Ep 350. Build the Brand Without Becoming the Bottleneck!

Summary

Podcast Summary: Side Hustle Squad – Ep 350 "Build the Brand Without Becoming the Bottleneck!"

Host: Mike Garvey
Guest Speakers: Eric (The Pond Digger), Brandon Bul, Fullerton
Date: July 9, 2026
Duration for Key Segments: Approximately 00:53 – 30:28

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Overview

This episode delves deep into the challenges and strategies of building a personal brand in the lawn care and trades industries, particularly how to avoid becoming the business's sole bottleneck. The panel explores how to expand a brand identity beyond a single personality, leveraging teams and diverse talents to future-proof and grow a business. Through personal anecdotes, industry references, and engaging banter, listeners get practical advice on long-term branding, empowering teams, and fostering company culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Birth and Burden of a Personal Brand

• Origin of "The Pond Digger"

  • Eric recounts how his business name was created around the persona of "The Pond Digger," inspired by a comment about his yellow truck (00:53–02:38).

  • Quickly realized the pros and cons of a brand so closely tied to his identity.

    “You are the brand. You are the Pond Digger. The company is the Pond Digger. You are the brand.”
    — Brandon Bul (00:53)

    “It does become a bottleneck at some point because, you know, you build your brand around that.”
    — Eric (02:14)

• Evolving the Brand:

  • From a one-man brand to developing a crew with unique personalities, akin to an ensemble cast or TV show (“Gilligan’s Island” analogy) (03:40–06:25).

  • Attempted to build a pilot show featuring various characters for broader appeal.

    “If you're just you, you're only going to connect with a certain amount of people… That’s why [shows like Friends] had such massive appeal.”
    — Eric (05:11–08:23)

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2. Diversity Means Resilience

• Connecting With a Wider Audience:

  • Referenced TV hits like "Friends" and "Orange County Choppers" to illustrate how multiple personalities help more people relate to a brand (06:25–08:25).

  • Discussed fears of developing employees into stars who may later leave, but acknowledged the upside: increased company resilience and audience appeal.

    “There’s the fear in anybody that's building a brand that's afraid to have, you know, another face involved.”
    — Eric (09:02)

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3. From Bottleneck to Business Builder

• Training, Teamwork, and Letting Go:

  • Importance of teaching and trusting teams to uphold the business quality and granting freedom for creative execution (13:41–15:00).

  • Highlighted a memorable experience where Eric’s absence did not diminish clients' satisfaction, proving strong teams can match or exceed expectations (16:59–17:57).

    “I don’t need to take any of that credit. My guys are badass.”
    — Eric (17:42)

Notable Moment:

Eric relates a story of a technically skilled client, validating strong teamwork:

“I love it when professional men get together and do professional… That's the way it's supposed to be done.”
— Eric’s lead guy (16:25–17:37)

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4. Managing Access, Ego, and Boundaries

• The Cost of Accessibility:

  • Eric shares the double-edged sword of giving out his personal number, detailing how constant accessibility can be both a brand strength and a personal drain (10:52–11:39).

  • Learned to set boundaries and recognize that not everyone deserves direct access.

    “I feel like I've given access to a lot of people deeply into my life. Not everyone deserves it…”
    — Eric (11:39)

• Navigating Ego and Succession:

  • Balancing personal pride with humility, recognizing the importance of stepping back and letting “the team” shine (18:13–18:31).

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5. Selling the Brand & Planning Transition

• What Happens When the Face Leaves?

  • Discussion of succession in brands built on strong personalities—can the show go on without the original host? Cited examples like Paul Jamison’s Green Industry podcast and TV personalities Pat Sajak (Wheel of Fortune) and Alex Trebek (Jeopardy!) (18:52–24:38).

  • Insights on gradual transitions: introducing co-hosts, building new personalities, and eventually shifting public perception.

    “If you were in a transition… Who could become the personality to take over?”
    — Eric (19:19)

    “He would probably have to bring on another second personality…”
    — Eric (20:04)

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6. Lessons from Other Successful Brands

• Using Imagery and Icons:

  • Tommy Mello’s A1 Garage Doors: Brand image is a timeless cartoon of the founder, detaching the business from his aging real-life persona (25:57–27:34).

  • National brands like Wendy’s and Bob’s Big Boy use fictional, unaging mascots for continuity.

