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The Mulder Life Podcast
Ep 163. Someone Else is Cheaper": How to Respond Without Losing Your Mind
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Welcome to a special Best of the Molder Life podcast. Andy is enjoying time vacationing with his family and returns next week. This episode focuses on Andy's hunt for the perfect pneumatic forklift and why he is finally moving away from concrete to try a new hybrid edging. Plus he has some professional advice on how to respond when a potential client tells you we found somebody cheaper. Lets go.
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Welcome to this week's episode of the Motorlife podcast. A live show featuring your questions about all things landscaping, equipment, business and life. Join our live show weekly on Instagramlderoutdoors Monday nights 8:30pm Central Standard Time to ask your questions or tune in here for the replay.
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And now from the Incon Studios Incon, a world leading manufacturer of tilt rotators and attachments enhancing your business. Here's your host, Andy Mulder.
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What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another another episode of the Motor Life podcast. We are live here Tuesday night in the NCON Studios and I am excited to be with you guys tonight and it is rare that I am at a doing this on a Tuesday night but here we are and I can explain that if I need to later. But big shout out to our sponsors this week. CMP attachments. CMP attachments.com go check them out. Let them know we sent you. If you need grapples or hydro buckets or buckets or side dumping buckets or any kind of anything for an attachment, reach out to CMP Attachments and talk to Olaf over there or anybody there is going to be super helpful. So thanks to them for being a sponsor of the Motorlife podcast and Pave Tool Innovators. Pave Tool.com Go check them out. Use that code mulder outdoors and save 10 off your entire order of anything you can order off their website. So I would be I would highly recommend you go check out pave tool.com and I can't say enough good things about them. So thank you to them for being a sponsor of the molife podcast. And this week we have a bag of Albany's Candy. Albany's candy. They're berry flavored gummies and this is it says on the package new. It's a new product and they were kind enough to give us some of these. We'll give these a go. I don't know if I've had these on the podcast before and I know you guys love listening to listening to me. Eat my gummy bears. But eat a bunch of them all at once. They're good. So big shout out to Alban's Candy Factory. We are live on Instagram and YouTube. If there's anybody watching on YouTube, looks like there's a few people watching. Thank you for tuning in. Let me know if the audio sounds okay. I was having issues with my little DJI microphone and I hope it's working now. So it should have good audio. It shouldn't sound like it's just coming from a phone. So if anybody's those seven of you that are watching on YouTube, which is a big improvement now there's 14, which is really cool because when we first started doing this, I had two people that watched on YouTube and now there's 14 right now. So that's very cool and I really appreciate that. So that's, that's really cool. Thanks for being here tonight. Innovative. So anyways, if you haven't been tuned into the Mobile Life podcast before, typically we do this on Monday nights. It used to be Sunday nights now, now it's Monday nights. But tonight we're doing it because we had, my son's school had a program, he had a band concert on Friday night and they ended up having a whole kind of issue with their fire alarm system on Friday and had to close the school. And then in turn, in turn we did not have the band concert and then it's got rescheduled for last night and we didn't get home till 8:30 at night. Eight, 8:30. We walked in the door maybe at 8:30 and I just didn't have enough time to get over here and get on the podcast. And so we pushed it to a Tuesday night, which is very new. That's cool. So, so anyways, anybody that's watching, I really appreciate you guys tuning in on this Tuesday night and we'll talk about anything you guys want to talk about in New York. If you've watched before, we talk about landscaping, equipment, business, life and anything and everything in between. So Innovative landscape company on Instagram says any more large format stone coming up. Do you mean like pavers or do you mean like natural stone? I don't have big paver jobs coming up really at all. Right now we're bidding on some stuff. I'm bidding on a really cool one for the fall that I think is going to be super sweet. And I actually am kind of behind on the design. I have a design that I need to put into 3D and I'm been kind of. I've just been so busy. We are just. It's just spring. Everybody knows, right? It's spring. So anyways, no, I don't have other than that one in the fall. I don't have anything coming up right now. Travis H10 says bro should have hundreds of viewers. Definitely one of the best. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that and I appreciate you tuning in tonight. Gene Martin or Martin Gene3 on Instagram says audio is fantastic. So that's good to hear on YouTube. Alyssa, thank you for tuning in. Says I'm near, I'm new here, I'm doing well. Thank you for tuning in on the podcast here. So I there were some questions that came in earlier today and on Instagram and we'll, we'll take those. If there's anybody that's watching live that would like to ask a question or talk about anything, let me know. And I didn't write down who asked these, but one of them was favorite non concrete edge. So he's talking about edge restraint for pavers and I the next edging that I'm about to try, I'm not about I don't know exactly when, but I'm going to try is pave tools. They have it on here, this hybrid edging right here. I'm going to give that a try. I have some in my possession and I am planning to try that on our next patio job that we do. I actually might take out some concrete edging on on my house in a section actually and put some of this in and see how it performs just to kind of, just to see and pave tools