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Welcome to this week's episode of the Molder Life podcast, a live show featuring your questions about all things landscaping, equipment, business and life. Join our live show weekly on Instagram oderoutdoors 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 episode of the Motorlife podcast here in the NCON Studios. I am excited to be here with you all tonight. Big shout out to our sponsor, synced up project management software. Go check them out syncedup.com you will not be disappointed. Go check that out. If you are looking for some kind of budgeting software, time tracking software, whatever, whatever you may need for your business and then also thanks to Ad Equipment. Ad Equipment is the dealer for the Road to Star Screening bucket. This is a bucket that we have and have been using at our shop out on job sites and stuff. So I'm getting ready to start using that here real soon actually to screen a bunch of tops at our shop. So yeah, just go check them out, Ad Equipment. You can follow them on Instagram. Yeah. Super thankful for their sponsorship as well as Albany's candy Factory, the official candy of the Monolife podcast. We have a bag of their 12 flavored gummies right here. This is a fresh bag. We'll go ahead and open these bad boys up and we'll try one of these. I've had these for years. They're amazing. You won't be disappointed. So if you see a bag of Albany's gummies when you're out and about, grab yourself one and you know, give it a try. They are basically worldwide at this point. It's quite amazing. Made right 10 minutes down the road from where I'm at right now. So big shout out to these companies for being supporters of what we're doing here and I'm very grateful. So wide open. Will says Donna and Anthony are the best. I couldn't agree more. They've been very, very great to work with and I have never heard anybody have anything bad to say about them as customer service wise and all of that. So I'm really. Yeah, they're awesome. So what's been going on with us? Well, I guess first of all we're starting an hour early tonight and so that's something different. But I had to do that for a few different reasons and mostly personal reasons that I needed to be able to be done a little bit earlier tonight and so that's why we're doing that. Next week we'll go back to the 8:30pm Central Time. So I appreciate those of you who are going to turn tune in live. We'll take questions live like we do every single week, about landscaping equipment, business and life. There was a few questions that came in earlier this week that we could touch on here, but first I'll give you an update on our shop build that we have going on. We are drop ceiling started going in today. Last week the flooring got. We did an epoxy floor in the offices and that got done. So very happy with how that turned out. Like very happy. It's, it's very cool. And so, yeah, drop ceiling started going in today and then the plumbers were back today doing plumbers and H vac. They were doing some venting work. They were doing some other copper pipe work. What else got done today? A bunch of stuff got delivered. Our toilets got delivered, mops things got delivered and I don't know what's going to be happening there tomorrow. We are still waiting on the barn. The company that built the shop, they are going to come back and do the ceiling on the inside and we're still waiting on them to come. It has been quite frustrating to see how long it's been taking to get them to come back. But that's not really my problem. It's my GC's problem, but I hope it doesn't become my problem at some point. So, yeah, so that's been going on and we are just firing at all cylinders at work right now and landscape jobs and hardscape jobs and maintenance. So last week we performed and finished two of the biggest, biggest mulching jobs we have to do spring cleanups, bed edging, mulching. We finished those up last week on Friday and today they did the, the guy. The maintenance team did another mulching project down the street and we did some downspout drainage work and some seeding work and those types of things. So that got done today and then we're moving to another project tomorrow. And then our lawn maintenance crew started this morning on the first day of mowing for the year. So that's cool. We have a couple new crew members that are one of them not new that's kind of starting to lead the MOW crew. And then we have a new guy that's going out and working with him. So that's really great. Yeah, we're, we're just. We're going, man, it's awesome. Basically, I have two full crews doing landscape, hardscape, mulching, those kinds of things. And then we have the one maintenance crew. So that is kind of something new is having we have kind of that second crew going. I don't know how long we'll keep that second crew completely separate, but we need it to be like it is right now. So I am toying around with the thought of maybe hiring somebody else to add to the landscape crew or hardscape crew and officially have two crews going. But I don't know, I'm. I am kind of torn about what the right move is to do with that. We have a massive amount of leads coming in right now, and I. I need to see how that work. You know, do we sign all those jobs? Do we sign one of them? What does that look like? And so it's just one of those things where in my gut, I kind of feel like, yeah, we need to hire another person. But I want to wait a little bit. I want to make sure that I'm not just making that decision emotionally and that I'm making that decision based on actual sold work and how fast that work needs to go in. We've been running the similar size company for basically the last eight years. We've been kind of steady as far as amount of guys, and then we've slowly been able to perform more work and thus do more sales and all that. But if I jump to this second crew, I want to make sure that I'm going to get the right amount of return on investment to do that. I know what we can do with