← The Cost of Doing Business
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- [00:00]
Matt
We wanted to build something that worked well for all parts of the business and I think we accomplished able to accomplish that.
- [00:07]
Weston Zimmerman
Would you do it again? Yeah, I would do it again.
- [00:12]
Matt
Again.
- [00:13]
Weston Zimmerman
We talked to quite a few people that are at 100 grand. How would you advise that they think through the cost benefit analysis of getting a system like synced up versus just doing it manually?
- [00:23]
Unidentified Small Business Owner
If you're a finance major, you know exactly how to do that, then cool, go ahead. But I don't think very many of us are finance majors that are out landscaping right now.
- [00:34]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
So any service based business needs to have something to help with that with pricing because otherwise, like, you just don't know what things really cost.
- [00:44]
Randall
It's so easy to see when you estimate where your margin's at and you're like, you know what, I like to be 25, 30% margins here. So you just bump up your price. So I think that was huge.
- [00:53]
Kevin Robinson
I think the job costing is great on it for understanding how you did so that you can put that next bid out more efficiently so that you know where you went wrong.
- [01:04]
Jesse Widener
We were always profitable at the end of the year, but job to job, you'd never know. I know we were getting killed on some projects and like other ones, we were knocking it out of the park.
- [01:13]
Clayton Canby
Working hard only works for so long. Charging what you think is somewhat accurate when you're light years away from what you should be charging. You know, whether that's confidence related, undervaluing yourself, whatever that might be.
- [01:28]
Christopher Hoosier
Oftentimes you don't have to be the smartest guy in the room so much as you have to be smart enough to understand that you have to surround yourself with smart, capable people and good tools.
- [01:40]
Ben Zimmerman
One of the things that I saw over and over again was you can't fix mindset. If the mindset's broken, the company's doomed. It's never going to grow. I'm sorry.
- [01:56]
Weston Zimmerman
Welcome to the Cost of Doing Business podcasts. Things on Instagram are pretty shiny, but here we're going to get to the reality behind the scenes on the hard journey of growing a business so we can all learn from each other. I'm your host, Weston Zimmerman, co founder of Synced Up. Been in the green industry my whole life. Let's get into it. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. We are literally at the table where Synced up started.
- [02:26]
Matt
That's right.
- [02:28]
Weston Zimmerman
We're here in the office of Tasso Landscaping and I'm with Matt, who I worked for for many, many years. And still do, you could say with. As being partners in Synced Up. But I've told this story from my perspective about how Synced up got started many times. But from your perspective, like, how did it get started? Like, what was the.
- [02:49]
Kalei
How did.
- [02:50]
Weston Zimmerman
What was that story?
- [02:51]
Matt
Yeah. So what year was it?
- [02:53]
Weston Zimmerman
Well, sitting here, the initial, the very first conversations would have been back probably 2012, 11 or 12, something like that.
- [03:06]
Matt
So yeah, we were, as a company, we were right in the process of trying to build budgets and make sure we're making money. And my brother Steve was, you know, right in the middle of that whole thing and we were starting to hear about software, you know, like, hey, you can use this software for budgeting and scheduling and time. You know, there was different things. So we're starting to go down that, down that road as a company, you know, to streamline our operations. And we ended up using several different softwares that were out there. One year we're like, oh, we're gonna go that direction. We want that direction. It's like, ah, but it doesn't do that. And then next year we're like, oh, you know what we're gonna. This is, this is the direction we're going. We went that direction. Anyway, we ended up using two or three different softwares, you know, throughout the company. Obviously it's not efficient to, you know, try to use, you know, to work it in that way. One for budgeting, one for scheduling and one for job, you know, costing.
- [04:07]
Logan Conklin
Yeah.
