← The Mulder Life Podcast
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Welcome to this week's episode of the Molded Life podcast, a live show featuring your questions about all things landscaping, equipment, business and life. Join our live show weekly on Instagram Older outdoors 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 tow 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 am excited to be here with you guys tonight. Still in my work clothes which is pretty much typically how it ends up being right now because we're just I got home at 6 o', clock, roughly ate some dinner, went for a walk with my family and then went back on my office and worked until right before this and came over here and I'm gonna do this podcast with you guys and I'm excited, excited to be with here with you guys in the NCON Studios Ncon Tilt Rotators. More on that in a minute. Also CMP Attachments is their sponsor this week and synced up project management software. Go check out synced up.com go check out CMP attachments.com and thank you to NCON for being our studio sponsor. Guys, we're just going to say it. I'm probably going to say it every week until the event but July 25th at our shop in Crown Point, Indiana we are having an Incon demo day as well as the Molder, the brand new shop open house open to the to anybody that would like to come, contractors, your families. It can be it's going to be a family friendly event. The link for the registration or the RSVP is in my is it's going to be in the bio of the podcast. So Mr. Producer, if you're listening, which I'm sure you are if you could go ahead and he will add the link to the bio or to the show notes of for the open house and it's just right on our website molder outdoors.com you can scroll down and you can RSVP for the event and if you RSVP number one it helps us be able to plan for food and for everything because it's hard to gauge how many people are going to come to this and also you will get a free T shirt and the only way you're going to get a free T shirt is the T shirt is going to be a event specific T shirt. It will have all the Sponsors on the back of it. It's going to be cool. I don't know exactly what it's going to look like yet because we're in the middle of designing it right now. But it's going to be cool. And the only way you get one of those T shirts is if you RSVP on the website. You and your whole family can sign up. Everybody in your family can get a T shirt. There will also be sweat. There also be like goodie bags from. From our company. Other sponsors that may be putting other things in those goodie bags. It's going to be awesome, guys. Bounce houses, sand box. I'm going to build some kind of big sandbox. We're going to have at least 6 to 10 excavators with n cons that people can run. CMP attachments is going to be there. They're a sponsor. They're going to have. I mean, I have a lot of CMP's attachments. So all of the, all of my attachments will be there. A couple guys from C and P will be there. Synced up will be there. They'll be a sponsor or they are a sponsor. Precision truck equipment, that's the company that makes all of our dump trucks. They will be there. They will have two other trucks there, I believe bigger trucks that are. That they're building. And that's going to be exciting to see, man. What else? Ad equipment going to have a road to star screening bucket there. My rotostar screening bucket will be there. Obviously. I don't know if they will be bringing other rotostar buckets or if they're going to bring any MB crushing buckets. I know they sometimes are able to do that. I don't know. I'm hoping they do something like that. I got to talk with them about that. Unilock will be there. Unilock Brick. They will be a sponsor. A few different landscape supply centers. Heritage landscape supply is. Is a sponsor of the event. Westside tractor will be bringing a bunch of John Deere equipment. There's. Guys, it's just gonna be so sick. I'm very excited. It's gonna be 9am to 4pm you can come and go as you please. Everything is free. The drinks will be free. The tacos will be free. The burgers and hot dogs will be free. There'll be donuts in the morning. There'll be Vito's ice in the afternoon which is like an Italian ice place by us. It's just gonna be so cool. Guys. I'm. I. I'm inviting anybody that would like to come again. You can get the address. You can get a hotel room block, Get a deal from our hotel room block. All of that is on our website when you rsvp, so be sure to go check that out. And again, you can come without RSVPing, but it's very helpful to us to have the RSVP, and by doing that, you'll get this free T shirt. And so we're trying to motivate everyone to use the RSVP and be sure to sign up so we know that you're coming. What else is going on, guys? I did not put a question box up today during the day because I was just too busy. It was a classic Monday. I had my Monday morning. Every Monday morning, I have a call with my finance manager and my office manager, and that call lasted for about an hour. That was after the guys. I got my guys out the gate and rolling on their jobs. I had two meetings with two, like, short things. I had to go over with things inside of the shop with the plumber and the project manager. And. And then what else. What else did I do today? I. My AV guy started today, so he's working on cameras and network stuff and this big rack with all kinds of crazy wires. And. I don't know. The shop