    “Tommy Mello will never age because he’s got the picture of his face on there… it’s still kind of abstract.”
    — Eric (26:52)

• Creative Brainstorming for Brand Mascots:

  • Playful riff about creating a “robot with a rope” mascot to represent Brandon’s business, exemplifying how ideas can evolve from collaborative discussion (27:34–29:41).

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7. Empowering Through Conversation & Networking

• Value of Strategic Partnerships and Open Dialogue:

  • The group emphasizes the power of talking through challenges, networking, and sharing insights to drive business evolution and spark new ideas (29:47–30:28).

    “This is really cool. This is the kind of stuff that’s, like, you know, get your brain opened up a little bit… This is how those ideas come in. A networking thing like this.”
    — Eric (29:28–29:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Personal Branding:

  • “Sometimes it can be a challenge. But so, like, I guess some of the things is as you level up as a person, as a businessman… Not everyone deserves [access] and… sometimes people take advantage of it…”
    — Eric (11:13–11:39)

• On Client Trust and Team Strength:

  • “He doesn't know that I have 18,000 followers on Instagram and 150,000 on YouTube. He doesn't know any of that, nor does he give a shit.”
    — Eric (17:37)

• On Transitioning a Personality-Driven Company:

  • “He would probably have to bring on another second personality… Some together, some solo… Then the Green Industry Podcast now by… the new guy.”
    — Eric (20:04–23:10)

• On Vulnerability and Growth:

  • “You have to have enough confidence that two people can brighten a room up…someone else coming in the room and brightens it up is not gonna take away any of the brilliance that I bring to the room.”
    — Eric (24:56–25:15)

• On Company Mascots and Timeless Branding:

  • “Tommy Mello will never age because he’s got the picture of his face on there… it's still kind of abstract.”
    — Eric (26:52)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:53–02:40 — The Pond Digger: Origins of the brand persona
• 03:40–06:25 — Building a team “cast” for broader branding; TV show analogy
• 06:25–08:25 — Reaching diverse audiences through team personalities; “Friends” discussion
• 10:52–11:39 — Burdens of accessibility and setting boundaries as the brand face
• 13:41–15:00 — Training teams and trusting others with your brand vision
• 16:25–17:57 — Story of professional project execution by the team
• 18:52–24:38 — Brand succession and the challenge of passing the torch; parallels to TV hosts and other podcasts
• 25:57–27:34 — Case study: A1 Garage Doors and the use of mascots in branding
• 27:34–29:41 — Live brainstorming: Robot mascot idea for a new brand identity

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Key Takeaways

• A personal brand can help launch a business but also risks making you the bottleneck if not diversified.
• Ensemble teams—like cast members on a TV show—build a more resilient brand with wider audience appeal.
• Training and empowering employees as “faces” of the brand adds longevity and value.
• Business owners should strategically consider transitions and avoid having the entire business rely on a single personality.
• Timeless brand mascots can help a business outlive the founder's personal presence.
• Open, honest dialogue and networking sessions often lead to the best breakthroughs and creative solutions.

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Perfect for:
Entrepreneurs seeking to build a side hustle or full-time business in the lawn care or trades industry, especially those who want to avoid the pitfalls of personal branding bottleneck and create a long-lasting, scalable brand with a strong team at its core.

Transcript

[Mike Garvey]

Are you ready to kick back and get inspired? Grab your favorite drink, pop the top and join the side Hustle Squad with Mike Garvey. This podcast is the perfect resource for anyone who's already started their side hustle or is just considering taking the lead. With in depth interviews featuring guests from the green industry and beyond, you'll gain valuable insights and learn what it takes to succeed in running a business while juggling a full time career. From personal stories to practical tips, the Soc side Hustle Squad podcast has everything you need to turn your passion into a thriving business. Now, here's your Side Hustle Squad host, Mike Garvey.

[Brandon Bul]

You are the brand. You are the Pond Digger. The company is the Pond Digger. You are the brand.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

Is that a lot of pressure?

[Eric]

It is. And it's been an evolution, actually. How it happened, really. This was back in 2003. So I think I've told you a story. I'll sell it again real quick. I got this big lifted F250 crew cab, Amarillo package, leather seats all done up, yellow. It was awesome truck. It was my dream truck at the time. It's all lifted. It's got 35s, wheels, mudders. So sick.

[Brandon Bul]

It's awesome.

[Eric]

So I pull up, you had the

[Brandon Bul]

next toe clipped to your belt. Yeah, the yellow matching Nextel and probably.

[Eric]

Yeah, my wife probably had a yellow bikini at the time.

[Brandon Bul]

Everything was yellow.