- [04:08]
Matt
And one work. We were bored, I guess, sitting around this table and there was a handful of us guys here and someone had the. We were just talking about software and someone's like, I wish we could just build it so that the softwares could talk to each other. So that you could use this one for this and that one for that. And anyway, that's probably not. We didn't know much about software and we're like, that's probably not going to work. It's probably not feasible. And then someone had the idea to build round and. And there was some him hawing and not sure about that. And your dad was into the, into that space a little more. He worked with a company that had a developer on staff and we had them come in and kind of look at what we were trying to do and gave us that first. Gave us the price for the first version one of what we wanted. We're like, okay, you know, that's cool. I mean, I'm glad it wasn't higher. We had probably drug our feet even more. But we thought, you know, what if we could spend this much money and have her needs, you know, taken care of it, maybe this is the way to go. So none of us really had any software experience whatsoever.
- [05:16]
Clayton Canby
Yeah.
- [05:16]
Matt
So we went that route and we had version one, and yeah, it was just like bare bones, basic, and things didn't work like they should. And so we started to kind of go down that road of investing more money into something, and you get to a point where, like, well, we can't stop now. Right. And so then you were working here within the company, and it slowly became more and more of your. You were the driving force behind, you know, this is what we need to do next. And so, yeah, over the years, you kind of took over that and kept pushing that ball forward, and Tustin Landscaping was. Was the cash cow, as it were, you know, so we started. We kept putting money into it. I look back over these years wondering, I wonder how we actually swung that.
- [06:05]
Weston Zimmerman
But, yeah, we kept on dropping some
- [06:07]
Matt
decent amount of money into that after year. And every year was like, okay, hopefully next year we'll get this to a point where, you know, it works really well for us, and then maybe we could bring on a few other companies. You know, at some point, it was obvious that with the amount of money we were spending for ourselves, it was just gonna. We needed to take it, obviously, to other customers, you know, and sell it. So it wasn't really the. The primary goal in creating synced up, but that's kind of where we got to, you know, after five or six years of putting money into it and coming up with something that worked for us, and that's kind of where. Where it started. And here we are. You know, it's. So, yeah. Five years later, and it's fun to look at the. To look at where it's where it started. Literally, like I said, right here.
- [06:56]
Clayton Canby
Yeah.
- [06:57]
Weston Zimmerman
Would you do it again? Or like, would you sign yourself up for all that?
- [07:02]
Matt
Yeah, I would do it again.
- [07:05]
Weston Zimmerman
Again. Yeah.
- [07:06]
Matt
This software is. It's good, you know, it's good for other companies. Yeah, no, we. We wanted to build something that worked well for all parts of the business. Right. Whether you're the business owner or the office manager or the sales guy or the foreman in the field or service. And I think we accomplished. Able to accomplish that, and we were able to pull all parts of it. We were able to pull advice from all parts of the. Of our company, you know. Yeah, it was built out of our company. So everybody kind of had a. Something didn't Work out for them wasn't working right. Well, we got feedback and we tried to make it work for everybody.
- [07:44]
Christopher Hoosier
Yeah.
- [07:45]
Matt
And that was. That was the goal.
- [07:46]
Weston Zimmerman
And that's kind of where we got the name even. Remember, like, we were kind of. We kept saying, like, we wanted to have everybody be synced up. We were just kind of saying it in the actual term of the word, you know. Yeah. Sync up the office in the field. But, yeah. Thanks, man. This was fun.
- [07:59]
Matt
Well, thank you, Weston. Thank you for your contribution over the years. You know, it's.
- [08:03]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
For sure.
- [08:04]
Weston Zimmerman
I mean, it's been an honor. Nothing that I've been able to achieve would have really been possible without the Tussie foundation, both as an employee. You guys definitely showed faith and gave me a rope to climb or hang myself for sure. And think that wouldn't be possible without you guys. So I have a lot to thank you for.
- [08:30]
Matt
Yeah, well, it's teamwork. Couldn't do it without each other for sure.
- [08:35]
Weston Zimmerman
Well, good morning and welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. I am in Romney, West Virginia, here with Randall and met his team this morning. When you signed on with Synced up, you're a little over a year in, right. When you signed on with Synced Up, I'm curious, what was the moment when you were logged in and figuring it out? What was the moment that you were like, okay, yes, this is what I need.