is looking so cool. It's very close to being done. It's gonna be done by the open house, I can assure you. Hopefully, no, it'll be done. We're getting. The outside is all prepped for the concrete apron. That's gonna be sweet. The heat. One of the heaters got put up today, and they're working on that. I'm assuming the other one goes up tomorrow. Man, it's just. It's exciting, guys. The offices are looking really close. I got a bunch of furniture that we got figured out over the weekend, and I'm going to be ordering that soon, man. It's just. There's a lot of things to do still. But it's very close. It's very close, and that's very exciting for me and for our team. And I'm glad that we're doing the open house with this encon demo day, because it's kind of like. It gives you a date to, like, be motivated to, like, get it ready to go, you know what I mean? There's going to be a million things to do as usual, but I know we'll get it done, and it's going to be sweet. We're also having the busiest year of my entire Business career. So I thought that we were going to have some more time with my guys to do different things, but it's turning out that is not the case. We are. Like, tomorrow I have a meeting, a pretty big design presentation and meeting with a customer. And if we get that job, I mean, it's. I. I don't know. I. I'm not gonna say that we're not gonna take any more work. Cause that's. We're definitely gonna take more work. It's just gonna feel like we are, like, booked solid. It's not the case. But I'm gonna have to do some serious looking at the calendar. Don't know, like, okay, where. Where does this put us? Because, like, I may have said this last week, a friend of mine said that he doesn't have a schedule. He has a list, and that's kind of how it feels. And so, like, I have a hard time figuring out what my. Like, where we booked till sort of thing. I have a hard time, like, figuring that out right now because I don't really know, like, where we're at compared to what I thought we should have been at. I don't know if any of that's making sense, but we just have a ton of work, and every day we're going out there and being. Trying to be productive. That's basically what it boils down to. And I'm sure there's lots of people that feel the same way. It's. I'm very great. I'm so grateful for how the season's been going so far. It's. It's very cool. So Breck Shred says, how does it feel to be so close to completing the shop? It feels amazing. That's what I was saying. It feels. I. I didn't notice that you said that. Dude, I'm sorry. It feels incredible when I walked in there today, and, like, at the end of the day, and I'm just like, what even is this? Like, it's everything that I had planned on and everything that I drew and everything that we designed and all these different types of things. But, like, now it's, like, actually happening, and it's not actually happening. It's almost done. And it's like this. It's this huge hurdle that I've been working towards jumping over for 12 years. And we're like. We're at the, you know, at the finish line of building it. And then, of course, you have the moving in, and there's other. A lot of things to do. I understand that. And. But like, it's a goal that like I always had out there and I, I knew we would do it, but it's like it's happening. That's why I'm like, I'm super excited to do this open house and to share it with everybody because like I've been sharing my business life on the Internet for the entire, my entire career in business, which is, this is the 12th season and I've been sharing every step of the way, basically. I mean, I'm pretty open about what I share online. I mean, I also have this podcast that I talk for an hour every week for the last three or four years.
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It only feels right that we have this open house to welcome. Anybody that's been following us for a long time wants to make the trip. I understand travel is expensive and gas is expensive and plane tickets are expensive. But if you want to come and check it out, I mean, I want to show you. I want to share it with, with the people that have been watching for us for years. I will admit I don't think I've done that many stories about the building than what I probably should have. I don't know, sometimes, I mean, just being a little vulnerable here. I guess sometimes I feel a little self conscious of sharing a ton about the building for some reason. I don't know why I feel that way because I know a lot of people like to see that stuff. I don't know, I just. We've also been really busy and I've had to really focus on the business and keeping things moving and we've talked about that before. But I just, I think the open house will be really cool. I know a lot of good friends are gonna Come. A lot of family is gonna come. And then anybody again, anybody that's been listening to this podcast, anybody that's been watching us online follows us on YouTube. I want you to come. I want you to come check it out. I want to have you walk around and. And hang out and bring your family. And I just. It's so cool. And it's. I'm just. I'm so blessed to be able to do it. And God's blessed our company in more ways than I ever would have dreamed. And I want to. I want to share it with anybody that wants to come and check it out. So that's why the event is free. I didn't want to charge anybody to come. I didn't want anybody to have to pay for food. All of it