or visit your local Toro dealer. So that's something I've done before when I've gone on, you know, a family vacation for like a week or so. I've also had other businesses that I'm friends with or are close to or have helped me have a network that I've networked with that have taken care of some of my lawns in the past and or all of them. So this and, and it's again, there's pros and cons to all that. So this what seems to work the best is have a specific company take care of my properties while I am gone and I feel confident that they'll do the right thing and take care of everything and if anything happens they'll take care of it and let me know after the fact that or if it's that big of an emergency, they'll reach out to me. So that's what I'm doing this time. I'm going to have that person take care of my that company take care of my lawns and I'm confident that everything will be good and I'll be able to spend time with my wife and not have to worry about my accounts being neglected or getting overgrown. Maybe people not being happy about whatever the outcome is and I might lose customers this way. I keep customers. The lawns aren't overgrown. So when I get back I don't have a ton of extra of work to do and I could just keep on rolling Everything is smooth sailing, hopefully. So that's the ultimate goal and point of, I guess this conversation, this brief conversation is to let you know that it can be done and you need to take some time off for sure, so that you can grow and your business can grow and you can get some rest and relaxation, right, so that you can just recover, whatever that is, especially in the summer, especially after the spring rush. But I also have my business set up in such a way to be able to do that, systems in place and so on. So many things. I'm not going to go into that whole big, big discussion on this episode. I've talked about it many times in bits and pieces. I'm also going to be going over it all in person at Profit accelerator live this June 26th, 27th right here in Richmond, Virginia, where I'm, where I'm my hometown. So it'll be fun time. It'll be John Pajak, Eric Triplets, a few other folks, Cornell Mack and so on. So gonna have a lot of great speakers there. We're gonna focus on accelerating your profits, how to make more money in your business, get more time in your schedule for life and be able to take time off like this even if you don't want to. It would be nice to be able to if you wanted to. And you know what systems you have to put in place so that you can make the money and have the right people to run the business the right way. So anyway, we'll be going through all that for two days and that's gonna that. If you want to check that out, you can click the link in the episode description profitacceleratorlive.com and we hope to see you there. And with that being said, thank you all for listening, thank you to Throttle company for sponsoring the LCR Media podcast. And until the next episode, this is Naylor Tagliaferro signing off.
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This has been an lcr media and Mr. Producer production.
Host: Naylor Taliaferro
Episode #: 563
Air Date: May 26, 2026
In this solo Truck Talk Tuesday, host Naylor Taliaferro shares practical insights on the theme: letting go to let your business grow. He uses his own upcoming 25th wedding anniversary and two-week vacation as a jumping-off point to discuss why stepping away from your business is essential—not only for personal well-being, but for enabling sustainable business growth. The episode blends personal reflections, tactical advice, and a call to action for listeners struggling to loosen their grip on their business.
On Outgrowing Owner-Dependency:
“I was actually kind of holding my company back. I was the bottleneck. Which… you may or may not have heard that before. We are our own worst enemy.”
— Naylor Taliaferro [05:37]
On the Benefits of Absence:
“Being able to step away from your business… is definitely going to help it grow and help you grow as a leader, as a business owner as well.”
— Naylor Taliaferro [09:54]
On Systematizing for Time-Off:
“I have my business set up in such a way to be able to do that, systems in place and so on… so many things… I’m also going to be going over it all in person at Profit Accelerator Live.”
— Naylor Taliaferro [13:01]
| Timestamp | Topic | |-------------|--------------------------------------------| | 01:38 | Host’s intro and personal context | | 02:59 | 25th anniversary: why time off matters | | 04:24 | The challenge of stepping away | | 05:37 | Owners as bottlenecks, importance of delegation | | 08:53 | Learning from absence; revealing team issues| | 09:54 | Growth through stepping back | | 12:01 | Tactical approaches to time off | | 12:44 | Rest and business resilience | | 13:01 | Upcoming events and resources |
For business owners feeling like they can never take a day off, this episode offers reassurance, practical wisdom, and motivation to begin the process of letting go to truly let your business grow.