kind enough to send me some edging to try out and I'd like to try that. So I want to give it a try. So I've heard good things about it. I've, I, I different people have used it for different things. I've used concrete edging for a long time and anyways, I'm all about trying different things. So we're gonna give it a try. So Clipford says got you on Instagram and YouTube, volume up for stereo effects. That's awesome. Well, thank you for tuning in on both. I appreciate the the viewership on both. That helps any any little bit like that helps on any platform and everybody knows that. So I appreciate you T tuning in on both. That's great. Andy Sullivan says thoughts on edge right. I don't know what that is. Are you talking about edge lock? I'm not sure what edge right is dude. T. Kaufman says I was recommended edge lock and it seems to have a good concept. Again, not sure what edge lock is. Is that another type of concrete edge restraint? I don't know. The Core 10 edging. I don't know what that is. Dude, send me a link of what you're talking about. Interesting. I'm not sure what that is. Core 10 edging. I don't know what that is, but yeah. Guys, I have used concrete edging for a long time, and I can't say that I've had failures. Just something that I've noticed in the last year on my house, specifically, because I see my house every day, is I have noticed on one of the edges, specifically, the concrete edging has pulled away from the pavers. I want to say a half inch now. I don't know what it looks like. I haven't dug it up to see, but I had noticed it last year and I noticed it when it was really, really dry out, like the heat of the summer. We were in a drought for a long time, and it was almost like the ground was the ground, literally. We had cracks in the ground. Like it was very dry here and it had sucked. It almost looked like it had sucked the concrete away from the paper. I have never seen that on, like a nut on a job that we've done. I never have ever. I just thought it was interesting. I haven't noticed any kind of failure to the pavers yet, but it's just something that I noticed. Now, would that happen with any. With another type of edging, like the hybrid edging? I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know what caused that to happen, but it's just something I've. I noticed. I don't know. I mean, we've. We've. We've used Permadge for a long time, but I want to. I'm going to try this hybrid edging and give it a try. And they have different kinds of stakes for different kinds of stone bases. And I don't know. So they have a lot of good things to say about it, and I'm going to give it a try. So. And I want to show everybody the difference and see and let. And just show everybody. I'm not going to, you know, get paid to tell you it's the best thing you've ever seen in your life. That's not how it works here at Molder Outdoors, so we'll see. Cole Pasquale. Sorry, I'm going to mess up. That doesn't matter. Cole says. What's the next piece of equipment you will buy? That's a good question. I don't really know. I recently bought a ride on Floor Scrubber. Refurbished. It's Sitting right over here in my building that I'm sitting in right now doing this podcast and I don't think I've shown that on social media at all. But I bought a refurbished floor scrubber. It's a tenant T7 floor scrubber that is a unit for my new shop when we ever we can start building it. So I have that now. The last thing, honestly, most likely the next piece of equipment I'm going to buy is a forklift. I really, really am in the market for a forklift and here's what I want in a forklift and I would love to, if there's anybody out there has a forklift for their shop or their yard, I'd love to hear your opinions on that. I think we have talked about this a little bit in the past. I don't know for sure, but I don't really remember. So forgive me if you're like, oh, Andy, you already talked about that. Whatever, we're gonna talk about it again. So I think I want, I don't think I know. I want a pneumatic forklift so I can drive off of concrete into like the parking lot. I want it to be a five or six thousand pound capacity. I want side shift and I need like a triple, a three stage mast. So it's. I think it's like 189 inch lift or something like that. That's kind of what I want. And I would mo I the most of the ones that I'm looking at are either Toyotas or Heisters. There's a heister that I have been eyeing for like months. It's been on Marketplace for three months. I've been looking at it. I've messaged the guy, I gave him kind of a. I guess you'd argue a stupid offer, but in the time that it's been on Marketplace he's come down five grand. So he's working its way down to the price that I'm going to pay or would like to pay for it. It's. It's a very nice forklift and it doesn't need to be as nice as the one that I'm looking at as this one. I don't need to have one as nice, but it is really nice and I'm trying to get it for a really good deal because it looks like it's not selling in my opinion. So anyways, it would be a super nice forklift and it's a Heister 50T or something like that. I don't know, whatever. I like it I just, I don't know what it is. I just like it. But like I said, it's really too expensive. I don't want to pay what he's. I don't want to spend as much money as what he's asking for. So it is what it is. And I understand, you know, if he doesn't want to come down in price, that's fine, but if it doesn't sell, I'm over here saying I will buy it for this amount of money.
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The Molder Life podcast continues. In just a moment, Andy asked me to highlight a company that enables you to truly work smarter with their hydraulics over hands philosophy, enabling you to operate at a high level of efficiency. Obviously, I'm talking about CMP attachments. They make all kinds of attachments and buckets. Andy loves and uses their Hydra grapples and Hydra buckets. Cmp attachments is 100% made in America and has some of the industry's highest quality attachments for excavators, skid loaders, mini skid loaders, tractors and more. CMP can take on any custom project to help make your business more efficient and profitable. Visit them at cmpattachments.com or click the link that we've provided in the podcast description.