is free. The real Cole Graham says, just moved in our new shop today. Super pumped. Pumped to see yours finish. Ours is not close to your scale. Well, that is super cool, Cole. How long. I mean, is this your first shop? Like, I'd love to hear a little more about it. Where are you from? I'd love to. I'd love to. To know about. More about that. Congratulations. That is so exciting. Hometown.850 says, on your process of landscape designs, do you charge up front or do you include it in the overall proposal? I've done a lot of. I've done a lot of different things. I don't have a standard thing. I really don't. There's jobs that I have not charged for designs. There's jobs that I have charged for designs. There's jobs where I've charged for the design before we did the design. And there's projects like the one that I'm presenting tomorrow that I told him how much the design was going to cost and I did not collect payment up front. But he's well aware that if he doesn't use us for this project that he will be getting an invoice. I've done projects where I told them that. I told them that if you don't use us, you will be charged. If you do, you're not going to be charged. I've toy. I've messed around with different pricing on the design, work different amounts, lump sum hourly. I can't seem to find, like, what I want to con, like a standardization of it. I'm sorry, I know that maybe sounds unprofessional, but you got to understand too, like, sometimes, like some of these leads that we have, it's. It. I would say it's quite unique. Some of these leads and where we're getting them from. Like, I, We're. I'm not going to sit here and say, like, we're going to do the job guaranteed, because there's never a guarantee. But, like, we're gonna do the job and they're. They want us to do the job. And I'm not gonna sit there and nickel and dime them on a project that is. I'm not even gonna say how much it's. Theirs are large projects, and we are the contractor they're gonna use and. Or we're friends or we know each other in, like, a really. I don't know. It's very hard to explain, like, the complexities of some of the relationships that we've been able to develop and then how we've gotten the jobs. I think that it's quite unique. I really do. And so some of those projects, I don't charge for the design. So I do think as a. I do it, charging for the. For a design is the right thing to do. But I do think that there's some nuance to that here and there with who your client is, what the relationship is, all those things. I just think that it's. I've just toyed around with so many different things. I never feel like I've come to the. To the right thing to do across the board. It's just not always that easy, I guess, is what I'm saying. Breck. Shred, man. I would totally come if I can make it. If I can make it happen. Dude, come book the ticket, bro. Hotels. 5 Hotel is like 10 minutes away. Easy access from the airport. It's about an hour from Midway Airport. So if you're gonna fly in, Midway would be the closest. You also could fly into o'. Hare. That's a little farther away. It's about an hour and a half. Midway is about an hour. Yeah. Love to have you, man. I also forgot to say, Stephanie Kauser from Kauser Consulting will be there. She will. She will be at the open house. She does all of our books. She's my finance manager. NG Lawn Care. Do you know by chance how many tons of millings you put down in your property? Okay, how many tons of millings? So there was 150 loads roughly when I bought the property that were already there. So 150 loads there. So say, let's see here. 150 on average. We'll call it 15 ton loads. That's just average. It. I doubt they were 20 ton loads because usually they come in on like a tri axle or like they don't come in on quads like big trucks. So that was 25, 2200 tons of millings for that. That did roughly three quarters of the parking lot. And then I got another 200 loads last summer. I got like 100. I lost count. I got 150 to 200 loads. And so that would have been. But I did not spread all of that. We ended up with a pile and we measured it. I measured that pile with my rover. I measured that pile with my rover a couple weeks ago actually. And that pile was. I thought I wrote it down. Let's see here. And I thought it wrote. I think it was 250 yards is in the pile that I have. I don't know how many tons per. How many tons per yard a yard of millings is. But I bet you if I would have to get out a calculator, I'm guessing that we got, man. And then there was 1.5 tons per yard. So it's 250 divided by 1.5. 160 tons roughly is in that pile. Man. I bet you we had to have gotten more than that then. 160 divided by 15. That's only. Oh, that's only 11 semi loads. Yeah. I probably spread at least, I would say another 150 loads. So 300, we'll call it 300 loads times 15 tons. Roughly 4,000 to 5,000 tons of millings what we had to use for our property. I also brought in 100 tons of 3, 4 clean for the base of. Multiply it. Yeah, duh. What am I saying? Sorry. That was really stupid. Times 1.5. Yeah. 375 tons. That sounds more like what that pile is. Sorry, I'm just. I'm just a dirt scratcher. Sorry. So yeah, I would say we had about 5,000 tons of millings roughly to do the whole parking lot. I also had to do a crazy amount of millings getting up to the building. That played a huge part in that. So you got to think about that. I also have a big area behind the bin pad that we put a bunch of millings there. I think