one crew, and so I have to decide if we can do double the amount of work with a second crew. Now, that second crew may not do the same caliber of work that are. We have done in the past. And maybe I go to something where it's. Where it's a detail, you know, a hardscape, more complex detail crew or whatever. And then we have a landscape or like more of a landscape, soft spacecape crew. I don't know. I. There's a lot to think about with that, and I. I need to decide how I want the company to go. Whether it's just a second crew that does everything or. Or we kind of split up tasks based on said crew, if that makes sense. So, Nunez Outdoor Living. What's going on, man? He says, how many guys on one crew? So that's a great question. So in the past, historically, we have kind of always kept with A three man crew. Right now I'm running two guys on maintenance, lawn maintenance. I have three guys doing landscape cleanups, mulching, and then I have a two man crew doing hardscape and those kinds of things. And really I, I struggle with trying to know what is the right size. I have most of the time, never ran a more than a three man crew doing hardscape, landscape kind of are our big jobs. We've kept it pretty consistent with three people and when it was a fourth person, I was the one, I was the fourth person. So. But I'm trying to decide is, is a two man hardscape crew as efficient as a three man? I think some of that depends on how it's set up. I think the third person really needs to be great at running equipment and good at looking ahead. So right now my, I have my, I have two guys doing hardscape work on our bigger project. There's just a two man crew there. It's a massive job, but we have a lot of detail stuff that we're working on with that project. And so it's okay to have a two man crew. There's other work that could be getting done there at the same time, but this project is not the project that like it's going to get done in, in a week, it's going to take months. So I don't mind having the two man crew, but I, and I need to get some of this other spring work done. And because of that I have to, I had to pull one of the guys off of that. And so I just think it's important to have the right size, the right people. If you're going to have a three man crew, you got to make sure that it's the right three people. And I know that based on my team, I know that based on what we're doing, what the kind of job is. And so going forward I need to think about that like if we're going to have a second crew that's doing landscape and hardscape jobs, you know, what does that look like? And who do you know, who do I have and where do I want them to be to make sure that we're the most productive. Obviously we need to be productive. So yeah, I guess my answer to that is in the past it's been three, sometimes two. And it depends on who the guys are and what, what is their skill set?
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Key for Outdoor says How are you liking the 97. 3 going to be in the market at the end of the year, but I have only run Deere 333G with the swing Outdoor. That is a great question and something that I do have some insight on based on some recent experiences. I guess so. The 97. 3 has been a phenomenal track machine. I really like the things that they changed on the Dash 3. We also have the 75 3. We've upgraded both of our track machines last year for new ones and the 97. Three fixed a lot of the things that I didn't like about the Dash 2. The cab way cleaner. The backup camera way better. It's faster like they rip in my opinion. I don't know exactly the speed, but they seem to go faster. What else did they change? The door seal, like I said, is better. Just the overall cab is really nice. The controls feel good. It's strong, like really strong. It feels just as planted as the Dash 2. Those are the big things for me was the camera and the way that the Cab seals up. It's a lot better. They did a nice job. So we've really liked the machine. We have maybe 300 hours on it now. Have had zero issues. Yeah, I mean great machine. We had the opportunity to demo a 333P. I don't know, maybe three weeks ago, four weeks ago. We had it for two weeks. What are my thoughts on that machine? It is very powerful. I know it's in the same class as the 97. 3, but it definitely lifted more weight than the 97. The deer overall has more technology. It has all kinds of presets that you can make where it is. It will keep the bucket from coming back to a certain point. If you push a button, it'll automatically go back to a certain point. You can keep it from going Too high, you can keep it from going too low. You can control the sensitivity of the controls of the controls themselves. It has creep mode. I know you're talking about the 333G, but I've only have experience running the 333P. It is a beast of a track machine. It's fast. I thought the vis. I didn't have any thoughts, good or bad about the visibility. Same with the 97. 3. It's not like on these bigger track machines. You're expecting to turn around and see exactly right behind you. They're big machines. The camera system on the 333 was way better than the SVL 97. Way better. Again, this was the P. I don't know what the difference is between the P and the G, but I know the P is the newer version. So the one that we had had like the 360 camera view and like the camera system was incredible. I was very impressed. Just overall, the technology on the deer is better than the 97 and the creep mode is really cool. And the. What was the other thing that I really liked? I don't remember. I do know it had a heated and cooled seat. That was cool. Oh, man. What did it have? I don't know. I don't know. But overall, I don't know. I don't remember what the exact cost is on the 333. So we demoed it for two weeks. We wanted to try it out. I did not get a firm price on what it would be cost to buy one. I just bought the 97. 