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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. We are live here Monday night and I'm excited to be here with you all this evening. It is another stormy night here, another stormy Monday night. If last week we had some major storms that rolled through and shut off power midway through the episode and we ended up having to finish the episode the next night. But we have a big storm rolling through right now. Again, I don't think it's going to last as long. It's not as bad as the one before. But I'm excited to be here with you all tonight. Started about 15 minutes early because I needed to get started. So I want to thank our sponsor this sponsors this week. Pave Tool Innovators, pave tool.com go check them out. Use that coupon code Molder Outdoors50 and save yourself $50 off of 500 or more when you check out. We installed I talked about this last time but I installed a paver sidewalk last week and again use their hybrid edging. Very nice edging and I'm pretty sure from now on we're going to be exclusively going to the hybrid edging. I really, really like it and it's very strong and I think it's a phenomenal product. I really do. And so that's awesome. Also synced up, synced up project management software synced up.com go check them out and you will not be disappointed. If you're trying to figure out your numbers, if you're trying to understand what it costs you to run your business every single day or every hour, go checked out sync. Go check out synced up and you can find out all that information. Job costing time tracking everything you need to run your business from that point of view or that standpoint. Also Albany's candy factory, the official candy at the Motorlife podcast in the NCON studios today and I, I wanted to we'll take questions like we do live every single week. So if there's anybody listening or watching live here on Instagram that wants to ask questions, landscaping, equipment, business, life, whatever you guys want to talk about. That's what we're here for. And as I was getting ready to do the show, I didn't have time today to put a question box up like I typically do. And sometimes that gives us some good questions to talk about and to. To answer and conversation starter, so to speak. But this week, I didn't do that. And I didn't do that because I was just busy. We were very. I would say this is the busiest spring we've ever had in the. This is now our 12th season, the busiest spring I think we've ever had. And I am so grateful for that. And anything I'm gonna say in this episode is not complaining about the busyness, so to speak. It has nothing to do with that. I'm just explaining to you guys where we're at. And, yeah, the busiest spring we've ever had. And that's coming off of the biggest winter we've ever had as a company. And that's some real. It's really exciting. It's. It's wonderful. It's a blessing. And we are doing things this year that we've never done before. And I thought I would spend a little bit of time talking about that. I don't know if that will be what we talk about the entire episode, but I thought it's just something that I'm going through right now and working through right now. And I thought it would be something good to talk about. And I don't know if I've heard a lot of talk on this, but I thought I'd give you my point of view. And what I want to talk about is basically what I have learned about adding a second crew over the last month and. And why we're doing it and how we're doing it and how it's going and things that I'm learning. All of that stuff I thought it'd be good to share because we're just getting off. This is the beginning of May, and so we basically started our season mid to late February. And by the time we got to March 1, we were going really, really hard. And I had transitioned to, I would say, mid March. We were going full speed ahead, but we weren't mowing. And so we had, you know, a decent sized crew because, you know, the guys that mow were able to do landscaping work. So we're getting through. We're doing spring mulching during that time. We're doing all the spring work, spring cleanups, all those things. And then we get to April and mowing starts, and so Two of my guys go to do the maintenance. And then we decided this year that my maintenance manager, Zach, was going to manage the mowing. So the two guys are going to go mow. He was not going to be on the mowing truck. And this is the first year he hasn't been in the mowing truck since basically almost since we started the company. So he stepped off the mowing truck. He's managing the mowing guys. We have two good guys have been doing a really good job with that, and I'm really proud of them. And then he was going to help with two other guys that we have do landscape jobs. I also then have our two hardscape guys that have been doing a big project since last year. And I'm sorry if it's really loud. It's raining very hard here right now. It would be nuts if we lose power again. It would be nuts. So, basically through the month of April, we unofficially started a second landscape crew. And it wasn't something that, like, it's just kind of happened. And, like, I didn't really have a choice except to say no to a lot of stuff. And I decided that with the crew that we have right now, we were going to go for it. And so that's what we're doing, and it's. It's happening. We just finished an entire month of having two crews, two landscape and hard. I would say the second crew is more of a landscape crew, and the first crew, which I would call crew one, is more of a hardscape crew, and crew two is a landscape landscape crew. So I don't know if that's