[Eric]

Yeah, yeah. And my, my buddy's like, bro, this truck's crazy. You're like the Grave Digger, only you're the Pond Digger. And he like literally named my business right there. And I was like, that's my new division for construction, the Pond Digger. I was exotic waterscapes at the time. And so we launched the Pond Digger. But I couldn't, I couldn't get the. I was really stuck between the Pond Digger or the Pond Diggers. Like, do I keep the S or no S? It was a real struggle, right? And then I bought the ponddigger.com. i couldn't get ponddigger.com. it's already taken. It was taken because Pond Digger was like this. There was this construction company that just was doing big lake thing or something. They weren't even really specialized in ponds. I don't know. It was weird.

[Brandon Bul]

They were the Lake Diggers.

[Eric]

Yeah. Grading company.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Like, but so I couldn't get pondigger.com and so I bought the Pond Digger, which I didn't really like at the time, but I was like, hey, this is, this is growing on me. Like the ponding or the one and only the Ponding. Like, I thought this was cool. Like. And so I remember thinking, I can use the Pond Digger and the Pond Diggers. So I could have. No, if you typed in my name wrong, you could still find me. The Internet was different back then, 22 years, 23 years ago. So I just remember creating the brand around the ponder. I'm like, look, it's the truck. It's my crew. It's me. You know, like, it's all. It's all encompassing. It's like this omnipresent piece, the Pond Digger. Right. And so, like, it's kind of developed like that over the years, but, you know, the Pond Digger has stuck. My wife calls me Digger. My buddies call me Triplet or Digger or, like, I. So, yeah, it's a little bit. It's a little tricky, and it does become a bottleneck at some point because, you know, you build your brand around that. And my whole social media and my YouTube and all that stuff was just like, me as the Persona. Yeah, the Persona, the face of it all. But I've had a lot of really cool, fun characters work for me over the years. And in 2013, we did a. We shot our own episode pilot for a TV show, and it was going to be called the Pond Digger or something like that. Whatever we were going to do, but we built the show. We shot it ourselves. We were. We were going to shoot it and then pitch it to the networks instead of the networks coming to me. Yeah, a little different approach, but we had a cool pilot. It was really a lot of fun, but we put the thing together like Gilligan's Island. So you had the captain, the Skipper, too. The millionaire and his wife. You know, like, we had the different people, so the team. Yeah. And it was interesting because my buddy at the time. My buddy. He's still my buddy, but at the time, he was saying we need to create, like, people. You're cool and all, Eric, but some people just don't like you. You're, you know, you're white. He's this big, tall German guy. Huge. He's like, you're white. You got blue eyes. Huge. You know, we need. We need a Mexican guy. His wife's. His wife's Mexican. I need a Mexican. I need a guy who's a little bit fat. I need a redneck. I need a redneck. And I need a girl. I need a pretty girl. I need. You know, we need, like, someone who's kind of, like, smart, like a professor, like on Gilligan's Island. I'm like, okay. And so it was really kind of cool. So we built this episode with all these different personalities. He's like, you know, Abbott Gastel, you got the tall, skinny guy and you got the short, fat guy.

[Brandon Bul]

Yep.

[Eric]

If you're just you, you're only going to connect with a certain amount of people and the. There's going to be certain people that will watch the show because they want to see your face.

[Brandon Bul]

Right.

[Eric]

And I was like, okay, so this was in 2013. I was like, I need to be more than just a face. I need to have more people in it. I haven't nailed it as a home run, but I have a lot of cool people in my.

[Brandon Bul]

And this was around the time of, like, remember, like, Orange County Choppers?

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

Like, shows like that. Right. Like, was it kind of like that? Like, seeing design, build of that, Just like how they design, build the bike. Was it different personalities like Mikey and like.

[Eric]

Yeah, exactly. We. We come to a. A project and we'd have a problem to overcome and design elements to do and some teaching.

[Brandon Bul]

In a time frame.

[Eric]

In a time frame. Yeah, yeah. And we. We broke ours out. Like, there was like, these learning moments. It's like we had a problem. And then it would, like, we would cut the scene and go to. And then it would be like, me in this calm manner with a more mellow music. Because if it was like, like, oh, this is tense. And then boom, go calm. And like, hey, here's something I want to teach you guys today. This is how we're going to do this is that. And it was like more calm teaching stuff. So it was like, it was kind of cool. But let's think about. Let's think about building brands around more than just you as the face. And there's pros and cons to this, right? But you had to have watched Friends, right? Who was your favorite favorite character?