3 and I just bought my 75 3. So it's not like I'm looking to like immediately trade them in or, or do something like that. That's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm just telling you what my experience is. I guarantee that 333p is significantly more money than the 97. I don't. I should find that out because that would be helpful information to share with all of you. The Deere is a nice machine. And let me tell you something else about the door. Okay? So I have definitely said on this podcast many times that I would never buy a track machine that doesn't have a roll up door. We had Takahuchi, we had and we've had Kubota. Those are the two brands of track machines I've owned. And I will say that after running the deer and the swing outdoor. Now again, I don't know the difference between the P and the G. I just know what we had. And it was the p. You can lift the arms on that thing. I don't know, 18 inches, 12. 18 inches before the door won't open. I was very impressed by that. Typically in the past, doors that are swing open that I've used. If that thing is off the ground 2 inches, you're not opening the door. But it. You definitely can have the arms up off the ground more than I would have thought and the door would still open. So I never once, when we were using the track machine, was irritated with the door. I'm just gonna say that it never was something actually that in my head, I'm like, oh, this is annoying. This is exactly what I always said. It kind of changed my mind a little bit. But I only knew what I knew before. And so now that I tried this machine, I was like, oh, okay, well, it's not the end of the world. But, you know, I'm sure it could become a problem at some point. But if you're up over 18 inches and you need to get out of the machine, you probably shouldn't be doing that from a safety standpoint. But I'm gonna get back to these other questions here, so don't think I'm gonna miss you guys that commented. But I did see little boy Bristol says, why does a skid steer need all of this technology? It doesn't need it. And there's thing you know, I will go back to what, to the Kubota 97. I think that Kubota has built equipment that is. It has less technology. Yes. It has what you need, and it's very reliable, and they are workhorses. I have Kubota 57, Kubota 80, Kubota 75, and a Kubota 97. And I can count on one hand the amount of times in the last five years of running Kubota equipment. I think it's been five years. One hand. How many times any of those four pieces have left me stranded or whatever. They don't break. They've been. I haven't had a lot of breakage. I shouldn't say they don't break because of course, they. Every brand of equipment, I don't care what brand it is, it's gonna break. Right. So it comes down to, obviously, dealer support. And I've had great dealer support with my Kubota dealer. I have not had problems, but I've also had great experience to date now with my John Deere dealership, and they've helped us out with a big 135p rental that we had for a month. They asked if I wanted to demo a333. I said, sure, let's do it. We've demoed some other equipment from them looking for maybe the right kind of bigger wheel loader. I don't know what that looks like yet. So they've been great as well. It's very important that you have good dealer support. But does a track machine need all that technology? No, it doesn't. It is really nice, though, specifically a really good camera system. I would say that it is important to consider when buying equipment. If you're gonna buy a piece of equipment for a lot of different technology that's on it, you need to know that the technology is gonna get used. Otherwise, spending the money on that is not worth it to me. I was very impressed by that camera system. And I don't know what that costs. I don't know if the 360 camera is something that's standard. I don't know that it might be something where it's an upgrade to have that. But I would say that that camera system on the 333p would definitely help operators not hit things as often. It's a big unit, right? I mean, you cannot see the back. But the camera system makes the machine feel small. It does. And I had good visibility out of the front. I have a good visibility on the front of my 97. 3. So they're both phenomenal track machines in their own way. But the Deere definitely has more technology. But I don't think that Kubota is trying to have that much technology. I think they have definitely improved their screen, the keyless entry. All of those things have been improved with this new Dash 3, and it was much needed. But I can't sit here and say that Kubota makes a bad track machine. That would be insane for me to say that. I don't think that's true at all. So, yeah, I thought the Deere was a great machine. I enjoyed running it. I wanted to go run it. The heated and cooled seat, it's not a necessity. Of course it's nice. My truck has a heated steering wheel. Not a necessity, but it's stinking nice. So if, you know. I don't know what that. I don't know what it means for the future for us. I'm not going to sit here and say that. But what I know is it's very fun and cool to go out and helps to go out and try other pieces of equipment and see what things are like. I. I Think the only thing I would say that I maybe, and maybe this just came down to I needed more seat time. But the John Deere controls, I had them set on like a medium sensitivity. It wasn't definitely not the highest sensitivity I can, I, I, I don't think I ever tried that, I guess but it was kind of jerky. I believe it's an electronic control system. It's not a hydraulic control system. I don't, don't. It's different than the Kubota. I know that. And so it was, it took a little bit to get used to and I don't, I did not get fully used to it even in the time that we had it. I wasn't, I wasn't sitting there running at eight hours a day. If you ran it a lot more, I'm sure it would, you would get 100% used to it. So yeah, I, I guess that's the only thing I was like, oh man, this thing is kind of like kind of jerky. But I don't think that I can say that that's how it would