how it will continue, but so far, that's what I've been doing with the second crew is doing landscape jobs, smaller jobs, I guess, is what you would say. And so it's been a whole month of doing that. And as I was getting ready to do the podcast tonight, I was thinking through things we could talk about, and I thought, you know, maybe that's something that I'm going through right now. And, man, it is really loud now. Sorry, guys. Holy cow. And so it's just been something that. That it's, you know, the month of April was so crazy and busy. It's like all of a sudden now I look back and I'm like, holy cow. We just went through a whole month of two crews. And, like, how did that happen? And, you know, I'm. I'm gonna kind of think through this together with you guys as we talk about it on the podcast here. And so So I guess I, I wrote down six things that came to mind when I was thinking about the things that I've learned from, from one month of running to two crews. Ultimately it's two landscape hardscape crews and then one maintenance crew. So we have had a maintenance crew and a landscape hardscape crew 1 and 1 for years, years and years. But now we have these two landscape crews and then one maintenance crew. So by when I say we're running two crews, I mean two install crews, if that makes sense. The first thing that I want to, that I would say that I've learned in this last month was I 100% cannot be working on the job site again. Guys, I'm very sorry about the noise. It's raining literal cats and dogs, it feels like it sounds like. But yeah, I cannot be on the job site working hands on the tools basically at all. I basically have almost no time to do anything like that. And so that's been something that again, thinking back and looking back in the last month, it's like, yeah, I basically didn't self perform any work at all. And I just, I couldn't, I, I, I just could, there was no way that I could possibly, that I could possibly be on the job site. The second thing that kind of goes with that is I have done a lot of driving this month, like more than ever before. And that obviously makes sense because I'm driving to two different job sites, meeting with customers, stuff at the shop, so on and so forth. And so that takes a lot of driving around. And so I've spent a lot of time in my truck. I've done a fair amount of obviously project management and getting materials and trying to utilize my resources with our vendors as much as possible with deliveries and orders and samples and using our reps and, and trying to use, use the people in my circle to help us get as much work done as possible and not be something where I have to do everything right. I've also spent a lot of time, like in the morning rollout, just reviewing what is going to be happening today and what are you doing? Crew 1 what are you doing? Crew 2 what do you need from me? Trying to make sure that we're communicating okay. There's obviously lots of processes that can go into place permanently and all that stuff. And I again, I'm learning, I'm learning what I think works versus what doesn't work. I'm learning about what kind of communication I need to have with the team. It's just all of those things that have have just kind of come up as we've done this.
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Another thing that I, that has really stuck out to me is, and this kind of goes along with what I was just saying with like really good project management is making sure that I'm super intentional about staying two steps ahead of each crew and so thinking ahead on what they're going to need and what tools are they going to need and what supplies are they going to need and how many plants and, and are they going to need someone to help them with this thing or that thing or depending on what crew it is will depend on and then specifically what job they're doing. As to how, what is my priority and what should be, what should be my priority at a given in a given day. So I've been just juggling different things like that and making sure that I can, that I'm staying ahead of both crews. I just have to be really intentional about what, how I'm doing that and making sure that I'm doing that. I don't want to get to, I don't want to get to the middle of the day and then one of the crew says, hey, you never got us this. And then there's, you know, there's not doing anything. So I think a lot of that also helps by having a lot of communication. So I've tried to talk with the guys about by 2 o' clock in any given day, I'd like to have some kind of update on where you're at in the job. What do you need for tomorrow? Do you need me? Excuse me? Do you need me to come there right now? Do you need me to come in the morning? What, you know, basically what do you need? How can I best serve you kind of a thing. And I really want to give hats off to my team and all the guys. They've all just, like, stepped up and got work done and not been afraid to do anything that needs to be done. And very, very grateful for my whole team. And it's just. It's been ultimately, by and large, it's been a good month of April. It's. We've gotten a ton of work done, and I'm proud of the work that we've done. I think there's two different things between doing a ton of work and doing a ton of work that you're proud of. I think that's very important, and that's something that I want to make sure as we continue to grow and as we continue to push forward with having two install crews, that the work that we're installing is work that I'm proud that we're installing. I don't want to just. I don't want it to be. Just slam things in. That's not what I want it to be. That's not what we built the