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These products are amazing. They're built to last and they'll help you make more Money. Again, that CMP attachments.com that's probably most likely the thing that I will buy next. Because what I'm trying to do, here's what I'm trying to do and I don't know if I've really talked about my thought process behind this with some of the things that I've been purchasing from our new building, I'm trying to spend money. So, so there's, there's a time, there's going to be a at least six months before my building's done. Now we haven't even started the building and I got an email today about that and I'm very frustrated about that. So we can talk about that. But anyways, there's going to be a time when the building starts and I have to start paying for things for the building. Of course, right? There's going to be a draw schedule, right? But up until that point, what I'm trying to do is buy the things that when I get to the end of the build, I most likely won't have the money for because I know the building is going to cost money and it's probably going to cost more than I think. And, and so I will not be motivated to buy, be able to or have motivation to buy some of these things that I want to get now that I know are really essential for the building and what I'd like to have for the building. So I have my air compressor, I have a man, a small man lift here, and I have my floor scrubber now and if I can get a fork, I also have my hot seat pressure washer and I really want to get a forklift. And then after that, I also have all my pallet racking for the barn, which I forgot. I kind of forgot that I bought that this winter. I bought it used from another landscaping company that was going out of business and got a great deal on that. And so I've been trying to, like, just look around for good deals. Things that I have a whole list of things that I need for the shop. And I'm just trying to. As money allows and as. As the right thing comes along, I'm trying to add that. And I'm storing it until when the building gets done. So that's just kind of my thought process because I know when I build the building, there's going to be extras and there's going to be things. And then at the end of the building, I'm going to be like, I am not going to be able to buy that floor scrubber. But right now I. I bought the floor scrubber and it's here and it's done. And I don't have to worry about looking for it after we're done building, if that makes sense. I don't know. I just feel like it might be. It's easier for me to mentally handle it right now, so whatever. And frankly, I'm so frustrated about the fact that we haven't been able to start building because of the county that I'm in, that I'm just getting whatever. I'm just trying to any way that I can to move the needle forward. I feel like this helps me. It doesn't. But there's so many things that we're. There's. There's one thing that we're waiting on, and because of that, they won't let me do anything. And the thing that I'm. We're waiting on has no bearing on the building or the excavation or anything. It. It has nothing to do with it. And we are waiting the longest on this ridiculous approval. And I am just literally up to here on it. Anyways, get back to some of the questions here. Pavs Construction LLC says, do you get more materials delivered or do you guys and pick them up? We have as many things delivered as we possibly can. And I really have. I have always preached that getting things delivered as much as possible is better for your company. We are not a delivery service. Literally, as often as I can, I have things delivered to our job or to our shop. Two weeks ago, I had our supplier. This is kind of a. I. I have a yard now with space. So I'm trying to figure out, like, some of the best ways to be efficient in that. And so, like, what I did yesterday. Not yesterday, last week. Was it last week? Yeah. I had my supplier deliver me the pavers that we needed for the job to our shop when we were at another job. So I paid them to deliver them to our shop so we could load them on their trucks either that night or the next morning and get to the job site. Because, like, logistically, our suppliers here, our yard is here, and our job site is over here. And so I don't want to have to go to here into here in the morning. They bring them to me. I paid them for that delivery, of course, whatever. We can quickly get it loaded in the morning, and we're off to the job site right away. And so there are times where if we're driving past the supplier, it may make sense to stop and grab something. But more often than not, I am always, always paying for the delivery fee. It is way better, especially, especially on plants. It's very important if you can find a supplier that can do plant deliveries, you do not want to be transforming plant material. You do not want to be tarping plant material. I am thrilled to pay the 150 or $200 delivery fee for a truckload plant, a load of trees that's already tarped, and they spend all this time loading it and strapping it, and then they come there and they untarp it and all this stuff, and then we come and load it and we like I just as much as possible, I get things delivered. And I. I really cannot stress the importance of that. And I'm sure there's somebody out there that it mean that system may not work for you. And you may think that that's not the best thing, but for us, our company size, I have found as many ways possible to do more work with less people faster. And I think some of those things are things like utilizing suppliers to bring you materials, stay on the job site, you make money on the job site. You don't make money going to pick up materials. You don't. The delivery fee should all those delivery fees should be built into the price of the job because if that customer ever needed to do the job themselves, they would be paying for the material delivery. It's part of doing a job is getting the materials to the job. So it's just you got to be on the job working. You don't want to be running around a Home Depot. Every day we have a shipping container full of supplies. It is literally like our own Home Depot. So the whole shipping container is 45 foot shipping containers full of all of our