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah, I mean, I kind of like them all. Really?

[Eric]

Who was your favorite?

[Brandon Bul]

Who's my favorite?

[Eric]

Who's your favorite character?

[Brandon Bul]

Male or female?

[Eric]

Oh, God, both. Oh, man, this is a tough one. Because it was a good cast.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah. I mean, like, Jennifer Aniston.

[Eric]

She's of course, everyone's face. She was the hottest. Right. Okay. And then who was your least favorite?

[Brandon Bul]

What's the one guy? He's like a goofball. No, I like Joey. Chandler, right?

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

Ross.

[Brandon Bul]

Ross. Yeah, Ross.

[Eric]

Ross annoyed the crap crap out of me. God, he's so annoying. Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

Yes.

[Eric]

He's a little bit of a whiner.

[Fullerton]

Right?

[Eric]

So. Yes, Ross annoyed me, but I, you know, you kind of liked being annoyed at him.

[Brandon Bul]

Yes.

[Eric]

You expected, like, what's he gonna do

[Brandon Bul]

to annoy you today? Yeah. Yes.

[Eric]

Right?

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And then, you know, you have all those OCD people in the world that loved whatever her name was. What's. What's that girl's name?

[Brandon Bul]

Oh, Monica.

[Eric]

Yeah, they love Monica because she's ocd.

[Brandon Bul]

Courtney Cox.

[Eric]

Yeah, Courtney Cox.

[Brandon Bul]

So, like, yeah, you know, everything has to be perfect. And then. And then Phoebe, she was like just the dingbat. Long hippie.

[Eric]

Yeah. So, like, it was kind of fun because, you know, you fell in love with each different character. And even if, like, you just hated Joey or hated Ross or whatever, you still would go and see show. That's why it had such massive appeal. Because, you know, all the OCD people that love Demonica and all the.

[Brandon Bul]

They could.

[Eric]

All the ding bats were like, she's just like, me. I love her. She's like, you know, like, right, so. Or your friends, like, you go, like, I have a friend. She's such a dingbat. She reminds me of Phoebe. And so you'd watch it, you think about your friends. And so, like, that's why this thing was so powerful. Right. And so I had a little bit

[Brandon Bul]

of something that's something for everyone.

[Eric]

Yeah. So I think there's something about building a brand, and it's hard to do because in your gut, you're like, well, what if they leave me and I make them a big superstar? And now they have that. I've given them a platform and so now, you know, they can leave me easier. Right?

[Brandon Bul]

That's huge. I mean, that's huge in the trades, right?

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

It's like it happens all the time. Like, the master plumber doesn't want to show. Show all everything to his apprentice. Right?

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

It's like, yeah, he'll end up leaving me. So I kind of like, I gotta watch. Yeah, I won't. I'll show him enough, but I won't show him everything. So then he leaves me.

[Eric]

Yeah. So I think. I think there's the fear in anybody that's building a brand that's afraid to have, you know, another face involved. And let's. Let's be real. It takes a long time to make it work. So it's like we're pouring ourselves into our brands and becoming a brand. Right. It takes a tremendous amount of work and then to split that. Just like in our other conversation about when there's too many businesses too much. Right. Like, if you're starting to split your efforts into growing your own personal brand and then you're doing. Developing other members of your staff. It's a long play, dude.

[Brandon Bul]

Oh, yeah. It's not an overnight thing.

[Eric]

A long way, you know, and you have to be dedicated enough to your employees and your business to be able to go like, hey, this person's going to be with me for five, 10, 20 years. Oh, yeah. Like, I mean, I have, I have staff members that have been with me for 15 years, 10 years, 12 years. Like, I have staff members have been around a long time. And so I do, I do like to put, you know, some of that action on my, on my team. I don't know if you saw the hiring videos that we did. When I had some of my guys and I gave them goofy eyes, they didn't know I was goofy eyeing them.

[Brandon Bul]

It is the favorite. What is your favorite thing about working here or something? Right.

[Eric]

It's got the sad face on the sad eyes. I just love people. They're all sad. So that's kind of fun. And actually I just hired a new guy and he said he loved that video.

[Brandon Bul]

That's awesome.

[Eric]

He literally does. Yeah, he watched that video. I just hired him. Yeah, it's. It's tricky to, to develop people like that. And so I don't feel like it's a lot of pressure. Here's the, here's where the pressure can happen is because when you start to build yourself and develop, you know, your personal brand and then you give your cell phone number out to literally everyone.