company on. That's not our brand. And so it's. It's just important that we keep the quality up. Before we go any further, I'll take these questions. Dill hall, how you doing? Thanks for being here tonight. I'm having. He says, I'm having a tough, tough time finding more guys that have experience and a clean driver, driver's license. Any recommendations? That is. I know I've been where you're at. I have. It's so hard when you need the experience and you need the good driver's license, all of those things. I don't have the best answers for you. You have to constantly. I guess the main thing I would say you have to constantly be networking, asking any connections that you have, asking your team, obviously advertising. I. My foreman that I have right now is he originally found me on Instagram and saw my posts and had been following me. And ultimately, for me, and I've said this a hundred times, it's very important to. That you remember that you never know who's watching, right? And so, like, I'm posting for weeks and weeks about trying to find. Trying to find a good foreman and looking for good team members. And then you keep. You. You can't stop. You keep trying and you keep trying and you keep asking and keep searching. I have said it before. I've spent some money on indeed and never got anything that was worthwhile. I had a couple interviews. I had a couple that actually came to the prop, came to the shop and we talked and I just. They weren't the right fit. Now I could have kept going down that road but I ended up finding who I needed to find through Instagram and the other guys that we have right now, I've hired two new people this spring. They were all connections from other guys that, that work for us now. And that's a great resource is finding people that way. You know, offer some kind of incentive to your team if they know somebody that, that would want to come and work for you and you know they stay for three months and, and you can give them some kind of bonus or something like you gotta, you, you gotta incentivize some of that stuff and. But it's so hard. The clean driving record is just getting someone and then adding the clean driving record. Like I completely understand. It's very, very hard. MatthewB41 says, have you found a good blade to run on the IQ saw that isn't the stock blade? So we have pretty much exclusively run Lattox diamond blades on our IQ saws and in our demo saws. I have a coupon code actually for Lattox. I believe it's Molder Outdoors. I don't know if it's molder outdoors 10 but you can try Molder Outdoors. I believe that would save you 10% off or 20% off or $20. I can't remember. But anyways, I've been losing using Lattox diamond blades for years and have always liked their IQ saw blades. So you can go check them out. We also have a 14 inch demo saw blade on our website actually that is branded our. It's our brand and it is a Latx diamond blade. So yeah, if, if you want to try out one of our demo saw blades, the one that we use it is on our website and you can go buy it there. It's a good deal. So Hamlin Landscaping says how are you liking the deer equipment? It's been good. We're. We had a John Deere 335 also we have a demo on a 3:35 right now that we've been trying out and using and it's been good equipment. I don't have anything. I have nothing but good things to say about it so far. I don't know what that means for the future. I really don't. We have a lot of really nice Kabota equipment that has been serving us well so far. Ultimately they're both great machines. I think the John Deere equipment as a whole And I don't think this is. I don't think anybody could disagree with me. But as a whole, the John Deere equipment has way more technology. It just does. And in. In really almost every area, it has newer, not newer, just has more technology, whether that be the camera system or the. The different stops that it will. It will keep you from going up too high or return to level or all these different things. There's all kinds of controlling the sensitivity of different things. They just have more technology, and that's exciting. I. I like technology, but I also cannot sit in the same microphone and say that the Kubota equipment has not been good equipment. I really can count on one hand how many times we've. Times we've had breakdowns in the last six years, five years since I've switched to pretty much primarily Kubota equipment. So it's important that you have good, good dealer support for whatever brand that you're using. Charlevoix Wild Outdoors says. How many years did you operate out of shipping containers before you built a new building? I lived in valpo for almost 10 years. I miss Northwest Indiana. So last week I did an entire episode about how I've built and growing my company using shipping containers. The entire episode was dedicated to shipping containers. And so if you want to do that, I am still currently running my business out of shipping containers. And so it's been 10 years of running my company out of shipping shipping containers before we built the building that we're building right now. So after this, this summer, sometime in the next, I'm assuming two months, we will officially be moving into our building. And it will be the first time in 10 years that we are not running the company, so to speak, out of shipping containers. We still will use shipping containers for sure, for a lot of stuff. But, yeah, go listen to that episode. Like I said, we. We spent the entire episode talking about all things shipping containers. Let's see. I'm not going to be able to pronounce that, but, Kevin, you say that. He says, you say that you switched to Kubota five years ago. What