commonly used things that you would typically go to a big box store to get. Very important. Now we are a small company so I manage that. I monitor that. Once we get into the shop, I would love to see some kind of QR code system where it's easy for reordering. And that is totally something that we're going to do and I'd like to do. I just haven't taken the time to do it. But it's. We're small enough to where I. Some of those things are very easy for me to keep track of. And somebody says, hey man, we're out of this. And I place the order real quick. But ultimately what I would like to do is have the QR code or something on the item. They can text my office manager and she can order it and get it coming and I don't. And it removes. I can easily remove myself from that if I want to. So Legacy Hardscapes says, how many years of warranty would you be appropriate to offer a client? I offer five years for on base failure. We also have a five year warranty. It is on craftsmanship and there is a lot of fine print on our warranty and things that we do cover, things that we don't cover. And if you want to know everything about what's on our warranty and what it says, you're welcome to purchase our hardscape warranty, Hardscape and landscape warranty on our website molderoutdoors.com and go to the resources tab and we can download, purchase and download our Hardscape and landscape contract which very clearly defines our warranty terms. But it is a five year term. There was a time when I was offering a 10 year term. I. I think there was a year where I was doing that. I got real excited and thought that's how I was going to sell jobs. And I definitely did a lot of work. And it's unfortunate because I have. It's not unfortunate. Please don't take that the wrong way. It's that probably wasn't the best move I had since got a lot of good counsel on that and reasons why you shouldn't do that. And so I changed it to a five year warranty. But there is a time period in my business where there are some customers that have a 10 year warranty on their patio. So it's not that I'm worried about it because I'm not. Obviously I'm not because I put a 10 year warranty on it. I have very. I have no worries about our install our hardscape installs or anything lasting less than. I'm sorry less than 10 years. So that's. That's a very long topic. But anyways, yeah, there's something like even in our warranty I. In our warranty on our contract I talk about subterranean conditions and settlement due to previous construction. So I E Like a new construction build we do not cover if they're settling within the overdig of the of the house. So I'm very clear when I do a new construction home with the client that it's the only way to fix like there's two options to fix that issue. So by us. And this does not happen around the country. And I didn't know that until I followed some different excavators from all over the country on Instagram and by us. When they dig a foundation of course they over dig right the two or three foot over dig. And then when they backfill it, they just push the clay back in. That's it. And whoever walks around the job site to do the siding or to do windows or whatever they're doing, that's the only type of compaction that's happening. There is nobody in our area that I have seen that backs fills a foundation in lifts and compacts it as it goes up. That seems to be more of a standard practition. I've seen this rock structures does it. He's in Utah. I've seen the dirt ninja do that on in Massachusetts area where they're backfilling, they're compact and they're backfilling, they're compacting. And this all prevents future settlement of the overdig by the foundation. It's just I don't understand why in our area this is the common practice. Because it is crazy. The settling you will see on some of these new construction builds, four or five years even that even one year after you build you'll see this settling by the foundation. It is wild or they'll come, you know, it'll settle and Then they'll come back and throw some black dirt in there and then just call it fix or fill it up with mulch or whatever they do. Like it's pretty wild what happens. It's, it's. Honestly, it should be criminal because the customer is left to fix it and deal with the issues. Like I've seen people where. And this is, this is what they do, right? So, so they'll have a new construction home, they'll backfill and then they'll, they'll put like a concrete pad out the back door or they'll put like a concrete stoop with then a little patio across off of that. And what they'll do is they'll pin that all to the foundation of the house because they know that it's going to settle. And I've literally seen pictures, I've seen it with my own eyes in real jobs where you will excavate next to these foot, these, these stoops or these concrete pads. And you can literally look like the house is here, the pads here, and you can see the dirt go from here and then just like this and a literal huge gap underneath this, like a triangle gap underneath this concrete pad. And it's ridiculous, but, but the concrete's pinned to the foundation and so nobody sees it and nobody has to be accountable for it. So anyways, that's in our contract because the only way to fix that is to dig all the way down to the footer and compact your way all the way up. And you can do structure, you can use clay. If it's usable, you could compact it up. Jumping jack or a sheep's foot or some kind of compaction wheel, you can do that. But the only way, of course that comes at a cost. Right? And so I communicate that with the customer on a new construction build, I tell them, what are your options? The other option is to push the patio out from the house X amount of feet so that you know you're outside of the overdig of the foundation. But anyways, those are different things that are in our contract. Yes, we do have a five year warranty, but there's things like that that we do not cover. And that's just one example of many that are in our contract. And our contract has gotten longer and longer year over year because of different situations that I've got, I've encountered and got into. And I wish the contract was, you know, a half a page long, but it's not, it's not the world we live in, unfortunately.