- [09:02]
Randall
I think a huge thing for me was, well, after all our overhead and everything was in, and then probably doing my first estimate was seeing, like, your margins. And I'm like, yeah. In your head, you kind of hope you're hitting this margin because, I mean, 5%. I mean, okay, it depends what size and how big of a company you are. But for a smaller company, if you're at 5, 10% margins, that's.
- [09:30]
Weston Zimmerman
That's razor thin.
- [09:32]
Randall
Yeah, razor thin. So, yeah.
- [09:33]
Clayton Canby
So seeing. Being.
- [09:35]
Randall
It's so easy to see when you estimate. When you get your estimate figured out is where your margin's at, and you're like, you know what? I like to be 25, 30% margins here. So you just bump up your price. So I think that was huge. And then when you do the project, looking back, you're like, how did I actually sell? Yeah.
- [09:55]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah. Because I think what's so easy to miss in what you're calling out is the difference between gross profit and net profit. And what I mean by that is when you're doing your estimate and be like, oh, it's five grand worth of labor, my cost, and it's five grand worth of materials. So $10,000 out of pocket expenses. So 20,000 feels like a lot. Like a 50% gross margin feels like a lot. But when you add in all your expenses, all your equipment payments, all your operational expenses, you quickly realize that, yes, your direct costs are 10,000, but you also have another 7,000 in operational costs. In that timeframe it's gonna take you to do the job. So your true margin is only the 3,000, not the 10. And that visibility is very helpful to be like. It kills the temptation to cut the price just to win the job.
- [10:48]
Randall
Yeah. And something like looking back now, like when we did estimating the hard way, like over paper, like you, you. I mean, I had like a percentage or a number I used to add to projects for, like, equipment or. But like, what about your trailers? Or what about your office admin? Yeah, things like that.
- [11:09]
Weston Zimmerman
Like, what about your QuickBooks subscription?
- [11:10]
Randall
Exactly.
- [11:11]
Weston Zimmerman
What about your salaries for your.
- [11:13]
Clayton Canby
Or your.
- [11:13]
Weston Zimmerman
Whatever you're gonna pay your people over the winter?
- [11:15]
Randall
And something else that it helped with was. So I was. I mean, was always out on the job working. Like, that's how this all started. Like, I was out there. And it also gives you the free. Gives me the freedom that when I'm in the office for a day or a couple days this week, that I'm budgeted to be in here.
- [11:35]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah, exactly.
- [11:36]
Randall
Out there making money. I'm doing what I actually need to
- [11:38]
Weston Zimmerman
do to keep things going. Yeah, you planned for it, you created the margin for it, you accounted for the cost for it, and you charge that rate through all the summer months. And that's like, I am doing exactly what I need to do. Which gives you the margin to work on your business. Yeah, exactly.
- [11:53]
Randall
That's been very helpful, too.
- [11:54]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. This time we are in Indiana at Mr. Elliot's beautiful estate here. The farm out in the farmland out amongst, just off the edge of all the developments and the hustle and bustle. So we talked to quite a few people that are at 100 grand. I would say probably 80% of people at that size fail to see the value in buying a platform to price their work and track their work. How would you advise that they think through the cost benefit analysis of getting a system like, synced up versus just doing it manually on pen and paper or spreadsheets or whatever?
- [12:35]
Unidentified Small Business Owner
Well, I mean, you know, if you're a finance major and you know exactly how to do that, then cool. Go ahead. But I don't think very many of us are finance majors that are out, you know, landscaping right now. So what really attracted me to Synced up was a. The support that I saw you guys constantly reaching out to people, constantly trying to innovate and stuff like that. And just knowing that especially, you know, in the early days being a small company, I knew you guys were going to be there for me and to really help along. And what I didn't realize getting into it was the support was even more than I expected. Pick what you want.
- [13:17]
Sean
Are.