were you running before that, and why did you make the switch? So before that, I was running Takahuchi Equipment and I had a Takahuji TL10V2. And I had a Takahuji TB240. Why did I switch? I don't have anything bad to say about Takahuji equipment. I really don't. My TL10 V2 was a great track machine. I switched because at the time, I was not A fan of the dealership that had Takahoochi. I wasn't having the greatest experience with them. And also it was right during COVID when I was getting ready to start upgrading some equipment. And also I needed to buy a bigger excavator. I needed to buy an 8 ton excavator and to my local Takahoochee dealer had no equipment to buy. So that was, if you remember, during COVID time you couldn't. Some brands had no equipment. Like if you wanted a track machine it was nine months, 10 months, whatever, a year, six months. And so when I wanted to upgrade my TL10 to either a TL12 or another TL10, which ultimately at the time I was wanting to get into a bigger track machine than the TL10v2, I demoed a TL12 which was fine, except I couldn't actually buy one because they didn't have any to buy at the time. And that was a big. It felt too big. Hindsight, I don't think it's too big anymore. So just that's how it typically goes, right? You start and you're like, oh yeah, this is so big, I'm never gonna outgrow this. And now it's like, ah, yeah, I could probably use ZL12. And so at the time then I made a connection with my local Kubota dealer, which is McCullough Implement. McCullough Kubota, which is who I. It's actually McCullough equipment now. So anyways, made a connection with them. They were pretty local to me. They brought out a demo machine. We ran that demo for like 3 or 4 weeks. Loved it, was really happy with the 972 at the time. And so then I bought it. And I had also bought my KX80 at the time. That's a whole story that I've talked about before. But anyways, they had equipment to buy and take. Hoochie had no equipment to buy and so I made a switch and now I've pretty much just stayed with Kubota for the last five years because of that. And I think that's an interesting story when you look at it from that way. I understand that. I do, like I said, didn't have like my McCullough McCullough equipment was a better dealer for me than my Takahoochee dealer was at the time. And so they won me over with that. But they also won me over as well because they had equipment to buy. So it was just an interesting time during COVID with equipment and availability of equipment and how long you had to wait. And I needed to buy, I wanted to buy the equipment and I needed the write off and I wanted to upgrade and I wanted something with more power and the 972 was what I needed at the time. I will say that now looking back like at the time the TL12 seemed like it was too big but it's not too big. I probably could totally buy a TL2. And again I had a great experience with my Takahuchi equipment. I think they're phenomenal equip. I think it's phen a phenomenal track machine. Never had problems with my TB240 great equipment. So that's initially why I made this, why I made the switch. So I think ultimately it's very important and I've said this before, there's so many good brands out there. They make good by and large. A lot of the major brands are great. They're good equipment. I think the most important thing through anything is dealer support. Dealer support. You want to work with a company that is going to be there when you need them to be there is going to provide you with good mobile service. For me that's a huge piece to it is mobile service. I am not bringing my equipment to the dealer to get fixed. I don't have time. I want them to come to me. It's not even that I'm asking for it for free. I'm not saying that. I just need them to show up when it's broken and fix it. And if it's really bad I want to have a loaner machine brought to me. So those things are what matter to me the most anymore. And I know many people that would agree with me in that there's lots of good brands out there and everybody has their opinion about which one is the best. But at the end of the day they're all going to break. They just do. So that's why it's important. And not just a dealer that blows smoke up your rear end and tells you that they're going to be there and then isn't actually going to be there. Like I will see through that so fast. Like I'd be like, yeah, that's a no for me. We're moving on, right? So like I need a dealer that long term is, is supportive and there for us. Those are the things that are important to me. Amborn Stone. What up John? He says I ordered my shipping container wheels today. Let's go. Dude. You will love them. Where'd you order them from?
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50. I. I did talk about this a little bit, but I, I just, I want to reiterate it again. I guess I think that the success that we've had in the last month with running two in cell crews because frankly, it's gone really well. It's gone really well. It's. I, I guess I said it to my wife tonight at dinner is that I, I hate. I am not the type of person to be like this. I'm really not. I'm not a doomsday person. I'm not. I'm usually a glass half full person, but for some reason, but for some reason I just feel like it's gone really well and like, part of me feels like it shouldn't have gone as well as it did. Does that make sense? And what I want to say is like, I feel like how I've split up the guys has worked really well and again, very proud of my team. It's just. I'm very proud of them. It's been a very smooth transition and I really feel like I have the right guys in the right spots right now. And