feel all the time. It's just like anything else. You got to get used to it. When I got on my Kubotas from going from a Takahoochi to a Kubota, I thought the Kubota was very jerky and super responsive as well. The Takahoochis are not like that. They now Maybe the new TL11 is like that because I think they have electric, electric over hydraulic controls. But I don't know if the John Deere, what kind of controls John Deere has? Like how it is compared to the Kubota because it felt way more, way more, it felt more sensitive than the 97 and again, just something you need to get used to. Let's see here. I missed some comments up here. Nunez Outdoor Living says I agree. How many office staff and will that that be expanded with the new offices finished? We have a part time office manager and then we have Stephanie Kauser who does our finances. She will not ever, I don't think ever come to work in our office. She's her own business and we hire her for her services. Kouser Consulting. If you're looking for accounting work, help with your books, help with your QuickBooks, help with all kinds of stuff. She is a numbers master, Excel master, knows how to run synced up in and out, lmn in and out. She's phenomenal. And my sister in law and I would not be anywhere I am today without her help with our Finances. So big shout out to her and you can go check out her Instagram Kauser Consulting and reach out if you want to talk to her about doing your books and your finances. She may be take a look at it. She I'm pretty sure she has a wait list right now. But anyways I have a part time office staff. It's actually my mother. She runs the. She's the office manager so to speak and she answers the phones and she does billing and mail and manages the customers, manages our job backlog, manages my schedule and helps making sure that I don't forget things. There's a lot of things that she does that I can't sit here and list out because I don't have the list in front of me. But it's a lot of different things that she does and will she come and work in the office? That is going to be up to her ultimately. It's currently an at home position and it has been for years. Will the office staff be expanded? It will be expanded. It will be expanded if the company expands, I guess. We built an office and I built the whole shop is way bigger than what I need it to be. My office specifically does not need to be as big as it is. I wanted to build something that made sense to build it when we were building it. I'm very glad we are building it now instead of waiting and we may rent out office space. We may rent out the conference room. Not we may. I totally will rent out the conference room if somebody wants to rent our conference room for meetings. I probably will have an office that is open to rent if somebody would be interested in that. We have a. We'll have a great kitchenette that people can use. A nice storage room in there. The shop bathroom is great. It. It's so cool. I'm very thankful for it. But it's definitely bigger than what we need it to be. But again, I wanted to build something that we could grow into and that we totally can.
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de equipment.com Bajornson Magnus says I like to run between five and eight truck driver, hardscape foreman, sprinkler foreman, two or three full time, two part time but I just do builds and run multiple phase construction. That's awesome. JR Land looking to buy some sea cans. Worried about moisture in them. Seen you add a fan but any problems or input on the issue? I could talk about shipping containers or sea cans for a long time. Moisture is the biggest problem with shipping containers that you have to watch. We put vents on the top. They're like whirly bird. I actually think the I think they call it a whirly bird vent. It's like a spinning roof vent. And then we bought this sea container. What do you want to call it? It's like a it's made to fit the ribs of the roof of a seat container and then the whirly bird fits right over that and that way you get a good seal when you cut the hole in the roof. So that's super important. Doing one of those. And then in the door you need to do some kind of other vent lower where you can get the air to flow through the shipping container. I didn't do that for years. And it's mainly an issue on gas powered equipment that has like a carburetor or I don't forgive me, I don't know a lot about engines but basically small engine stuff can it can be an issue because it gets that moisture gets inside of the float bowl and gets inside of the carburetor and can rust and then you have issues. So definitely have had repair bills from equipment that sat inside the ship container too long and got too much moisture in it. So it's very important that you do that. I bought pretty much everything for venting on my shipping containers. I bought through Amazon so you can go on Amazon search shipping container venting or whatever. There's all kinds of great stuff on there. You can go on YouTube and look at all kinds of videos of people that have done venting and shipping containers. It's super important to have venting. And even so with some of that venting, sometimes I still will get some moisture. You just. That would be the biggest worry is moisture. I don't know if I don't have any actual powered fans. It's all wind powered stuff. And I wonder if having some kind of solar powered fan would be good because in the winter, if it's a very calm day and there's. It's cold, but then the sun comes out, but it's not windy to be pulling air through. I think that's where you could still get. You can still get moisture. So that's the only thing I guess is I wonder if some kind of solar powered fan would be a great thing. But I've never done it. So soon we won't really have to worry about the moisture for the power equipment stuff because a lot of that stuff will be in the shop. Or I have another shipping container that has these big wide open doors and that shipping container has a bunch more vents