- [13:17]
Unidentified Small Business Owner
Are you wanting to build a business? Because if you want to build a business, then you have to charge what you're. What you need to actually grow, not just make what, you know, break even. You need to actually make enough to grow and to continue to grow. And that's, you know, again with the support being able to put in my numbers the way that, you know, the way that they're supposed to be and the way that they need to actually grow, then, I mean, I think that's really the only. The only way.
- [13:48]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
If you.
- [13:48]
Unidentified Small Business Owner
If like I said, if you're not a finance major, then having this program is. Is really the only other way. And especially where it got to the point of like being able to do quotes quickly.
- [13:59]
Weston Zimmerman
Yes.
- [13:59]
Unidentified Small Business Owner
And not have to kind of run my numbers again every time to make sure that this is actually going to work and stuff.
- [14:07]
Weston Zimmerman
Welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. We are actually out here in Utah today and I have some of us, the synced up team with me today here behind the cameras. Alan and Eric and Etienne's also here with us on this little bit of a road trip. But thanks for making time out of your day, Nate. Appreciate it.
- [14:25]
Sean
You bet.
- [14:25]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
Yeah. I'm glad that we were able to hook up and have a conversation.
- [14:28]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah, definitely. Five years in, what is one thing you would do differently if you go
- [14:33]
Matt
back to that first year?
- [14:35]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
I think going back to the first year, probably the first thing I would do is realistically set up or utilize a system from day one, synced up that style of system. So then I could time track. So then I could start understanding how much things really cost. Instead of, oh, a sprinkler valve is X amount of dollars. Because that's what people tell you it is, you know, not really understanding what it is they just say is, you know, you should charge X for sprinkler valve or sod should be this year. And never in my wildest dreams back then I would have thought of Thinking of any type of overhead, you know how like I just go buy a trailer. Why would I think to put that anywhere in a budget or anything, you know, like it just never crossed my mind. I feel like if I would have started with a system, I feel like I eliminate a lot of the roller coaster of your bank account looks really good today and then Friday it's really bad. And then you're trying to figure out, okay, I've got to get money from here because I got to buy these supplies, I've got to do payroll, I've got to do these different things versus, okay, if I put it all in when I give a bid now I know what, what I need to charge one, which is important to cover the overhead, to cover the little things that I never like, say never would have thought of. And so I can feel like I'm getting started on the right foot. Yeah, any service based business needs to have something to help with that with pricing because otherwise you're like, I've heard in so many of your podcasts talking to other contractors like you just don't know what things really cost.
- [16:39]
Weston Zimmerman
Welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. I am again in eastern Pennsylvania here with Kevin Robinson. A lot of one man, even two, three, four, five man companies that I talk to tell me like, oh yeah, well I'm not big enough yet for a product, for a software product. Like that's for companies with multiple crews, blah, blah, blah. What would you say to those people? Like, why is it worth it to pay 400 bucks a month for software?
- [17:06]
Kevin Robinson
I think it makes life easier, it makes life quicker. You don't have to worry about as many things, things. I think the job costing is great on it for understanding how you did so that you can put that next bid out more efficiently so that you know where you went wrong. And then that's a lot of what things I do. Like, this was the first kitchen I built. I didn't know how long this kitchen
- [17:29]
Matt
was going to take.
- [17:30]
Kevin Robinson
I kind of nailed it right on. But you know, next one may not be that way, but at least I have a frame of reference of how much it cost. And, and I think that's helpful in understanding the next project.
- [17:44]
Weston Zimmerman
It is. And I think you're hitting the nail
- [17:45]
Kevin Robinson
on the head and you know, that's, you know, can I tell you a specific dollar amount of how it saved me? I don't know. But I can tell you that I know for the next kitchen what to do next and that cost. I know for the next patio. Flagstone patio. How long that took me to lay. You know, I know for the next time.
- [18:04]
Weston Zimmerman
And building that data of history is huge because. And that's where, like, to your point, that's where it's worth the money. Because let's say that you didn't get that kitchen right on. Let's say you were off by 30% on the man hours, which totally can happen. But let's say you're like, yeah, you kind. Let's say you don't have the data, like, you didn't track in, synced up or anything.