that all would play into that. 5,000 tons. That sounds like an insane amount of tonnage. But that's probably what it took. And then like I said a hun. Roughly 100 to 120 tons of three quarter clean underneath my bin pad the other day we just brought in. How many loads did we bring in the other day for the bin pad? I mean for the, for the concrete apron. We had that all excavated out and then brought in millings. I mean, brought in three quarter clean for the base of that. We brought in a hundred tons for that. We just got the bill for that. Yeah, brought in a hundred tons for that. So I. And then the building pad has a bunch of stone on it, which I don't know how many. There's. There's 8 inches of stone that is underneath the building. And that was probably every bit of 250 tons. So we're roughly up to like 5,500 tons of material. Roughly. That doesn't count for the massive amount of clay that we had to raise the building pad, which we had to raise the building pad six feet. So that was crazy. But I did not pay for any of the millings that came to the property. None. 150 loads were there when I got the property that came with the property. And then I got hooked up with a milling company that was milling a subdivision. And by the grace of God, they brought loads on loads on loads for about 10 days straight. I pushed millings for 10 days straight and managed the trucks to get all these loads. And it was the most incredible. Every day I was like, I couldn't stop smiling because I was getting all these millings for free. And they. I was close to their job site and it just kept on. They just kept on coming. And it was such a blessing, I'm telling you. Like, I was like, how are we ever gonna. How am I ever gonna get this parking lot done without. I mean I. Obviously you can buy them, but like I needed so many so much. I don't know. Just such a blessing, guys. And I'm always looking for more. I am, I just. I'm always looking for more. I mean, I'm always like dropping off my card. With guys that are milling roads that are relatively close to the shop, you never know what they're going to call you. You never know when they're about to do a street that's right down the street from your shop. You just never know. So I'm always stopping asking and you never know what's going to happen. So it was truly like we just happened to start working in this neighborhood. And I happened to come to the job site when the job foreman was walk was driving through, putting out these do not park signs. And I was like, you know what? Nah, I'll just stop him and say ask him. And it was actually, it was. I just remembered it wasn't the milling guy, it was the city guy. The city guy was putting out signs. And I said, hey, are they going to mill this road? He goes, yeah. I said, do you know the company that's doing it? And he told me who it was. And I'm like, is there any way you have, like, a contact for them? Because I'd love to be able to get some of the millings from the subdivision. And. And he called them right there while I was sitting there by his truck and got somebody on the phone, and we exchanged numbers, and he called me and ended up meeting me then at my shop and was like, wow, this is a perfect spot. It's super close to the job site. This is going to save us a ton of money in trucking. Like, a ton of money in trucking. And, yeah, I, I, he said, we'll, you know, we'll bring you probably 20 to 30 loads and. And then we'll go from there. I'm like, amazing. I was. Anything that he was willing to bring, I was willing to take. He brings 20 loads. The first day, he's like, all right, well, we'll see you tomorrow. And I'm like, okay. The next day, 20, 30 loads. The next day, 20, 30loads. One of the days I wrote down, I just, I noticed my, I made notes. This. This all happened last year in August. Like, I, I tried to track the loads. So, yeah, this was one. The first day I got 20 loads, it was basically a load every 20 minutes. That's what I was getting. And then after that, I couldn't keep track of it. It just came too much. It just kept coming, and. And it just went and went and went. And then one day, he's like, all right, that's gonna be it. I'm like, I can't even believe what just happened. Thank you so much. I got him some. I got him some merch. I gave him some cash, some lunch money, and those millings kept showing up. I'm telling you, it was like. It was like manna from heaven. I mean, I'm telling you, my parking lot would still not be done today unless I would have paid a ton of money. I mean, if you're buying. If we had, say it's four. Say. I say I got. Say I needed 150 loads. Like, just needed it to finish. Times roughly call it 200 a load. $30,000. I mean, that's just a rough estimate. I mean, it just depends on what people are selling. Their. The trucking, that. The trucking is what kills you. It's not the millings. It's the trucking. And I would the trucking was free and it was all because they were going to drive it like 45 minutes to an hour away. And my job was 10 minutes away. So think about how much money they saved on that job. Ultimately made more profit on the job because they didn't have to do that. So that's just how it worked, man. It just was so cool. We just ng lawn care. Breckshard says you're always humble and grateful when you share this stuff. Don't feel bad. Thanks, dude. I appreciate that. I guess that's the thing with the building is sometimes I, I don't want to come across as like, look at how