in it and I haven't seen any moisture on that unit yet. So I'm definitely going to keep an eye on it because you just got to keep an eye on it. So. Yeah, let's scroll up here. Ambor Stone John. What up buddy? He says the creep mode in any loader that has it is awesome. We have two Deers and love creep mode. Our Bobcat and Cat also have creep. Cool. Good to know. Little boy versus oh no, we're. John also says the G series and the P series nearly physically identical as far as frame and door. Interesting. Okay, I didn't know that. He also says the Deere large frame machine doors are way more forgiving. Having the arms up a little compared to the smaller frames like the 317. Okay. Again, I haven't ran any other Deere's track machines that other than the 333. So I don't know any different. So that's good information to have. T.J. palmer Spring Marketing tips. I don't have them because we have always had an insane amount of work in the spring. It's just they. People just. They just call, they just. They just come. I do not do. In the past years ago I would do Facebook marketing. I don't know. I don't know anything about Facebook marketing anymore. I don't know if it's good to do paid ads. I'm not. I don't know if the, if the money is worth it. I don't even know how much it costs. But have a good website, share videos, do stuff on social media, make sure that your page is visible, go and invite everybody possibly you can find to like your page and consistently post stuff. Be authentic. I that's really. I guess the best things I can tell you is what I've done and I've done a little bit of spring landscape advertising on Facebook in years past. I haven't done any in probably three or four years now, and I most certainly will not be doing any this year other than posting like I do. I post two, three, four or five times a week on Instagram that automatically gets posted to Facebook and. And that's how we have advertised up to this point. So Blue Collar Accelerator, what's going on? It says does she do cold outreach on socials to look for referral part does she do cold outreach on socials to look for referral partners and set and screen leads? I don't know a cold outreach on socials. I don't know what you mean by that and I don't know what you mean by referral partners. But yeah, she fields calls, screens the leads as best she can. That's something we're still working on and that's something that takes time to, to do a ton of that. But we have a good intake form that she fills out sends to me and I read it and decide if it's going to be something that I want to look at or somebody that I want to schedule an appointment for or whatever. So yeah, that's. That's part of answering the phones and all that stuff. So yeah, referral partners TJ so Blue Collar Accelerator is responding to TJ saying what do you mean by referral partner? Says too long to explain without voice. Other but other brick and mortar businesses or service businesses in your area, you can outbound them to create solid extra lead channels. I that is sounds complex. So basically it sounds like you're calling other businesses to see if they will refer you for landscaping. So for instance, maybe it's a realtor or something and you give them your business cards and say if you're looking for someone to do landscaping on your new houses or houses that are trying to sell, don't be afraid to ask us or something like that. I'm sure that's what you mean. I have not done anything like that. The only thing that I would say is maybe close to that is I do have business cards up at one of our main suppliers and they hand out our business card from time to time. Obviously it's good for them, good for us, because if I'm going to get work, I'm going to most likely go to them to get the materials. So it's in their best interest that we stay busy. So that's always been helpful. We've got some great jobs from that in the past. Sometimes they're good jobs, sometimes they're not good jobs, but you never know who. Who the next great customer is, you know, so anything helps. I have never done what. Anything more than what I just said. I've never done more than that, I guess, is what I'm saying. Ledge Hill Landscaping says, how much do you use? Excuse me? How much do you use your rover and what do you all use it for currently? That's a great question. I would say we use it not enough. And I'm working on fixing some of that. Currently we have used it quite a bit on the current big project that we were working on. Right now we've used it quite a bit for laying out some of that. Specifically the pool was laid out with that. We've done a bunch of utility work with it. We've done a bunch of as build, like marking things with it, making sure we have GPS locations on drainage lines everywhere. We are working on a new. I don't. I'm not going to really talk about it a lot right now. I'm not ready to talk about it or explain what we're doing, but working on kind of a new process for estimating and designing and making sure that the rover is being part of the design process from the beginning, every time. And ultimately we'll end up producing. The whole point of the rover is to produce. To produce the right file with everything in it and then hand it off to our installers or to me or whatever. And it will be exactly what we have been wanting to do with it since we bought it. The main holdup on me doing it more and more is me. I am stretched very thin and I need help getting it implemented on every single job instead of only the big ones. And so I am working on that help as we speak and more on that, I guess later when we get things going, more with that. But I still think it's a phenomenal tool and something that is very cutting edge in our industry. Obviously not in the Earth world industry. Earth work industry, they're been around a very long time. But for a landscaper, somebody my size it's very much cutting edge. It's very much not seen, but it's definitely something that I know has a great value. I mean, it's expensive to