[Brandon Bul]

Everyone.

[Eric]

Like so many people have my cell phone. I probably have 10,000 contacts in my phone.

[Brandon Bul]

Oh, my gosh.

[Eric]

You know, a lot of people have my number, so I'll get phone calls on a Sunday morning from a customer about their pond. And I'm like, just trying to lay here with my wife.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah. Yeah. And there's no going back.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

So call the office.

[Eric]

Yeah. So that's a blessing and a curse. I mean, I, I do love it at some point, but it. Sometimes it can be a challenge. But so, like, I guess some of the things is as you level up as a person, as a businessman. Okay. This is important because I feel like I've given access to a lot of people deeply into my life. Not everyone deserves it.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And. Or not everyone respects it and sometimes people take advantage of it and then it's either a conversation or a blickety block, blocked. So I think for the most part, I mean, most people respect my time and space or whatever, but, you know, sometimes, like I might get a call on a Sunday morning. I'd be like, oh, you're getting a call at 4am on a Monday. Yeah, I'll have time to talk to you. And I'm just gonna call you real quick. Like, you know, it's like you want you. That kind of goes through your mind. Be like, no, don't be an.

[Brandon Bul]

I know you are up early because I talked to you. Like, yeah, It'll be like 7am in the east coast where you're already going.

[Eric]

Yeah. So you don't want to do that, but sometimes I want to, but I don't. But yeah, it's just hard to build a brand, man.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah, it doesn't happen overnight, that's for sure.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

And again, like, people building the brand around them, that's just. It could be good for some. And others maybe not so much. Right.

[Mike Garvey]

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[Eric]

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[Mike Garvey]

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[Eric]

Side hustle at checkout.

[Fullerton]

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[Eric]

My buddy Joe Butler, he sells ponds for us, and he knows my style of building. And, you know, we're training our teams to, you know, have similar style to me, but I want to give them a little bit of creative freedom to move laterally sideways around there. But I mean, our. Our basic premise of how we deliver product. And, you know, it's funny because he. He would maybe be like, I need you to be on the job site, Eric. And I'm like, well, why? My guys are great. It's close to home. I can check on them. I can coach, I can do whatever. Why do I need to be there? He's like, well, because I told him that you would be there. I'm like, well, why'd you tell him that? I'm literally running the business, you know,

[Brandon Bul]

Like, I don't need. Why did you tell him that?

[Eric]

I don't need to beat there all day every day, you know, you want me to dig the hole? Like, what? My guys are super qualified to do

[Brandon Bul]

that, but they want.

[Eric]

Well, I. You know, they saw your YouTube video. I'm like, well, you know, I will make an appearance. I'll come through and I'll do some stuff. But, like, come on, bro. And so that's how it is too. It. I love designing a pond where they look at us as a large company, even though we're small, professional. The team rolls in clean, everyone looks good.

[Brandon Bul]

Experiences, experience.

[Eric]

They click together.

[Brandon Bul]

Everything from start to finish, it's professional.

[Eric]

So when I sell a pond to someone like that, they don't know if I'm the one that has to build the waterfall, you know, so I can come in and coach my team and be like, I'm going to be here at these critical parts to help coach you. On to the design part, because this is what I promised. And I want to make sure that I have articulated it to you well enough to the way that it'll meet the client's expectations on what I said. And they're like, cool. And we've had some really cool moments. We're on a job right now, and the client, he's pretty sharp. He's like. And he's probably early 70s, and he's. He's super together. He's talented physically, and the contractor and that kind of stuff. And what happened was he. Our machine broke on. On the job site, the blue hydraulic core. And he, like, took it apart for me. He's like, oh, here's your part. I'm like, oh, cool. Like, you didn't have to do that. I'm like, I'm gonna get it ordered. But he, like, took it apart and it was all this stuff. And so he's real technical in that regard. And I know I'd gone back and the guys ran into this big root from a tree, from a eucalyptus tree, and the tree was in the way. And I'm like, we gotta get a. We gotta get someone out there to grind the stump. And then. So that was there, and then there was all these issues. And then I gave him a price. Like, all this stuff was happening, all these moving part, and I was just coming in and barely touching and coming out, and I let my guys get there and dig around it. And then the other company comes in. And there was a moment because you think he's going to get upset, this older guy, no nonsense, real technical. He understands stuff. And then the guys had finished a project that. Pulling that root out. We did it fast, we did efficient, called the right people, right equipment. Everything came in really smooth. And my lead guy tells me I wasn't there. He's like, I love it when professional men get together and do professional. That's the way it's supposed to be done. And I'm like, he said that, like, because he was so aggressively, like, excited, like, this is why I hired you. And you guys delivered exactly what I wanted. And he was like, instead of being mad at us, you know, he was like so passionately excited about it. And so that's the development. He doesn't know me as the face. He doesn't know my wife, calls me the Digger. You know, he doesn't know that I have 18, 000 followers on Instagram and 150, 000 on YouTube. He doesn't know any of that, nor does he give a shit.