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Lil Boy Bristow says All this talk about buying stuff, it makes it seem like you have a Facebook Marketplace addiction. Haha. I like Marketplace. Okay. I would definitely not call it an addiction. I am always looking on Marketplace though, I really am. I don't always buy something. I really don't. And here's the problem with Marketplace is like I am very busy, right? Especially right now. I don't have time to just like run around and go look at stuff and like jump on this deal. Like if it works out, cool. This floor scrubber that I bought, I found this company in Tennessee I think and they had a listing on Marketplace. I ended up messaging them and the lady was ultra helpful. This is the only thing they do, they refurbish and sell floor scrubbers and they were so helpful and they have a full business and they ship all over the country and I had it within two days of paying for it and it is exactly what they said it was going to be. Now I didn't have to go get it. If I would have had to go get it, I would have never bought it because I don't have time. That's kind of the deal with this forklift. The problem with the forklift is I know I need to go look at it, especially if it's really used. I definitely need to go see it, but I just don't have time to go see it. And so a lot of these companies offer delivery and all this stuff, but I'm like, dude, can I buy a forklift and never go see it? I just. I don't know if I can do that. Of course, if it's brand new I can do that. But I am a little. There is so many people on Marketplace that refurbish forklifts. It's absolutely wild. And it's very hard to tell like who is just. They slap a good paint job on it and say that it runs good or like who actually is doing a good job of these units. I don't know. I've. I don't know. I like this man lift that I bought. I bought from United Rentals locally and I was able to go see that. They obviously have a phenomenal maintenance program. I think a lot of rental yards have good maintenance programs. And so it was in great shape. It worked perfect. They did the thing. They fixed the things that I wanted fixed on it and we repainted it and it looks great. So actually the. My local United Rentals has sent me some different forklifts that they're selling and I just. Nothing has really speak to my interest. But anyways, I don't know. This one heister that I been looking at that's too expensive that I. I shouldn't. I don't think I want to spend that much money. It's. It's almost brand new. But I've bought used equipment and really regretted it. So I don't know. But then I also have other used equipment like my KC 1845 C that was fully refurbished when I bought it. It's still a phenomenal unit. I literally just ran it last Saturday. Started right up. I mean, I have a battery tender on it, but it started right up. What else are we talking about here? Still talking. Brilliant. Garden says buying new equipment is always the fix for any problem or issue you're having. Oh man. Yeah, there. There is something about getting. Buying some equipment. You know, I had a joke for a while that anytime a. I would have an employee that quit or was a no call, no show and. Or ended up getting fired or whatever. I would go out and buy a piece of equipment that same day and just replace them mentally with that. Oh man. M m a good gen. When do you plan on building your new shop? And what size are you building and are you building it yourself? If I could be building my building right now, I would be. So that's All I can say about that, I don't. It's the second that the county gives me my approval. If, if I had the approval right now, we would be going as fast as I could. Basically what size it's going to be a 60 by 150 foot pole barn, 18 foot tall walls, maybe 20 foot. I'm still waiting on the price difference for that. I don't know if it's really worth going 20 foot, but I, you know, if there's anybody out there that would say 20 foot tall walls is worth it. I don't know if it's really necessary. The, the only reason I'm. I've considered it is the mezzanine level would have a foot additional head clearance space. And I don't know if that would be worth it. The mezzanine is about 35 by 60. Offices will be underneath there and then we'll have this mezzanine up there that you know, maybe one day would turn into a classroom or. I don't really have plans like I can't really put anything up there right now. It will be just for storage. There will be a room up there for mechanicals, our furnace will be up there, water heater, those kinds of things. Outside of that I can't. It's just for storage. But I just don't know if it's worth having that extra two feet of head clearance. 18 to 20, of course. So I don't know is it worth the cost? I, I don't know what the cost is and in fact I need to follow up my builder and find out. I, I was told that they were supposed to be working on that and finding out who. How much more that was going to be. And it was two months ago now. But anyways. Am I gonna build it myself? No. Hard. No, no. I'm gonna focus on my landscape company and making money with my landscape company because that is the goose that lays the eggs. And I think that if I take too much time to either project manage my building or build my building, we will not make any money and that would be not a good thing. So JH Landscaping says. What design software do you use? I use Unilock's U Vision software, which is basically Real Time Architect Rebranded or Unilock and Real Time. I did find out recently actually that Real Time Architect files will open up in you vision. And I was really excited about that because I had a client that had paid for a design from a student from of theirs. They were, they had a. It's a long story. It was not a design of another landscape company. So don't, don't come at me like that. Anyways and they paid for it. They, it was their design and anyways they wanted me to make some tweaks to it and they had had this design for a long time and so anyways I, I was able, he was able to reach out to them and got the fought this person that had done it for him and got, got the file and I was able to open it in you vision. I was really, really excited about that. So I had never done that before. Little boy Bristow says bro, you're worried about buying a forklift site unseen but you bought that Kubota 80s on site unseen if I remember