buy, obviously, but I'm saying has a great value in our business and I think will make us a better contractor and we will be able to provide a better finished product for our customers, and also I think will make us money in things that we don't miss, things that we're able to find quickly, things that we're able to estimate precisely based on having all this different information that somebody else may not have. It is a significant investment. I understand that, and I'm very glad that I made the investment. The technology is very advanced for me, and I am learning it, and it is it. But I don't have the capacity to implement the entire workflow completely by myself. We're just. We're. I'm. I just don't have the capacity to focus completely on that. So it's just been one of those things that's been very slowly implemented, and all of that is to do with me and my time and my capacity. So I hope that makes sense. I most certainly wouldn't talk somebody out of it, but you definitely have to know that it's a learning curve and it's complex, and you need to have the right design software and you need to learn how to use Trimble Business Center. And it's a. It's. It's. It's a whole animal in itself. But I believe, ultimately, I don't. I don't think that's what I was going to say is ultimately, I know it'll be at the right thing. I know it's the right thing. I just need to get the people, the right people in place to help me implement it more consistently. So we are utilizing technology that we already own and utilizing it more often than what I've been doing. So. Didn't you say you created your models? Yeah, I do my own 3D designs and 2D designs. And there's a lot of nuances, though, with using GPS and making sure that it's accurate when you do a 3D model or a design, like, you can be off a little bit on little things here and there, and then you kind of. Sometimes you make some changes on the fly or the foundation isn't where you thought it was gonna be, and so you just kind of make some change. And like, when you're working in the 3D and in the. In the GPS world where you're accurate, you know, for the rover, you're accurate within an inch. Basically. There's so much more to that than just saying you're accurate within an inch. I'm saying if you came back to the same spot over a 30 or 60 day period, the GPS on, on one point, the GPS would be within a one inch circle. It would be exactly within a one inch. Now in, in the same day, you're going to be a way tighter tolerance than that. But anyways, when you're working with gps, you need to start with the right, you need to start with the right points and you need to then design over that and then you can relay it back over and make sure it's in the right orientation. There's all those types of things. So it's just something where I am working towards adding another layer to our designs process that doesn't, that takes me out of it to make sure that we're implementing this technology appropriately. I guess that's all I really want to talk about with that right now. Yeah. So am I running off a single control point? Not typically. We would have different. We would have, we don't have. What am I saying? Like we're using satellite correction. So it's not necessarily like control points that are set by me or whatever. I'll go out and I'll do like the four corners, find the four corners and I'll, I'll mark those on the rover and then we export that information, design everything over that and then we have to basically overlay the design and orient it right in Trimble Business center to get it exactly in that spot and then we can put it back in the rover. It sounds like you know probably a lot more about it than I do, but I don't, I don't know enough about the correct terminology of everything to sit here and have a. I could sit here and show you how I do it on a computer, but I always feel like I'm saying the wrong words and making myself look stupid. So I do know what a control point is. I understand that I had those at my property when they did the earthwork there. But we're using like VRs for a correction method. So most of the time I don't have, I don't have like set engineered control points on our jobs. Obviously we're much smaller scale. Right. So anyways, yeah, so there was a question from earlier today that I was gonna cover. Let me see here. Where is it at here? I was going to pull this up.
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This is from Ledge Hill Landscaping says Do you implement a fuel surcharge for projects or maintenance accounts? I have not implemented a fuel surcharge, thought about it because I'm getting fuel surcharges on all of our stone deliveries. We're getting fuel surcharges on everything right now. I don't know. I I I could do a fuel surcharge. We literally just started mowing yesterday, so I don't know. I I am planning on eating it at this point. I I don't know if it like how much money am I, how how much change is it? I I guess I'm trying to think through that and I would need to sit down and run the numbers and maybe I need to and maybe I'd be surprised. But if we're over, you know, the fuel surcharge maybe would I need to look at what my contract says? Actually I don't know off the top of my head what it says. If it's over 350 a gallon I probably could charge a fuel surcharge. But if the fuel surcharge is, say it's say we're running through on mowing, for instance, say we're running through I'm just going to guess here maybe 100 gallons a week. I I'm just throwing out numbers. I don't know off the top of my head I have all these numbers. I would just have to pull them up on a computer. I'm not going to do that right now. But if, if I'm paying an extra $50 a gallon because maybe it's five bucks a gallon, I don't know exactly what it is right now. Diesel is. Diesel is like 550 a gallon right now. It's. I think it is. I don't. It's. I get callous to what the fuel price is because I have fuel tanks at the shop. And so they may have filled those tanks two weeks ago and we haven't