[Brandon Bul]

Right.

[Eric]

72. He don't care.

[Brandon Bul]

He wants what he wants.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

He wants it done efficiently and correctly.

[Eric]

Yeah. And some guys might. Some people might be like, oh, well, I'm the Pond Digger. You know, they named the business after me. I'm the one that founded it. And like, I don't. I don't need to take any of that credit. My guys are badass.

[Brandon Bul]

Would let me notice your. Your. Your email. It's not like the Pond Digger, like the. At the Pond Digger, like the one. You know what I mean?

[Eric]

Yeah, it's.

[Brandon Bul]

You're like, no, it's regular.

[Eric]

Well, I am a little egotistical. I mean, I. I shouldn't say egotistical because I think that could be misconstrued, but I do have a strong ego. I am very proud. I have a lot of confidence. Some people mistake my confidence for arrogance. And so like. But I'm also no. When to be like, hey, I can step back. Things are going to be handled really well.

[Brandon Bul]

Right. And I think that's good advice for people that have their names on their businesses, you know, like, you know, whatever last name, plumbing, whatever. You know what I mean? Like that. It could be. It could be like, this is all about me. This is. I created this.

[Eric]

Let's take an influencer into the equation as part of this puzzle, because someone like Paul Jameson, okay, He's. He's got a great personality. He's got great channels. You know, he's got the green Industry podcast. He's like, he's a big deal. Right. But, you know, he is the brand and he's the business. There's not really, you know, he's got his. He's got Mr. Producer, and he's got maybe a marketing team shooting video and editing, and for him, like a kind of couple people, but it's not a business. So, you know, he is the brand. But does that make him in the bottleneck, Nick? I don't think so, but.

[Brandon Bul]

No, not at all.

[Eric]

But he can't necessarily sell the him. But, you know, here's interesting. If he wanted to sell the green industry podcast and just go, like, fully into golf and transition in his life or something like that, who could become the personality to take over the green industry podcast? Who would have a powerful enough.

[Brandon Bul]

I don't know. I don't even know if it can be done.

[Eric]

Well, let's talk about this for a second. I mean, I didn't mean to decide to talk about.

[Brandon Bul]

I've had this conversation.

[Eric]

Right.

[Brandon Bul]

Not with Paul, but with others, I think. I'm like. I don't know, because the people. Yeah, the people, like, they love him. They love him.

[Eric]

True. What would you do if you were in a transition? If I was Paul and I wanted to sell it, and I'm not saying he does. I have no idea. I'm just giving it as an example. But he would probably have to bring on another second personality to come onto the them while he still wants it. And then.

[Brandon Bul]

And then start filling in.

[Eric]

And then he can be, like, on there. There'll be like a year together, and they'll have some band.

[Brandon Bul]

Not even together. Yeah. Some together, some solo. With the person.

[Eric]

Yeah. In fact, you know what's really interesting is I started a podcast back in, like, 2022 with another contractor. Yeah. And then we didn't really. We had different core values and we'd split things up, but he's very dry. Had, like, really monotone. Kind of like, he wouldn't say hi to someone in the. In the elevator. Like, dude, we. We went to Florida together to see Ed Mylett. We went to this big conference, and I was just being friendly. Like, we get into the elevator, this woman comes in. She's all dressed to the nines, and her fingernails look amazing.

[Mike Garvey]

Right?

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And I'm like, wow, your fingernails. Look at me. You look. You look amazing today.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And she was like, thank you. You know, she was so happy. I wasn't like, coming onto her.

[Brandon Bul]

No.

[Eric]

You know, I was just like, you look amazing. Like, you look amazing in yellow.

[Brandon Bul]

That's awesome. People love that.