- [18:28]
Christopher Hoosier
Like.
- [18:28]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah, it took a little longer than I thought. But you don't really ever look at the numbers or anything or don't have the data and you move on and get the next job done. And get the next job done. And what's happening is you're. You're never learning.
- [18:39]
Kalei
Yeah.
- [18:39]
Kevin Robinson
And you're compounding.
- [18:40]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah. It just keeps compounding. And that's where it turns into thousands and tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost opportunity for even a small company.
- [18:51]
Kevin Robinson
Yeah. It doesn't take much.
- [18:52]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
No.
- [18:52]
Kevin Robinson
And that compounding, that definitely affects that.
- [18:56]
Clayton Canby
Yeah.
- [18:57]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
Well, Sean and Wes, how are you?
- [19:00]
Weston Zimmerman
Welcome to the Cost of doing Business podcast.
- [19:02]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
Glad to be here.
- [19:03]
Weston Zimmerman
Absolutely. Sean was one of the very first synced up users. It was in the first 10ish, right, Fred? Yeah. When I look back over the last five years, man, like, you can attest
- [19:13]
Sean
to this, like, oh, yeah, it's night and day, night and day.
- [19:17]
Weston Zimmerman
How long we like the kind of thing, like when you guys signed up, I don't think we were even integrating with QuickBooks invoicing yet. that time, you know, it was, it was very much bubblegum duct tape. What was it that attracted you to sync up there in those very early days that made you give a shot?
- [19:32]
Sean
I think a lot of it was that where I was, I was starting to realize, you know, the more important aspects of managing and running and growing a business was the numbers. And where I was was great. Absolutely loved it. And there was no job costing every estimate that came in. I had to write all the numbers down. I had to figure out the math and, you know, how much am I making off of the material and the labor and how long is it going to take? Every single estimate that came in and then I had to go and create a materials list and this the time I was the one getting all the material, everything. So I knew what I had to get. But then that was a bottleneck when the guys are going out to do the job because everything's here. Because everything's in my head. Yeah. So how can I get what's here down on the paper? Wes would do an estimate. He would come to me, hey, does this estimate look good? And I know we got to mark this up a little bit that now everything's. Everything's in there. He doesn't have to ask me. He knows as long as he's getting the job time correctly.
- [20:31]
Matt
Yeah.
- [20:31]
Sean
Yeah. Everything else is just, boom, done.
- [20:34]
Randall
I agree, dude.
- [20:35]
Weston Zimmerman
Getting the Label right is. Is 80 of making it profitable.
- [20:37]
Sean
Yep.
- [20:38]
Ben Zimmerman
Like, I just did a couple water
- [20:39]
Sean
feature quotes a couple weeks ago, and
- [20:41]
Ben Zimmerman
I cranked the thing out in two hours now.
- [20:43]
Christopher Hoosier
Yeah.
- [20:43]
Ben Zimmerman
Simple.
- [20:44]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
And.
- [20:44]
Ben Zimmerman
And you're not.
- [20:45]
Weston Zimmerman
You're not second guessing yourself.
- [20:46]
Logan Conklin
Exactly.
- [20:47]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah, I look at the numbers.
- [20:48]
Ben Zimmerman
That's the numbers.
- [20:48]
Sean
Yeah. Literally the only thing that you second guess is just you make sure that your time's on. Yeah. So that's like the only thing that you're. You're, you know, oh, can I do it and in two days or can I do it in a day? So that's what you really like. It's a good day if that's all you're worried about when you're doing an estimate.
- [21:04]
Weston Zimmerman
Yep. Welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. We're out here in beautiful western Ohio.
- [21:10]
Clayton Canby
Yes.
- [21:11]
Sean
Brookville.
- [21:11]
Weston Zimmerman
And it's a beautiful July morning, and I'm here with Jesse Widener. So thanks for having me, man. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for coming out. Thanks for having me. What would you say has been the biggest challenge that you've overcome?