filled them since. So. And I don't. The bills go to the office and we pay the bills. And so I don't always see exactly what, what each price was when we fill it, but the office does. But so that's costing me an extra hundred and fifty dollars a week for an example. I don't know, like, is it worth it? Because if fuel price drops below 3 bucks, 350 a gallon and it goes down to back to back to. Goes back to 2 bucks a gallon or 250 a gallon. I'm just saying, say fuel goes down from 350, if that's my threshold, and it goes down a $50 to 2, which, I don't know, maybe that will happen sometimes. I'm not giving a fuel unsurcharged. I'm not giving a discount. So I don't know. I, I struggle with that. I'm not saying that it's not the right thing for guys that are driving semis or big trucks or have 60 trucks on the road. Like, I get it for that. Like, and you gotta do what you gotta do. I don't know if I need to do it. It's not gonna change my world and it's not changing my world to not do it. Like the fuel price is not like making me all of a sudden lose money and not be profitable. To this point. I haven't implemented a fuel surcharge at this point. Our contracts say something about it, but I have not acted on that to this point, if that makes sense. So I can assure you that lots of other people have because like I said, I saw a bill the other day for something we got delivered and there was a $70 fuel surcharge fee on. I'm like, oh, that's nice, thanks. So I don't know, I guess that's where I'm at on it, if that makes sense. The only thing I would do it on is my maintenance. I can't. I don't think I would. I don't know if I would be implementing a fuel surcharge on a sold hardscape project that I sold last year. That is a very large job. I don't know if I'm gonna send them little bills for $60 for a fuel surcharge. It's just like I don't think, I don't, I don't need to nickel and dime them like that I guess is what I'm saying. But it's, it's the. For everybody else, you got to do what you got to do. And, and what is the right thing for you? A GLS Boston. My 50s, my five 50s went from about 105 to 185 times five trucks, times two to three times a week. That's a big difference. That is a big difference. That's a lot of fuel. And I filled up my pickup the other day and it was $185, so it was very empty. And I, as I'm filling I'm like, is this thing ever gonna stop pumping? So I completely understand. And you're driving a ton. I don't know if. I don't know. I think you need to do what you need to do and what makes sense for you and your company. And if you can do it in an easy way as far as your billing goes. I just have a hard time doing it on a huge project that we sold and we've been working on it for sick for three or four months. I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to bill for that without all of a sudden going to a TNM kind of thing. Because they're going to want to know if you start sending them random fuel surcharge bills for new deliveries, they're going to want to know how much was the delivery and how many tons did you get for that. And like I'm not going to get into that. That's not how I run jobs now. On my maintenance side of the business, I could most certainly implement a fuel surcharge. And I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm not going to do it. But I have not done it to this point if that makes sense. I kind of thought the fuel would be coming down at this point. I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it will and who knows. Obviously everything is all over the place right now and nobody knows what is happening with fuel prices. Sometimes I don't get why our fuel price has gone up so much when I thought, you know, it seems like we're pretty self sufficient. But I am not. I don't know everything about all that. I'm not going to sit here and argue with anyone about it. The politics and where are we getting our oil from and all that. Stuff I don't know enough about it and I'm not going to talk about it, but I thought that by now this little, you know, influx in fuel prices would be coming back down. And who knows? I hope that it goes back to normal here really soon. I don't know, Gls. Boston says I only do the fuel surcharge on maintenance accounts and then just eat it on install prices. Install projects. There you go. That's exactly what I'm. What I was talking about. So, promo landscape. How's the E20, bro? E20 is sitting where it was sitting the last time you asked me. Haven't used it. We moved it from one spot to another a couple weeks ago and there it sat. I do have some jobs coming up where I most likely will be bringing it to those jobs, so stay tuned for that. I guess I did get into the other day and started it and I had to adjust something on it and it has 200 hours, two 20 hours, something like that. I'm basically at the point with that thing where I change the oil because it's getting too old, not because of. We're running past the hour, so. Oh, man. Promo landscape. You know, you never know, dude, you make me an offer, you never know what I might say. So everything is for sale. I guess that's all I'm gonna say. You never know what I would say yes to if somebody offered to buy that thing off of me. It's been a phenomenal little unit. We just don't use it that much and it's paid for. So I struggle with letting go of it because it's not bothering me to own it. It doesn't change my life to own it or to not own it. So I don't know, maybe you offer to buy it from me and maybe I accept your offer. I don't know. And then I put that money into a new yard loader or something. You never know what could happen. So I don't know. Yeah. So what was the other? There was one other question we could cover from earlier today. How do you charge for consultations? Detailed estimates on large projects and design work? I can't say that I have this standardized pricing for different things like that. Consultation fees. We used to have a consultation fee. Right now we do not have one. I did one when we had so many