cool I am. I don't, I, I don't. I've struggled with that and sharing a lot of it on my stories. We have a YouTube channel and, and you can watch a lot of it on there that is strictly just so I have record. And I think it's cool to have the, the footage of the whole build process. But for some reason on Instagram, I've felt, I have felt weird through the building process that, I don't know, I just, I would, I started to feel weird about it and I don't want to feel weird about it and I don't want people to think that it was easy to do it. I don't want people to think that, you know, I, I don't want it to be like, oh man, no speed noise. I mean, obviously we've worked our butts off to do that to, to be able to do what we're doing. And, and I just, I don't wanna, I don't want to be a show off. So I, I, I'm glad, Brexure that you said that. I'm glad that it doesn't come off like that. I don't, I, that's very important to me and I'm, I'm glad to hear that it doesn't come off like that. I will share more of it as it gets done and, and I'll do a walk around of the building and all that stuff and, but if you want a lot of details on the building, I also know that, like, I don't need to like, fill my entire page up with stuff about the shop. You know, not everybody wants to see that either. So it's, it's kind of like threading the needle on what's, you know, what's appropriate to share. What do people want to see?
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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's cmpattachments.com Angelon Care says we just closed on our property for. I already read that. What am I talking about? Oh no, we already. We just closed our property for a shop a month and a half ago. Lots of clay. I have to cut out before adding millings. Awesome, dude. So fun. The real Cole Graham, he was the one that said they just built a shop. I don't know my. I thought my phone was on silent. He says, we're out of Mina Min Mintoka, Minnesota. I'm sorry, Minato, I believe that's right. Found a shop right in the heart of our service area. Got free pallet racking and stacked those plows up. Sick. That's awesome. So cool. Breck shirt. At least five. Okay. Martin. Gene. What up, dude? He says when it, when it's meant to be, things fall into place. When it's meant to be. Oh, millings for days. Yeah, I'll just, I'll never forget when all those millings came. I'm telling you, it was like I almost could have cried every day. It was just like, we're gonna literally get the parking lot done. That was, it was one of those things. Like, I didn't think we'd get the parking lot done before the building went up because I just kept thinking, okay, like, I'll make a little path so the guys can get up to where the building pad is. And you know, we have time. You know, I don't care if it takes two years to get this parking lot done. Like, we'll get it done. We'll just keep looking for millings, they'll come up, something will happen, blah, blah, blah. And it just happened. And it was, it happened so fast. I just, I had that SVL 972 at the time. And I just pushed so many piles of millings. And then I also ended up getting a bunch of black dirt. Now, I did have to pay for that because we needed a bunch of black dirt on the sides. The property was just low in general, so it just took a lot of earthwork. My earthwork guy, Adam, did a phenomenal job, like turning water into wine. I mean, he just, like, created clay. I. I don't know how we got it done. Somehow we got it done. And so I'm really grateful to him, and I'm really grateful that I had him do the earthwork because he was really resourceful, and it just. The property was low. We needed material, and we were. We didn't have enough. There wasn't enough material on site. There was too much black dirt. We ended up still being short on black dirt. I probably brought in. Oh, man, let me think. I probably brought in 50 to 60 loads of black dirt to fix the grade on the north side of the building. And then I think another 25 loads on the east side of the building to get that slope better how I wanted it. It's just crazy. Like, the material goes so fast. So I. I spent a good bit of on. On dirt to get dirt up to where it was. But I also, I. I know, you know, and have relationships with lots of different people in the earthwork area. And again, the. Some of the time the dirt was free, but you had to pay for the trucking. And I probably had, I don't know, a week or two worth of trucking for two semis and whatever, 150 bucks an hour, I think it was at the time. And you just. They send you the bill and you got to pay it. I mean, the material is the one is one thing, but the trucking is never going to be free. I mean. I mean, never say never, because I got all the milling with the trucking for free. And that was, again, super rare occurrence. It's just crazy. I don't know. I still. So now that they dug out the pad in front of my building, now I have another big pile of millings we need to move now. And I'm trying to decide where to put it, because I don't want to move it twice, and I won't. I'm going to use the millings for the next building pad whenever we get ready to build another building, because on that property, I'm planning to build three other buildings on that property. Those buildings will be for, like, rental or leased space. And so I really want to try and think about where I want to put this pile because if we put in the wrong spot, we're gonna have to move