I think that's just a huge piece of it. And, and I'm reflecting on this as I'm talking right here. It's not like I've wrote down why. I wrote down things that came to my mind in the last 15 or, you know, 10 minutes before the episode. But I'm re. I'm thinking through this, like, as we go along here, so this is very fresh. I. I'm. I'm really happy with how we've split up the team. So we went from having, you know, one crew, one install and one maintenance, and we added two guys in the spring. And so then it was like, okay, like, how are we want to split this up? Like, who's going to do what and why? And again, I'm sorry if it's really loud. It's pouring rain again really hard. It's crazy, the rain that we've had on and off here. It's. We've had a very wet spring. It's. I'm sure. I think I've seen that almost everywhere. Um, but anyways, if. And again, this is a month of me doing this, so I am far from an expert in running to multiple crews. Again, these are the things that I've learned. I think it's super important to look at your team and think about what are they going to do and how can a combined group of people complement each other in a way that makes them productive and does a good job. Right. So I had to think about that when I was putting together how these crews were going to go and. And all of those sorts of things, and who was going to be in what crew and why. So I. I just. I think that I've done a good job of that, and that's something that I've learned, is that you need to find what your guys are good at. Man, it is. It is so loud. How much. How hard it's raining right now. I'm sorry. Find out and figure out and watch your crew and find out what they're good at and then combine your team and capitalize on their skills and send them to jobs that you know they're going to be good at. Right. I think that's important. And so far this year, the way. The jobs that we've been doing and how I have the crew split up has worked out really well in the. In the favor of the strong suits of the team. Right. So what they're good at and what I know that they'll do a good job at, I think that part is important. And so though that's something that I've learned over the last month. So, yeah, ultimately, I wrote down here, ultimately, the team is the most important part of doing this, and I'm very proud of the guys, like I said. And I hope that looking forward now like, tomorrow we're going to a job tomorrow that is a bunch of planting work and some rock work, and it's. It's ultimately landscape work. No, almost. I don't think there's any hardscape work on it. And it's going to be one of those jobs where the plants need to get there. And then I should be able to give my. Zach, my maintenance manager, who's running the second crew, you know, and helping manage. He's managing the maintenance, but then he's also working on this landscape crew. I should be able to give him the plan after we do a site walk around, and I should be able to give it to him and say, this is all the things that we have to do. And it's all spelled out really well, and he should be able to take that and do the job. And so. And in my opinion, that means that I have the right crew on the right job. And I don't think that it's always going to be perfect. I don't know if I'm. I don't think I'm going to always have the perfect job for the perfect crew. Like, I'm sure there'll be times when it's not ideal and they have to do stuff that they don't typically do a lot of or whatever. But then I want to try and teach. I want to try and use those. Use those moments to. For them to be teaching moments. And I'm going to have to stop what I'm doing and spend a little time and be like, hey, I know you don't know how to do this. Let me show you how to do this, and so on and so forth. So I would love, if anybody's. Any of you guys that are listening or watching this, drop a comment below. How many crews do you run? And. And are some of these things, things that you've learned? Again, I. I don't see myself having this company that has like 15 crews. But how we've been doing it over the last month has really been. It's been good. And I'm. I mean, I'm insanely busy, but whoa. I mean, it would be insane if we lose power again. This is just nuts. Yeah, it's gone well and it's been enjoyable. And I don't want to. I don't want to have the company get to a point where I don't enjoy it. And I've ultimately, I've enjoyed it. It's just, I've had to. I've had to work. Like, I've been Going, going hard. And that's okay. I, I, that's springtime. And I told my wife this morning, tonight that I'm, I feel very overwhelmed. I do feel overwhelmed. Not from a work, not from a, like, what are we doing right now? My, my big thing that I've been overwhelmed with lately is just the amount of estimates and designs that I'm in process on, like, going on at the same time and trying to manage each one of them and keep moving the needle forward on each one of them. Not, of course, knowing that if we're going to sell every one of them, but, like, today I had two design meetings that basically I spent all week last week getting ready for. Had them both today. And so, like, I got to Saturday, I, I worked, I worked Saturday afternoon. No, I didn't, I worked, I worked Friday night, late Saturday, I didn't have any time to work Sunday, I worked in the evening some. And then Saturday, Monday morning, this morning before my meetings, I was just getting everything how it needed to be. And then I had my meetings. And so I felt really good this morning when I got up, I was in a good spot. I felt like, okay, I'm in. I have some relief. Like, I feel like, you know, I'm caught up with what I need to do right