- [21:23]
Jesse Widener
Trying to figure out how to price work was tough. We were always profitable at the end of the year, but job to job, you'd never know. So that was a challenge as well. Just because we. I know we were getting killed on some projects and, like, other ones, we were knocking it out of the park. I mean, we might have been doing 15 net profit. Now we're closer to 30.
- [21:41]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
Wow.
- [21:42]
Jesse Widener
So, I mean, that's all you need to say about.
- [21:45]
Clayton Canby
Yeah.
- [21:45]
Weston Zimmerman
To be honest, it was your ROI.
- [21:47]
Jesse Widener
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, beyond ROI. So, like, we're. We're in between 25 and 30 is where I like to be at right now. We're sitting at, like, 26 for the
- [21:58]
Sean
year, which is good.
- [21:58]
Jesse Widener
When I signed up for synced up a couple years ago, I think we had done 400,000 that year. And then the first year of synced up, we went to 625. So it was a two you know, 200k jump. And then last year we were at like 7:75. And this year, hopefully we'll be at 1.1 million.
- [22:17]
Weston Zimmerman
Wow.
- [22:17]
Jesse Widener
So, like, it's just been a jump, jump, jump.
- [22:20]
Weston Zimmerman
It's amazing.
- [22:20]
Jesse Widener
And we've hired, like, you know, a guy along the way. A guy. We're not growing by, like, multiple crews or anything like that.
- [22:28]
Weston Zimmerman
So it's been more of an efficiency and pricing play than it has been a production.
- [22:31]
Jesse Widener
Yeah, it's growing within the margins. What I always say that's how we're growing. Because I don't. I don't know if I have the aspects of. Or like, the ambitions to grow, like a huge company.
- [22:40]
Weston Zimmerman
Sure.
- [22:41]
Jesse Widener
I like the size we're at and just being, like, really niche. I mean, do 1.1 million and do 20, even 20% net profit, like, you're going to be just fine. Just fine.
- [22:51]
Matt
Yeah.
- [22:51]
Weston Zimmerman
Welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. We are in Ohio around the Dayton area. I'm here with Logan Conklin. Sir. And we just enjoyed a great lunch together and some good conversation. So thanks for giving me time out of your day, man.
- [23:04]
Unidentified Service Business Owner
Thanks for coming.
- [23:05]
Weston Zimmerman
Absolutely. What made you sign up for Syncdot and spend, you know, 1500 bucks or whatever to get started?
- [23:09]
Logan Conklin
I knew we needed it. Yeah, I knew we needed. I needed. It was like I said it was in my head. I was like, am I just, like terrible at bidding now? You know, like, it. It generally felt that bad. I wasn't winning any jobs. I wasn't. And it was like a flip of a switch. Like, I used to be 95% on jobs, quoted. Like, I'd bid a job and I'd get it. Like, I'm closing at night, you know, a crazy high number. And I'd bumped my number and they just kept closing. Well, that was my first couple years. And then it just seemed like it switched and I was like, man, I'm really not doing good. I started watching a lot of your guys stuff that you had available at the time, and I really felt synced up was the way, like, knowing my number, not knowing any concept of what synced up was about previous to it. I think I did a demo and then I didn't sign up with it. And then I did a demo again with Gene, and I had saved the money and just did what I could and I ended up selling, like a piece of equipment to help pay for it and just went for it. I think I took a week at one point and just sat down with Kyle, I had a meeting like every. Okay, every day and then had, you know, was trying to go about it that way and just learn what I could. You guys do a great job of explaining. I love the videos. I'm very kinesthetic. So it's like when I do it like, Kyle, sit there, walk you right through it and show me. I'm like, oh, hey, I get this now.
- [24:39]
Weston Zimmerman
Well, welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. We are literally sitting in a milk parlor on an old dairy farm. I mean, a living room, correct? Yes. Okay, nevermind. But this is really cool. Like I'm down here in. This is actually still West Virginia. Right? I know. We're right. Yeah.