it again. And I don't really want to move it again. So I don't know. I just gotta really think about what the right thing to do is with that and where to put it. But we'll figure it out. It's all good. If anybody has any questions out there, I can please feel free to drop them in the comments if you want to hear about anything. If you have again, landscaping, equipment, business, life, whatever you guys want to talk about, we can talk about. I did not spend much time preparing for this episode because I just frankly have had almost no time lately to do that. And I did write down before we started, for some reason it came to my mind, I wrote down prioritizing your time. And I don't know why that came to me. I just feel like lately for me in running the business, I've had to be very, very intentional about my time and how I'm using it and not wasting a lot of time. That's why you haven't seen me posting a ton on social media. I post, but not as much as I had been specifically on jobs. I will post random stuff when I'm driving somewhere, but I just haven't. I haven't been able to. Not been able to. I've purposely not spent as much time on social media because I can't. I have to prioritize the business right now. And I've just had to really focus on the design work and the estimating work. And if I didn't do that, I would be so far behind. I'm behind every day, I would say, but I would be so far behind if I didn't do what I've been doing over the last two months, really. And I think I'm starting to see the fruits of my labor in that way, which is, which is exciting. But I just, for some reason, when I sat down tonight to do this podcast, I wrote down prioritizing your time. I would say something that, I mean, I've been doing even more work at night and I have had to go back to some of that stuff after my kids go to bed. I get home at 6. Typically it's 6 every day right now. I'm out the door by 6:30 in the morning. And typically a typical morning, typical day for me right now is I get up at 5:50, I make breakfast for my boys and for my wife and I get my things together, I get my boys up about 6:30 and their breakfast is on the table ready for them. And I get ready and I leave and I'm at the shop by 6:45. It's 15 minutes or 13 minutes from my house. 6:45 roughly. I get to work sometimes when I need to get there early, I'll get there early. I mean I'll leave at 5:30 if I have to sometimes. But I try to help my wife get out the door. She goes to work every day as well. And she brings the kids to school pretty much every day. Fridays I usually bring the boys to school just to. She doesn't go into the office on Fridays so I try to let her stay home on Fridays as much as I can. And I bring the boys to school on Fridays. But normally during the week she takes care of everything. She picks them up, she brings them. She also goes to work every day. So I try and help in breakfast, getting the boys breakfast and getting them out of bed and getting them rolling. And so I don't usually get to work at 6. That's not usually for me is getting to work at 6 or something like that. Now summer's coming up for me or for the, for my boys, they'll be out of school here in a little bit and I probably will start going into work even earlier then because I don't have to, I don't have to help them get out the door. And so yeah, I'll probably, I'll probably start going in earlier than in the summer when they're not, they don't have to get up for school. And by seven we're, you know, everybody is there. Obviously we start at 7 every day, go over the jobs that we have to do. What do the guys need? What, what are their tasks for the day? And then the two crews go, leave, the maintenance crew leaves and I usually have to go in the building and meet with somebody and just make, ask if anybody has any questions that's been lately specifically on these finishing touches on the buildings because I've been adding some things and I added something this morning inside of me with the electrician and I told them all today, I said, you guys need to get this building done soon because the longer you take, the more stuff I think about and the more stuff that I add. So you need to please, just please finish the building or don't let me walk in here anymore. But anyways. And then I'm on my computer and I'm pretty much on my computer exclusively most of the day right now. And then anytime the guys need something or I need to order materials or I need to go out and look at something. I have been hands off tools the most I've ever been this year. I can't remember the last time. I can remember. I hardly ever run equipment right now because I just have to really focus on selling work and designing work. And I really want to keep pushing the momentum that we have. And we do that by me staying doing what I'm doing. And the guys have been doing so good. I'm just so proud of them. But like today they had a problem on the job site. They needed something that they didn't have. My, my maintenance manager called me who he was on the job site with them. They were doing a mulching job and he needed something. He's like, hey, can you do this? And I'm like, yeah. So I ran to the supplier, got what we needed, I brought it over there and they were able to get the job done. And they were back at the shop by 5 and off by 5:30. So I just, sometimes I follow my phone, sometimes I follow my email. Sometimes I am able to stay focused, but I try as much as I can to prioritize