correctly. Correct. But the Kubota 80 was brand new. So a lot of these forklifts that I'm looking at are not brand new. So the only one that I'm looking at that I would consider doing that for is this one that is like it has like 50 hours on it. It's like almost brand new Heister. I would buy that one sight unseen but some of these other ones and yes I definitely bought a Kubota 80 brand new. I paid a hundred and eighty thousand dollars for that $180,000 I paid for that excavator with the N con on it and two buckets and I bought that thing sight unseen and it got shipped right to my front door. And I was on vacation when it got delivered. I didn't even get, I didn't see it. And then when I came home from vacation it all the fuel had gelled. And so for the first week of its life it spent out in the free. It was covered in salt. It was out in the freezing cold weather. The fuel was gelled. I couldn't get it started and it ended up being a great buy. And now that machine has 1400 hours on it. I think I have never had a breakdown on it ever. Yeah, I really. It's been literally bulletproof. Same with my KX57 phenomenal excavators. Yeah, I don't know. So mag skates, Mag scapes outdoors says let's go. Thanks for tuning in tonight. That's awesome. Little boy says yeah, I understand marketplace can be a bit sketchy and or rather the people selling can be sketchy. Yeah, you just don't know what you're gonna get into, you know. So question from earlier today. What is the name of the Mulder Swans? The Mulder Swans. Do you guys want to talk about the Mulder Swans. I can't see any of your faces, so I'm gonna just say yes. You want to talk about the Mulder swans. So I bought swans for the pro, for my property, for the pond, at my property. I have been under ownership of these swans since last week, Tuesday. So today is actually seven days since I took ownership of the Mulder swans. Why did I get swans? Well, couple reasons. I knew that swans were good for keeping Canadian geese out of the pond. This spring, I was noticing a fair amount of geese landing on the pond. Now, they weren't so much walking around the pond yet, but they would. And they make a mess. They are horrible birds that go all over the place and they poop all over, and it's. They stink. And then they nest there, and then every year they want to nest there. No. So swans will chase geese, specifically swans that are two years or older. And. And then they also are good. They clean the water, they clean algae, they clean the edges. They. And. And really 50% of this is because they're cool. And I think it's just so cool to have swans. And I got black swans. So I had. Actually, I was going to find white swans, but the guy that I bought them from did not have any white ones until the fall. He. He has them typically in the fall. And they would be bait. They wouldn't be babies, but they would be a year or younger. Year or. Yeah, a year old or younger. He had these two black ones, a male and a female, and they are two years old. And I thought to myself, you know, I think that'd be cool to have black swans. It's pretty rare. How often do you see black swans? And I thought it'd be cool. And they were available, and so I bought them and they. The guy delivered them, and he helped me put together a little pen for them. And so we had to put a pen on the shoreline. And it basically is half in the water, half out of the water. That allows them to get in the water for safety from predators. And then their food is there, and you keep them in this. In this pen for two to three weeks, and then you can open up a side of it and see. Let them come out whenever they want to come out, and. And then eventually take the pen down. So, yeah, I've had them for seven days. And somebody want to know if I had named them? No, I haven't. And I actually may do a Instagram poll, and whoever's names we choose, maybe I'll send them a molar swag pack or something. If you come up with the names for our molder swans, I put a security camera on them so I can check on them. I did that more so in the first couple of days just to make sure that they didn't try and get out. And they really didn't. They calmed down. They. I've had no issues with them whatsoever. I'm. I think they're so cool. They will have babies. I was told they could maybe have babies two times a year, which would be kind of not wild to me. I actually want to make a floating nesting house, I think, for the middle of the pond. And so then they can. They'll nest out in that. In the middle of the pond. Like, instinctively, they will do that because that is no predators can get to them. Then it's pretty incredible how that would happen. But anyways. And I don't know, then what do I do with the babies? You know, do I sell them? Do I keep them? Do we have just a pond full of swans? I don't really know. Gls Boston says N Swa. N Swan instead of N Con. It's N Swan. That's phenomenal. Oh, man. I think somebody told me the other day, you should name it Tilt and Rotate. I think that's funny. But anyways, they will have babies. And so, you know, I may be selling. I may be a swan dealer pretty soon. I. I don't know. I mean, it was such an impulse move. So I'm sure lots of people know about Cletus McFarlane. And he has had some YouTube videos lately where he. Somebody. One of his guys got them. Got him swans for his birthday, I think, or something. And it was the coolest thing. And then they got swans for Dale Earnhardt Jr. In another video. Anyways, and I got thinking, well, f. I. I knew the whole thing about the swans, and I was like, oh, that'd be cool. Anyway, well, then I saw this video. I'm like, dude, I should really look into this. This is so cool. And then the next thing you know, I had swans. I had swans coming. My wife is like, I didn't tell her. Like, I kind of told her I was looking into it. But, like, while I was telling her, I was also in the process of buying them. And so it was kind of like, hey, honey, I'm thinking about getting swans. And, like, he's like, coming next week. Like, I'm buying them. And my wife always jokes with me that I'm extra. I'm a middle child, and so I'm extra. And so that means I Just, you know, you know, I have three excavators, I have two swans because I'm extra. That's what she would say. Oh, man. It's funny. But yeah. Cole, pass. Cole says you could. We sell ground mats and swans. That's. That's our main business is that. And then Lemire Landscaping says, do you recommend paying cash for your swans or can I finance them? You know, honestly, I'll take cash card, Venmo, however you want to pay me for my baby swans that I may be having one day. I don't really. I do not. I will not own or finance the swans. If you need to get your own financing, you can do that. But I would probably recommend you just bring cash for. For these swans. I did think that maybe once they have babies, if. If they actually do and like they live, the babies live, that I would trade two of the black swans for two white swans from this guy that I bought the black ones from. And we could have two blacks and two whites and they could just like, it would just. I just think it'd be cool. I just think it'd be cool. If I give them my address, can they fly here? No, they. Their wings are clipped, so. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, they're clipped. The bit. The wings were clipped at birth, I believe from the guy that I bought him from. So the guy that I bought him from apparently self proclaimed. He said he was at one time the biggest swan dealer in the country. I don't know what that means. Like, how do you ship swans? I mean, this is. I don't know. The guy knew a lot about swans. It was pretty unbelievable. What do you think Dave Ramsey would think of the swans? Pete Livett says, I think Dave would say if you paid cash for him, I think they're sweet. And I bet you Dave maybe has some swans. I could see Dave having some swans. Another name idea would be N N Swan 1 and 2. Where do you get swans? Tractor supply. No, Tractor Supply does not sell swans. It's a local wildlife guy by us that he owns his own. He started his own zoo and he's had a wildlife thing for years. I remember as a kid going to his. Our. Our school, went to his property for a field trip. And he has all kinds of exotic animals and all this stuff. And then he started a Zoo recently about 35, 40 minutes south of us here. And so he doesn't actually sell as many swans near as what he used to. He actually apparently used to rent swans. So he would rent them to a commercial building or whatever that wanted them for their pond specifically to keep geese away. And he would rent them. But he got out of that because. He got out of that because it became a huge customer service mess. Because people would go to these ponds and they fish and then they would get fishing line tangled up in the swans and then they're calling him to have to come and do that or the swans are somehow getting away or they're in the wrong. What? I don't really know what the situation. He just said that it became too much work and he just stopped renting them out, which is crazy that he was renting swans out. I don't know. Anyways, it's just something fun. The kids like it. I think it's super cool. I did it just because I thought it'd be cool and I think they'll have a cool presence on the pond and they'll keep the geese away. And ultimately that's really what I wanted, was to keep the geese away.
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So you're listening to the Molder Life podcast because you want to get better at your craft. Andy is always working hard to improve himself and pass on that knowledge to you. He's even improved his molderoutdoors.com website to make it easier to use and to give you several ways to support the podcast. When you visit moulderoutdoors.com, click on the shop link to pick up some of the coolest merch around. Choose from camo hats and beanies to fluorescent work shirts and super warm hoodies. While on that page, scroll down and check out the video courses, contracts and worksheets. To make you and your company highly effective and profitable. I recommend the Everything bundle which gives you access to all the training and forms while saving you money. If you need to book a one on one consultation, you can do that as well. @molderoutdoors.com Support the show while growing your business. There's also a link you can use in the show description.
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Another name Ku and Boda. So Kubota. Get it? Well, if Kubota would. I would name it that. If Kubota wanted to pay me to name it that. That's funny. Oh, man. Yeah, I don't know. I'm excited to let them out of the pen. I really am. I think it'll just be cool to see him swimming around and I think they like stay together all the time. They use the water for protection. Enough about the swans. We've been spending like 15 minutes talking about the swans, guys. But I. If you want to check them out. They're on my Instagram right now. Anybody that's going to listen to this podcast tomorrow is not going to be able to see it because those videos will probably be gone. But I do plan on making YouTube video about the swans and it will be kind of part of the next update video on my property build. And if you haven't checked that out, go check out our YouTube channel, Molder Outdoors and you could see a bunch of videos of the property progress so far and kind of things that we've done. It's been a little quiet on there lately because frankly, we haven't had a lot of changing changes going on. So here's another question here from. I actually, I don't know who it's from. I'm sorry. How do you respond to the person that says, I found someone that can do it cheaper? How do you respond in a professional way? Honestly, the best thing that I have found over the years is just accepting it and say, okay, I understand, Mr. Mrs. Smith, I thank you for your time. And if you, if you change your mind or something, just please let me know. I. There's really, at that point, like, you're not gonna, in my opinion, you're not gonna change their mind. You're just not. It's. They've made up their mind. You're not the contractor for them and it's okay. You're not the contractor for any, you know, I'm not the contractor for everybody. We've talked about that before on, on many different occasions. If somebody says, I found someone that could do it cheaper. Okay, I understand that. I respect that. You know, if, if just make sure that, you know, they're, you're comparing apples to apples, but otherwise there's nothing else you can really say. And let them know you're thankful for their time and talk to you later. You know, that's how I've approached this, approached it, and especially, especially now, like, I'm just not going to get in an argument about it. I don't need to. If, if, if I need to