- [24:57]
Clayton Canby
So I'm Clayton Canby, the owner of Mountain Lake Landscaping llc. We are a full service outdoor service contractor is the best way that we like to say it.
- [25:09]
Weston Zimmerman
If you go back to day one, what is one thing you would do differently?
- [25:12]
Clayton Canby
I would say that if I had to go back to day one, the one thing I would do differently is work as smart as I did.
- [25:19]
Christopher Hoosier
Hard.
- [25:21]
Clayton Canby
Working hard only works for so long and you can only tear yourself down mentally and physically for so long. Charging what you think is somewhat accurate when you're light years away from what you should be charging. You know, whether that's confidence related, undervaluing yourself, whatever that might be, $400 a month or whatever that might be that any one person is going to invest in. Synced up. I hate to tell you this, but I mean, that's just not enough. I mean, it's not really, at the end of the day, the value that's being provided. At the end of the day, you guys are single handedly just in our company, saving us not only from a transition of we were to the point the amount of work we were doing and the revenue that was being generated, you know, the tires that are getting burned off of trucks and trailers. You buy a 6.0, you're going to figure out if you're a rich man or not, because it takes a rich man to fix one and keep it on the road. Just to be able to maintain and do that. It's very scary. A lot can change in a short amount of time. Some people think that it takes longer for things to deteriorate than what it does and that $400 a month is nothing. Instead of looking at it from what it's costing you, you should be looking at it for what that's going to be able to leverage you and catapult you into and just the first year that we got synced up, we grew about $350,000 in revenue, which was well above our growth rate that had been formed over the years we had been in business. And that's totally to do with syncdoc. Absolutely.
- [27:02]
Weston Zimmerman
Welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. We are still in Utah, here in southern south of Salt Lake. I am here with Kalei. Am I saying that correct? Yeah, I was definitely saying it wrong for everyone I was talking to. But anyway, thanks for having me. Thanks for making time.
- [27:21]
Kalei
Thanks for coming out.
- [27:22]
Weston Zimmerman
Absolutely.
- [27:23]
Kalei
It's cool to see you. It's cool to meet you.
- [27:26]
Weston Zimmerman
Looking backwards, what would you say has been the biggest challenge you've ever come in your journey thus far?
- [27:31]
Kalei
Honestly, I would say finding the work, because when you. Because you know how to do it, you can get it done. You can order from everywhere, and, you know, we're able to get enough of the equipment needed to kind of get stuff done and then save a little bit of money. But. But if you don't have enough work to kind of make that money from it, then you're always spending it just trying to look for more work or just trying to catch a job, so you're cutting it down or doing whatever you can. And so when you're trying to. And it's that, you know, it's that beginning that's the hardest is just trying to kind of get up off your feet where, you know everything's against you and it's just totally uphill. But if you had. If you had the work, then you can kind of make everything else happen. So, yeah, I kind of think that in general is. Is, you know, if everyone had all the leads they could ever want, then everybody can kind of eventually put together a good system in business. But everyone's gotta. Every. Every business has got to be, you know, a marketer and. And figure out that. That flow. Once you have that, then you can.
- [28:41]
Weston Zimmerman
Yes. When you have. When you have enough of leads, it. It allows you to be choosy, you know, with what work you take on
- [28:50]
Kalei
and make even more money.
- [28:53]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah, exactly. It gets you, like, sales is the oxygen of a business. Welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. We are here just northeast of Indianapolis Central, eh?
- [29:07]
Christopher Hoosier
Yes. Northeast side of Indianapolis.
- [29:09]
Sean
Yep.
- [29:09]
Weston Zimmerman
Okay. Thanks a lot, Chris, for making the time.
- [29:12]
Clayton Canby
Thank you.
- [29:13]
Weston Zimmerman
You are a busy man right now.
- [29:16]
Christopher Hoosier
Certainly try.
- [29:17]
Weston Zimmerman
Yeah, well, why don't you give everybody kind of a rundown of introduce yourself, your company, that kind of thing.