leads coming in that I couldn't control the amount of leads coming in. That was mainly during COVID times and I implemented. I was up to, at one time, $150 consultation fee. I had people pay it no problem. I had people that were that yelled at us on the phone because they thought it was so insane and that was fine. The people that we. That really wanted to meet with us were happy to pay it and they did. I don't have that going on right now. There may come a point here this spring where I do implement that again. I've started that at 50. I've gone to 100. I've gone to 150. I've never had more than 150 consultation fee on jobs, but it just depends on the project. The cost of the design depends on the complexity of the house. Do they want a 2D or a 3D? I typically have been telling customers now that the design fee starts at 500 and go anywhere up to 3,000 or $4,000, depending on the complexity of the design and what they're looking for. There's been jobs where I've designed the job and I knew I was going to get the job and I did not charge them for a design and we got the work. And these were massive projects. And so, you know, you have to do what you feel is right for your company and what you feel is right for the customer and the project that you're looking at. I think that Design fees are 100% necessary, but there has definitely been some of our bigger, biggest projects that I've done. I did not charge for a design fee, and some would say that was nuts. But I'm the one that did the project and I knew I was getting the project when I did the design work. And so there's. You gotta know who you're working with and what your position is within that relationship and how that's gonna go and decide what's right for you and what it's gonna cost you and all these different things like that. So, promo landscape. Screening. Screening bucket. Priced one for my S40 with EC Oil. Push me. I mean, bro, the screening bucket, the ad equipment, rotostar screening bucket is absolutely amazing on an S40. I want to get one for my S40 really bad because here's the problem, here's the problem. I have one for my S45. It's amazing, but there's times when I don't have that machine on a job site and I want one for my S40. So I really would love to have two of them, but I got to decide if I can justify that one day, and I probably will one day, but 100%, dude, you should totally buy the screening bucket and make sure you tell Donna Anthony that you heard that from me. They're phenomenal, dude, and you will not be disappointed. Let's see, one more question here and then we'll probably wrap this one up. Barrow Landscaping says, how do you balance your days? I'm struggling to keep up with all the paperwork while still delivering on the jobs with the guys. I am a company of myself and two full time guys and two summer help barrel landscapes. I completely know where you are and I was exactly where you were four years ago and every year before that. I know the struggle. It's very, very hard to keep up with everything when you're that size. I burned the midnight oil after my kids went to bed every single night of the week from the beginning of when I started the company up until I would say three to four years ago is when I was able to change some of that. And how did I change some of that? I got, I trained and got some guys that I was able to let off the gas of me actually doing the work. I have an office manager that helps a lot with calls and helping with things that don't require me. But it's hard, especially right now. Like I'm probably, my son's gonna go to bed here after I'm done with this podcast and I'm gonna probably end up working on my laptop till 10 or 11 at night. And that's just right now we have a crazy amount of work coming in. Designs to do, estimates to get out the door. And I just have a lot to do. And so you have to do some of that stuff sometimes. And the spring will always wear you down. But just know that it's, you know, this is go time, right? So it's gonna take some of that. How do I balance my day now? I make sure that my guys are set up in the morning and then I have meetings that I may have to go do. I also have a list of designs and estimates and they come in order of priority based on when I met with them and which ones are priority. Which ones could wait a little bit longer. Sometimes I have to follow my phone, especially in the spring. Sometimes I don't stay focused on what I have to get done or what I think I should get done. I have to do what I have to do. And that's gonna happen too. I mean, I had like 150, 200 phone calls today. I don't know, my phone didn't stop ringing almost all day. And text messages almost all day. I have like five text messages that have come in while I'm in on this podcast and it's 8:30 at night so it's hard guys. It's a lot to handle but don't be afraid to like getting someone in the office to answer phones and to start doing some of that work is some of the best money I've ever spent. So you may need wanna look into that. There's just. That's a short answer to a. A large topic I think but that's the time that I have to give to it right now, man. But it's a lot of work and find some help. Having Stephanie help with billing and the QuickBooks side of stuff, all of those things like I do not have the capacity for and I'm not very good at it. So find people to help you to do the things that you're not good at and that will give you more time to do the things that you need to do inside of your company. So guys, we're going to wrap this one up. I want to thank Ad Equipment for sponsoring this podcast. Thank you to them. Go check them out. Adequipment.com also synced up synced up project management software. Go check them out. Synced up.com and Albany's candy factory the official Candy the Mold Life podcast. I thank you guys for tuning in on this week in the ENCON studios and we will catch you on the next one. Thanks.
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This has been a Mulder Outdoors and Mr. Producer Production.