my time and stay focused on what needs to be done. I've had to be better about making to do lists because I get really overwhelmed by the amount of things that I need to do. And so daily to do daily to do lists for me has helped me just not forget what I need to do and make sure I get done what I have to get done. I don't do it enough. But whenever I get really worked up, not literally worked up, like I'm not a, I'm not an anxious person. I just, I don't really have anxiety, but I do worry and I do sometimes feel a little overwhelmed. But if I stop and I make a list and write down all these things, then it's like, okay, now I can see it. I don't feel like I have to hold it all up here. I have a, a to do list that my office manager sends me every single day. Every single day. She texts me my calendar for the week. Usually a five day calendar written out. And she gets that from my actual calendar, but it just helps me. I get the text message and I can see it written out, even though I can open up my calendar getting that from her, super helpful. And then on the bottom of that is a to do list and basically like a little snippet of like where I am at with certain customers and what. And these are things that I've told her that I need her to stay on me about and that's what she does. So that's super helpful to me as well to, to make sure that I'm prioritizing my time and not letting people get strung out too long. Right now there's definitely a list of about five people, four people that it's been too long. But we have communicated with them. They know. But it's to me, in my mind it's been too long and so I'm just trying to do as much as I can. And it's a fine line between prioritizing the, the, the irons that you already have in the fire and then deciding when you want to add a new one into that fire. You know what I mean? So I just, it just feels like I'm kind of juggling things from a, from an estimate and a design standpoint, not from a job standpoint. I don't feel stressed about work like doing the actual work right now. To me, for me, the biggest thing right now is juggling the designs where each one is at, design changes, estimating appropriately, making sure I'm focusing when I'm doing the estimating, to not get too hasty and forgetting something.
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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'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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Gene says whoever laid out and did that coping on the job you shared last week looked. Sure looked great. Those lines. Yeah, my foreman Colin and and Jaime who work on that crew, they have just done a phenomenal job with that coping on that job. It's very. I, I tried to explain this. I don't know who I was talking to this project that we're working on, it is arguably. Not arguably, it is. It's the most precise job and rather complex project we've ever done. But when we're done, it's going to look like it is a simple. It was simple. And I. The reason that I think that is because it's going to look like everything fit together really well. But the only reason it looks like that is because we took an enormous amount of time making sure that it was gonna fit well. Like paver size, coping size, where joints line up, where bond lines go. Like, I think that's the best way that I can explain it. It's very crisp and clean. It's very. I don't know, it's just precise. And because of that, it's very complex, but it should be very simple looking. That's not the right word. Simple. From like a. Like. Oh, yeah, that. All. All. Look at all those pavers just fit right in that area. That's amazing. Not amazing, but, like, yeah, the pavers fit in that area. You're just going to say that, right? Like, oh, it's whole. Folds in half. So obviously that's the patio. That's how you'd want the patio go. But what you don't understand is what it takes to make that happen. That people. There's a few people that will understand that. But it's very hard to do what we did up to where we're at right now and how we had to get to where we're at. Some of the walls we built from the top down, like, the levels, and typically you don't do that. And like, it was working on a big slope and you're starting down here and planning for up here. So that down here fits. Like, it's just. Yeah, it's. I guess that's just the best way that I can explain it. It's gonna be. It's gonna be. It's gonna be so clean that the complexity. Nobody accounts for the complexity. I think that's what I'm trying to say, I guess. And I also think there's things on the job that, like, I hate to say that, but, like, there's things that, like, okay, the next time we could plan better and we could have done that better. And I'm not even done. We're not even done yet. And I'm already like, man, the next time I would do this, like this. It's gorgeous and it's phenomenal and I'm very proud of it. But, like, I've said it before, like, We've done several very big jobs, very complex projects, all of them complex in their own way. But you always walk away thinking, next time I would do that like that, I wouldn't do it like that, or I would do this that way. And that, in my opinion is why we bring so much value to these clients and how we're doing projects, is because I have so much experience now doing projects that like, are one of a kind masterpieces that like, you just, you can't just walk into these projects and do it