[Eric]

And he looked at me like, what are you doing? He looked at me like, what? Why would you talk to her like that? I'm like. And when she got out of the elevator, he's like, why would you do that? I'm like, does she not look amazing in the yellow and her fingernails look great? He's like, well, but I'm like, I just. That's me, bro. Would you want me to not be me? Shut the fuck up. You know?

[Mike Garvey]

Right.

[Eric]

But I mean, that's just my personality. I'm outgoing. He's an introvert. I'm an extrovert. He's monotone tone. I'm, you know, excitable. You know, he wants to be real logical and be a Marine or some like that. And I'm like, let's go skating, bro. Dude. The first time he came out to. To California to come and hang out with us, we were shooting content together for coaching. I had a. I was like, well, if you come out on this date, just know that my team and I are going out to get tattoos together. Like from 8pm to 11, we're getting tattoos over in Colton. And he's like, what? So, like, literally he went to the tattoo parlor with me and my. My whole team were all getting tattoos together. He thought it was the craziest thing in the world. Like, why would you be friends with your employees?

[Brandon Bul]

You know, so like this whole disconnect from.

[Eric]

But this. This is what I'm telling you. Our podcasting together was pretty interesting because the people that think I'm annoying as fuck loved him.

[Brandon Bul]

And the people.

[Eric]

People didn't like him and they liked our banter. I would push back on him. He'd be like, why would you do that? You know? Like, so there was like this. There was a synergy between us that people seemed to really like. So I mean, that's. I think what. What Paul would probably need to do is to like, bring someone on, have this co host, and then. Then they do separate single ones. Single ones. And then boom. The Green industry podcast now by, you know, Beauregard, whatever. His new, like the new guy, you know.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And then Paul could come on three times a year and say hello.

[Brandon Bul]

You know, it's almost like Pat Sajak leaving Wheel of Fortune. Right. Or Alex Trebek, you know, leaving Jeff. It's almost like it goes on in a different way, I would say.

[Eric]

I mean, that's a great show. That's a great example. Who's the Wheel of Fortune.

[Brandon Bul]

Is that Sajak, you know, now Steve.

[Eric]

What's his name? Yeah. I mean, that was a great transition.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah. Or Ken Jennings or whatever is on Jeopardy now, like the Ryan Seacrest is.

[Eric]

Those were big personalities.

[Brandon Bul]

They were personal. Those were personalities before they were their

[Eric]

own personal brand, before they came in and took over the other one inside that one business. Yeah. It's interesting.

[Brandon Bul]

It's gonna be interesting to just watch it. It's gonna be interesting to watch the evolution of all of this. Like the. The in the greed industry in pod row and. And equip and all this stuff and see where it goes from here. The interesting time, I think, well, this

[Eric]

makes me think about, you know, what would be like a transition. What. What would it look like if I sold the pond here, who becomes the pond digger after that? I have to develop someone within the business.

[Brandon Bul]

Yes. And hand it over.

[Eric]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

Same concept. The exact same concept.

[Eric]

You think Ryan Seacrest would want to come in? He could pull it off, dude.

[Brandon Bul]

He could. He'd be good. He's in la.

[Eric]

Yeah. He's close by.

[Fullerton]

Yeah.

[Brandon Bul]

You got a lot of talent out there.

[Eric]

Yeah, it's. It's definitely blessing and curse. You have to have enough. You have to be vulnerable. You have to have enough confidence that two people can brighten a room up. And that someone else coming in the room and brightens it up is not gonna take away any of the brilliance that I bring to the room, you know?

[Brandon Bul]

Right, right. That's.

[Eric]

Yeah, it's a tough one. I don't think there's a lot of people that are built in a fashion that could, you know, not get their feelings hurt about it.

[Brandon Bul]

No, you're, You're. You're. It would be very difficult so with

[Eric]

you having your businesses like who's going to be the face of roped.

[Brandon Bul]

I don't know.

[Eric]

Who's the face of Coastal? Is it just a pretty sun and a sunset or something like that? I mean, what. Who's.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah, I mean, there's. Customer wise. Who do the customers.

[Eric]

It's just. There's no face.

[Brandon Bul]

Coastal fertilization. It's mainly. People know Larry because he.

[Eric]

But it's. That's not the brand, though.

[Brandon Bul]

No. No.

[Eric]

So here's something interesting. Tommy Mellow. You know Tommy, he's. He's a great businessman. I'm very fond of Tommy. A1 garage doors started out of Scottsdale, Arizona. We'll be there next month. Can't wait. Right? A1 Garage Doors. $500 billion company. Now A1 Garage Doors was built at the time he's A1. So he could be the. The first in the phone book. That's how long ago he started it.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

And it's his photograph of his face on the side of the vans, you know, and they got like hundreds and hundreds of vans multiple, multiple states across the country. And it's literally his face. But the brand is a one and it's a cartoon of him. So he's not real. You know what I mean?