now. And then I had those two meetings, and now both of those meetings resulted in more design work. And so, like, I'm, I feel like I just, there's just a lot of plates that I'm juggling, so to speak, because of the, when you're designing some of these landscapes and these hardscapes, it's not like it's a one meeting and you sell the job. Typically it takes some revisions and it takes some details to get dialed in and those kinds of, those kinds of things. So it's just, there's just a lot of moving pieces right now on the back end of the business, the estimating and the design, and a lot of that ultimately currently falls on me, and that's fine. But I'm also managing two crews. And so it's, it's wonderful. I'm, I'm overwhelmed, but I'm not like, stress. I'm not like, freaking out. I'm not, I don't know. It's an overwhelmed, it's me being overwhelmed, I guess. Like, I, I do well with that sort of thing, but I, I don't like, break down over it. I just, it's just feels heavy right now. But it's springtime. It's beginning of May, and we're having the, so far the, the best year we've ever had. I would say so. Which is wonderful. Kurt Vipperman says, knowing what you know now, if you were starting Molder Outdoors today, what would you do differently than what you did 10 to 12 years ago? Oh, man, that's a really good question. And I've gotten that question before. And I, I hate to, like, I want to be completely honest with you. Like, I'm really proud of how we've started and grown this company. I've talked about it a thousand times, but we've started and grown this comp, this company completely debt free from the beginning. We've grown it slow at the speed of cash. And that's something that I'm extremely proud of. And I am not gonna ever change that. This company will continue to be a debt free company until the day that I sell it or somebody else takes it over. That's a commitment that I've made and me and my wife have decided upon, and that's how it's going to be. And I, I think that, I don't think I know that it was a really wise way to do it. And I know that was a huge factor in why we have been successful to this point. And I've always taken a paycheck. I've always been able to make payroll. And by the grace of God, we've always had plenty of work. Always. God has always blessed us with everything that we've needed, always given us exactly the right amount of work. Right now I feel like I don't understand why we have so much coming in, but we do. And that's. God's been putting that in our place, and that's a huge blessing. And so knowing what I know now, I would rephrase. The question is if, knowing what I know now, if I were starting Molder Outdoors again, would I do what would I do the same? And I would do those things the same. I would start my company debt free again. I would grow slowly again. I would build the brand through social media again. I would focus on doing the right jobs that fit our company the best. Not just every job, but in the beginning, we had to do every job. We had to do anything that came in. We had to hustle, and I would do that again. I do think there was some equipment purchases here and there, and there was, you know, different things that went on. But all of those things are like huge lessons, Huge lessons in the business. As you, as I've grown, I, I, there was a lot of people that Told me not to run, not to start my business debt free and not to run it debt free. And, and that, you know, I needed to use other people's money to grow and people as close as my grandpa. It I love my grandpa had a very successful business. He did phenomenal for himself and he chose to run his business differently than I chose to run my business. And at how old was I? I would have been, I'm going to be 40 this year. So at 28 years old, I was starting my own business and my grandfather was telling me what I should do and I was not gonna do what he said. And I was respectful. I never said no. I think that's a stupid idea. Of course I never did. I don't think I ever did that to anyone. I just listened and I said, okay, I appreciate your advice. And me and my wife decided this is how we're going to run our business.
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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. 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 molderoutdoors.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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A
I don't know what gave me that confidence to know that that's how it was going to work, because ultimately the people that were telling me not to do that were people that I would say have successful businesses and have done well for themselves. And that's why, like, through the years of this podcast and me talking about running your company debt free, I have never sat here and say that, sat here and said that the only way to have a successful business is to run debt free. I don't think that that is fair of me to say. And it's not because I know plenty of phenomenal business owners, landscapers specifically, that have very successful businesses, and they do not run their business like I run my business. But I think what's important to note is you can run a business without that, run a land, specifically a landscape company, without debt, and it can be done. And I have done it, and I am doing it, and I will continue to do it. It's been proven many times that you can do it the other way. But I would say I am definitely the minority in the way that I run my business. So I guess, ultimately, Kurt, to answer your question, like I said, is I would do it again the same way. And that's after 10 years, or 12. I'm sorry, 12 