- [29:24]
Christopher Hoosier
My name is Christopher hoosier. I've. For 30 years, I've had some iteration of the current name, which is Hoosier's Outdoor Design and Build. We primarily in the old days focused on mowing, maintenance and mulch. Sort of, as I used to joke and say, the three M's because that was something that I could easily hire for and something that everybody had an immediate need for. It didn't require a salesman, didn't require much in the way of software. It didn't require much in the way of tools. Even when things were small, it was easy to track. It was easy to say, okay, this is our expenses and this is our income and this is how we made money on this job. And da, da, da, da. As time marches on to where we're 10 employees now, a software system such as Synced up was really sort of a foregone conclusion. So that's how we came to where we're at right now and how we came to where we are with you guys. Oftentimes you don't have to be the smartest guy in the room so much as you have to be smart enough to understand that you have to surround yourself with smart, capable people and good tools.
- [30:44]
Weston Zimmerman
Welcome back to another episode of the Cost of Doing Business podcast. This is a new one. We are sitting in my living room on a cold winter evening drinking coffee and hot cider with the wood stove going on behind us. And I'm here with none other than my cousin Ben Zimmerman, who's been working for Tussy for.
- [31:03]
Ben Zimmerman
It's coming up on 10 years.
- [31:05]
Weston Zimmerman
I was gonna say it's getting close to 10.
- [31:06]
Ben Zimmerman
I don't think it's 10 yet, but
- [31:09]
Weston Zimmerman
yeah, it's getting right around the corner. Ben came in, worked with me for three or four years, and then ultimately took over my crew and the social media, text and landscaping while I went off and started synced up. So anyway, thanks for coming, Ben.
- [31:25]
Ben Zimmerman
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [31:26]
Weston Zimmerman
So you've had I don't know how many thousand conversations with owners that are doing basically at a synced up booth. What is the difference between the company that's just never going to be more than what they are right now versus the ones that are really gonna do well.
- [31:38]
Ben Zimmerman
One of the things that I saw over and over again was you can't fix mindset. If the mindset's broken, the company's doomed. It's never gonna grow. I'm sorry. People that don't grow, you hear things like, they tried software, but, oh, that's. That's Too much money. I mean, that's not for us. I mean, we don't even have an excavator. We'll just use a wheelbarrow. We've got two guys, and we could never charge that for a project. They're not buying the new equipment. They're not investing in software. And you know what else? They attract people like themselves to themselves. And that's another thing that's a huge problem because then they're always whining it up about their people. You can't find any good help. And I had one guy, and he stole from me and he left for another company. I would have left to another company as well.
- [32:23]
Weston Zimmerman
Exactly.
- [32:24]
Ben Zimmerman
And so the people that are either rapidly growing or have grown into large companies, they're all the exact opposite of that. We can implement this. We can use this new piece of equipment. This would be potential to help us grow. There's a whole untapped market there. We can do water features. We're gonna get into swimming pools. And they attract people like themselves to themselves, and it snowballs.
- [32:50]
Weston Zimmerman
It comes down to a mindset, and
- [32:52]
Ben Zimmerman
it does come down to mindset.
- [32:54]
Weston Zimmerman
The thing that you said is, like, the people that have every excuse in the book, why this won't work for them or it won't work in their area. And you said, well, you just want to be broke. And what's so tricky about that is, yeah, you and I can look at it and be like, yeah, that's. Obviously they just want to be broke, but they would never say that to themselves in their own heads. Nobody wants to be broke. You know what I'm saying? They would never use those words and say, I want to be broke. But the thing that they're blind to is they're showing up that way in every area of their life. Hey, thanks for listening to the Cost of doing business show. If you need help with knowing your numbers or you're looking for a better automated system to run estimating and scheduling and job costing or more in your business, just hit me up. You can book a demo@syncedup.com or DM me on Instagram ynkdup, which is spelled S Y N K E D U P. See you on the next one, Sam.