and, and have it look the way that we're making them look without experience. And five, five years ago, eight years ago, there's no way that we could do what we're doing today. And that's growth, right? You learn, you get better. You learn from your mistakes. You not even from your mistakes. Sometimes I go to a project and I'm like, that project is unbelievable. It's gorgeous. But now looking at it, I think I would do this thing this way. So even if something is really good, you still can look at it and learn from it, I guess, is what I'm saying. Have you learned Setimoio. Sorry, dude, if I'm butchered. Your last name? Kevin. Have you worked with Grand Ledge yet? I. Thoughts? Tips. I know it's somewhat simple, so more on the thoughts side, I guess. I have not used Grand Ledge. I've used a product, a natural stone product that's very similar, I would say. Oh, I Inka Stone. I'll get back to that. We use a product from Amborn Stone called Kansas Milled, I think he calls it. It's very similar to Grand Ledge, I believe, but I have never used Grand Ledge. It looks like it would be really nice to work with, though. I would install it with a grapple. So if A rotating grapple. Cmp. Rotating grapple, if I must say so myself. Go back up here. Inca Stone. If you could be a quote unquote tycoon of any other industry, what would it be? Dude, I. I don't even know. I mean, are there any other tycoons other than landscaping tycoons? Like, that's. I guess that's a question. Like in other spaces, like, are there like plumber tycoons that are out there, like selling how to run your plumbing business? Are there restaurant tycoons that will tell you how to run your restaurant? Or like, what about like the guy that owns like a. I'm just looking at a product over here, like Rubbermaid that makes these garbage cans right here, like a garbage can manufacturing Tycoon. Oh, dude, don't even get me started. How many hours Sightscapes Inc. Says, how many hours a week are your construction guys running? Do you work Saturdays? We do not work Saturdays. We have worked one Saturday this year so far, and that was strictly because I needed to work in the shop and do something at the shop. Cost me a ton of money to work at the shop that day, but we had to do it. No, we do not work Saturdays. And Roughly, they're working seven to six. Roughly. Right now is roughly the hour. So 55 hours a week. It's very rare that they're working over that. I would say that's roughly what they're working right now. A gummy bear tycoon. I mean, maybe there's someone out there that's like, selling how to make gummy bears and how to be. How to just be the best gummy bear company you can be. And they're. They're called the Gummy Bear Tycoon. I mean, I don't know. Bret says we have the same thing with retaining walls and stuff, where it fits perfectly and people ask why it took so long. Exactly. Clean Freak says clean, absolutely, dude. For sure. Johnson Construction says, What's up, bud? Just wanted to slip in and tell you something. You may not even realize how much of an. How much of an asset you are to young people. Thanks for all you do to share and teach. Thanks, man. I greatly appreciate that. Oh, that was really kind. Thank you. Stone Bench System says, love to see the updates on that project. Thank you. I will continue to do that. That project is something special. It's really. It's one of a kind, for sure. There's things still that we're going to do there that I have never seen. Like the bed edging that we're doing is something that I've never seen anyone do before. It's just. Oh, man, the whole project is crisp. It's just gonna be. I don't know. It's special. It's just a special place. Berkshire says you also designed the project with simplicity of paver fitting in mind so the project looks cleaner and easier to install. So the project. Yeah, it does. It. It. The pavers themselves, we have done the job in a way where the paver installation is arguably the easiest it could be. But getting to that point is extremely difficult. Johnson Construction company says, I was in Hardscape years ago and moved into Earthwork, but have taken many ideas from you and use them. Thank you, man. That's. That is super cool. Super cool, guys. I think we're gonna wrap this one up. Great talk. We talked about a bunch of different stuff tonight. And sometimes I go into these podcasts where I didn't prepare like I should have, and I'm like, man, what are we gonna talk about tonight? Like, is anyone even gonna be listening live to be able to ask questions? And, you know, we've been doing this for 100. I think this episode is 170. I think. I think it's episode 170. And it never ceases to amaze me the things that we get to talk about and the questions that are asked. And I'm just grateful to be here with you guys and I'm grateful for the people that tune in and ask questions live. It's super helpful for the conversation and I'm looking forward to more episodes as they continue to as they continue to come. So thanks to synced up project management software. Go check them out. Synced up.com CMP attachments.com Go check them out. Our studio sponsor, ncon tilt rotators. Don't forget about the encon demo day at our shop. July 25th. Open house to the new shop. The whole thing's going to be free. Go to Mulder Outdoors to RSVP and guys, we'll catch you on the next one. Thanks.
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This has been a Mulder Outdoors and Mr. Producer Production.