sell myself to the customer by that point, I, I don't. It's not the right thing. I want them to want to work with us. I, I'm just not, I'm not going to. I think at that point it's like you've made up your mind. You don't, you don't value the price. You don't value what we're going to bring to the table for that amount of money. And so if you don't value that, then I don't want to try and talk you into the value because, like, you already don't think that you're getting the value or what we're trying what we're charging for this job. So, like, I just, it's just not, it's not going to be a relationship that ends up working out. So it's better to be respectful and kind and, and just close out. Close it out and be okay with that because they may, they may think that you are going to come back and then say, oh, okay, I can do it cheaper. Let me go back and look at it again. Don't do that. Because the second you do that, then they know that they have you and then they think that you are overcharging them, which you should know your numbers enough to the point where you, you know, what you have priced is what you want to charge for that job and what you're. What. That's what it costs. I don't price a job anticipating someone's going to ask for it to be cheaper. Like, I don't do it like that. I. This is the price to do the job. If you would like us to do it, this is what it's going to cost. If you don't want us to do it, that's okay, but this is what it's going to cost. I don't negotiate on price. I only negotiate on scope. So if they want it to be cheaper, okay, then let's talk about how we can reduce the scope of this and we can phase it in or, you know, whatever. It's not worth trying to. At that point in the relationship, it's not going to be worth trying to sell them. Clipford says thank them and tell them that you found a client to pay you more. There's a lot of that's funny and I understand. And maybe you would tell them that. I would not probably tell them that. I don't know if I could, but there's. There, there's plenty of other customers out there that are willing to pay what we are charging for our work, and that's okay. And I'm not mad at either party, but, like, it's okay. All right. I, I don't. You don't want to spend too much time on that or mental. Yeah, I know. Sarcasm. I know. He said sarcasm after, so listening. They can't see this. He said sarcasm. So you wouldn't actually say that to a customer. But you don't want to spend too much emotional energy on that because the time that you spend him hauling around and trying to decide how to respond and how do you try and change their mind and like, no, move on, Find the next customer and sell the job to them. Just do it. I don't know, I guess it used to be a lot harder for me to just say thank you and move on than it is now, but I guess it's easier now. I don't know. But I thought that was a good question. And then I think the last question for today from earlier today says, what is the biggest teachable moment that helped you, helped your business scale? I feel like the word scaling is a big buzzword right now. I don't know why, like everywhere. Let me help you scale. We can help you scale. You can level up and scale to the next level. Let's scale up. Or, you know, whatever. Like, I don't know. Biggest teachable moment, I think. And I wouldn't say that we've scaled our business very fast or a lot for the last five years. We've pretty much been a similar amount sales wise with a similar amount of people for the most part. There's been some different anomalies here and there, but I would say on average we've been a similar size company with a similar amount of people. And so, and I really think that's me. Like, I don't think that I want a bigger company. I don't know if I can do it. I know what it would take to do it. I think different hiring things, different positions, selling more work, obviously, which means you have to produce the work, hiring more people, all of these things. And these are all things that like, I don't know if I want yet. And I don't think I need to know if I want that yet. I really, I love the size of our company right now. I just do. And that's okay. And that's the great thing about owning your own business, is you can do it however you want to do it. So I don't know if I want to have multiple crews and all these things. And so what has helped me scale. I mean, if, if you would look at me and say that I've scaled my business really, really well. I, I don't know. I mean, initially when we went from mowing only or mowing, you know, when we went from one crew doing everything. So half their week was spent doing one mowing, half was landscaping. And then we split and we did. We had a full crew doing maintenance and then a full crew doing landscaping. Like, I really think the ultimate moment that I learned the most is like, you have to find the right people and you can't do it all by yourself. And that goes from the field staff to the office staff and accounting and billing and customer service and maintenance and then the hardscape. And, and I, I, I know that those, the people are the number one thing that can help you move to whatever level you want to move to. It's really, I, I really, it comes down to the people. And I can't do what we do without the people that work here. And it's very hard and everybody knows that. And so I really think biggest teachable moment, I don't know if that's answering your question. I guess I would just say is if I were to tell somebody, like, I want to scale, like, you obviously need to sell more work and then put that more work, put that work in, but you're not going to sell it and you're not going to put it in without the right people and then obviously processes and all that stuff like it's a whole thing. Yeah. So, guys, I think we're gonna wrap this one up. I think that was, that was a good episode. I really appreciate you guys tuning in. I want to thank our sponsors, Pave Tool Innovators. Pave Tool.com Go check them out. Use that code molder outdoors. Save yourself 10 off CMP attachments. CMP attachments.com thank you to them. Albany's candy factory. Albanese candy.com and I want to thank you for tuning in to the Molded Life podcast. Coming you coming to you from the N Con Studios and we will catch you on the next one. Thanks.
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This has been a molder outdoors and Mr. Producer production.