years of doing it and looking back and saying, did I like how I did that? And I did. I do like how I did that. And I am happy that we've done it. And it has been a blessing for my family, and it has been a blessing for my team members, and ultimately it will be a blessing for my family tree when I'm old and gone. And I know that for a fact. And even if I were to die tonight, I know that my wife is taken care of, and I know that my wife and kids will not have to worry about money ever again. And they have a business that is 100% paid for and property and a building that is 100% paid for and a team that could go on and run the company for a while without me. I don't think my wife would want to continue to run the company. But that feels good. I feel good about that. I. I would. I would expect that there's people out there that if they were really honest with themselves and if. If I said, okay, hey, whatever, whoever your name is, if you died tonight, would there be a mess for your wife to clean up financially in your business or whatever? I think those are really good questions to ask yourself is how. How have you set things up to where. If you were to die tonight, how would. What would happen to your business? What would happen to. And the answer doesn't have to be that it would run flawlessly forever the minute you die. That. That. I don't think that's. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, would you be leaving it would. Would your wife wake up? Or if you're a woman running the business, would your husband wake up and have to figure out how they're ever going to make ends meet and pay all the debts and do all of those things without you? I just think it's important to look at Yourself and look at your business and think about that. Because I sleep really good at night knowing that if I never woke up, my business would be a blessing to my fan, my wife and kids. And she could let the guys run the company while she mourned and while she figured out what her next steps were. And. Or just pause. Press pause on everything for six months and pay the team for six months or whatever she would decide to do while she figured out what she's going to do. There'd be no bills that are coming. There'd be no debt payments. We could afford to pay the team for six months and not have any income in the business. Like, those are the types of things that I think are. That's taking care of, that's responsive, that's being responsible, that's taking care of your family. And ultimately that's a huge driver for me in running my business debt free. Not to mention, I don't have any. I don't have any money stress in my business because of that. I don't feel pressure from anyone to do anything ever. I don't feel pressure to sell jobs. I don't feel pressure to hope that it snows through the whole winter so that we can meet payroll. There's just so much to that. Looking back, I know that if I were to do it again, I would do it this exact same way because of all the things that I just talked about. Kurt, that's a really good question, and I thank you for letting me talk about that for the last 15 minutes. Creekside out there living. Mike says, in this case, you don't want to be like Mike. Oh, man. He said, Mike says, quote, gotta grow fast. Gotta grow fast. Yeah, I don't know. I p. I think there's. People are built differently for different things. And I have never been one to want to go super fast. I just haven't. And I don't know why that is. I don't. Because, like, if you look. I mean, my dad had his own trucking company for a while. It was really only him. So he never had anything that was like a big company. He worked for himself. He owned his own job, he ran his own truck. There was times when he had two trucks running. I believe he had different jobs. He did run a garbage truck for a while, and then he ran a flooring company for a while, and then he went back into trucking, and. And ultimately that was the last thing he did. But then other family members. My grand. My. My grandpa on my dad's side was a Christian school principal and was a leader in that way. And then my grandpa on my mom's side ran a very big recycling and garbage company and that was a big company. My uncle now owns it and runs it. And that's a. It's a big company. Uh, him and I have had lots of talks about how I run my business and he's had a lot of. We've had a lot of good talks about it and things that he actually would say that he thinks that how I've ran my business is a really smart way and he thinks it's a. We've had good talks about that. And so anyways, I don't know why I've been. I would say I'm quite. I'm very conservative in how I run my business and ultimately I think it's been the right move for me and again, not the only way to do it. And there's lots of people that are very, very successful, more successful than I and they do not run their business like I do. And they would tell me that I'm an idiot. And that's okay. I'm okay with that. So I appreciate that question. I think it's. It's good to talk about from time to time. So I think we're going to wrap this one up. I appreciate everybody tuning into the podcast this week in the NCon studios and Contil Rotators. Go check them out. Thank you to them for being our studio sponsor. Pave Tool Innovators. Go check out pave tool.com and don't forget to use our coupon code. Molder Outdoors 50 synced up project management software. Go check them out. Syncedup.com and Albanese candy Factory, the official candy of the Motorlife podcast. Guys, we'll catch you on the next one. One. Thanks.
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This has been a molder outdoors and Mr. Producer production.