[Brandon Bul]

So it's not his re. Right.

[Eric]

You know, it's. It doesn't. It's ageless, you know, like.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah, right. It's timeless.

[Eric]

If you watch my YouTube videos from 18 years ago, I was a young guy. Now I'm all gray, you know, like, it's like, you see me now he's got wrinkles. Like, you see the passage of time in the person, in the branding, in the content. Tommy Mello will never age because he's got the picture of his face on there from when he was, I don't know, probably within past 10 or 15 years, you know, and you can see that it's him, but it's still kind of abstract. So, like, that's. I think that's why, you know, Bob's big boy and like Wendy's is the girl and like Aunt Jemima, like, you have this fictional, like, fictitious person.

[Brandon Bul]

That's. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[Eric]

So we need a roped cartoon character.

[Brandon Bul]

Like it.

[Eric]

Yeah, Swinging the lasso.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah, like a robot swinging a lasso. A robot. Like Transformer looking.

[Eric]

It's not too far fetched. It's seriously not too far fetched.

[Brandon Bul]

We'll work on this.

[Eric]

Dude, we're going to chat GPT right after this.

[Mike Garvey]

Right now.

[Brandon Bul]

I can't wait.

[Eric]

I'm serious.

[Brandon Bul]

Jack just came down.

[Eric]

You think I'm joking?

[Brandon Bul]

No, I know you're not because we

[Eric]

have to come up with a cool name for it.

[Brandon Bul]

Like, we all have our titles, right? We. We've decided the structure of it, right? Who's the CEO, who's the coo, who's this whatever. And it's just titles. It's not like I'm in charge or anything. I'm just like steering the ship and trying to put things together operationally. That's Larry. It's always been Larry. Setting the things up, like getting everything together and install all that. And then Ryan, I have him, is like given a good experience to the customer, like coordinating with them and like, really the chief, he's like the chief of staff. Like, he's the chief, like like, keeping everything together. So, like, there's not sort of like, oh, he's the. He's this. He's the guy. It's not. But there could be a cool, you

[Eric]

know, robot with a rope.

[Brandon Bul]

A robot with a rope?

[Eric]

Yeah. It makes me think about the Jetsons.

[Brandon Bul]

We could have, like, on the back of our shirts. We could have, like, like a crush robot, like, tied up, like, to the bed. There might be a violation or like, something like. Tied up.

[Eric]

Yeah. You have the state troopers chasing you down after that one.

[Brandon Bul]

Get him.

[Eric]

Cool, man. Fun conversation. This is really cool. This is the kind of stuff that's like, you know, get your brain opened up a little bit. How funny will it be? Like, we go back in three months, we'll listen to this, and there's robot swinging a rope on your business.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

You know what I mean? This is how those ideas come in. A networking thing like this. We come to Profit Accelerator live.

[Brandon Bul]

Yeah.

[Eric]

We're hanging out. We don't have any responsibility. I don't even have my dog with me. I'm pissed about that.

[Brandon Bul]

I know.

[Eric]

But, you know, here we're on in Richmond, Virginia, you know, on a Friday, working on business.

[Brandon Bul]

Working on, like, just thinking things through. And like, this is again, just talking through stuff. This is. I've walked, like, I've listened to you guys this morning. I've already walked away with like, oh, my God, yes. Like, okay, I need this. Per person needs to be doing this. How am I gonna make that happen?

[Eric]

Just think if we were sipping in an old Fashioned right now, what would happen?

[Brandon Bul]

Not a bad idea.

[Eric]

Let's lock it up.

[Brandon Bul]

All right.

[Eric]

All right.

[Brandon Bul]

We'll leave it right there.

[Mike Garvey]

Thanks for tuning in to the side Hustle Squad podcast with Mike Garvey. We hope you enjoyed this episode and gained valuable insights to help you succeed in your Side Hustle journey. Connect with Mike using the links in the podcast description. If you love the show, please leave us a well worded five star review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback and support help us grow and continue to provide you with the best content. And don't forget to follow the show to be notified when the next edition of the side Hustle Squad podcast is available. We have many exciting guests and topics lined up so you won't want to miss a single episode. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you next time on the side Hustle Squad podcast.