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Foreign. 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 molderoutdoors 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 in the NCON Studios Ncon Tilt rotators. Thank you to them for being our studio sponsor. Also Pave Tool Innovators, Pave Tool.com go and check out their website. Hybrid edging, suction equipment, all kinds of hammers and adjusters. You know there's something recently that we used quite a bit is that it shows it on their banner. It's. It's this tool right down here. It's like a. It's got a hammer on one side and it has a little pry bar on the other side. And we have been using that thing a ton. We actually really really like that. And so yeah, go to go to pavetool.com and use the coupon code Molder Outdoors 50 and you will save yourself some money at checkout. Also synced up synced up project management software. Cut estimating time by 90% and actually make a profit. I highly encourage you to go check out synced up. Speaking of ncon encon, our studio sponsor I want to again remind you that July 25th is our open house Molder outdoors brand new shop open house from 9:00am to 4:00pm It's a Saturday. It is also in conjunction with an ENCON demo day. It's our first ever ENCON demo day. There will be at least eight excavators there with tilt rotators. All different sizes of tilt rotators from the littlest one that they sell all the way up to one of the biggest that they sell. There'll be a lot of different sizes you can get on them. You can try them, you can run them after you send the waiver of course. It's going to be really really cool. I'm very excited for the event. We have a bunch of other companies that will be part of it. Pave tool will be there. Synced up will be there. Ad equipment, C and P attachments. Let me pull up the list here. Ncon obviously Enconnemino Westside John Deere which is our big John Deere dealership around here. They're going to have be here with a bunch of excavators and other kinds of equipment. Heritage Landscape Supply Ad equipment, Kauser Consulting Pave Tool, Precision Truck Equipment, Ozinga Synced up UniLock CMP attachments, NeenMeyers, which is our local landscape supplier that we use. Tiltech Advanced Equipment, which is our mobile mechanic. The great escape McCullough implement or McCullough Kubota Edenstone and also Lumion Lighting will be there as well. And guys, it's going to be super cool. It's from 9am to 4pm I highly encourage you if you can come out and make the day of it. Bring your family. There's stuff for the whole family. There's free food all day. The whole event is free. You don't have to pay for anything. And the RSVP to get a free T shirt. That's how you're going to get a T shirt. You need RSVPolder outdoors.com by Wednesday. Today, getting a free T shirt part of RSVP will be closed. We have to place the T shirt order. And so it's very important that you RSVP by this Wednesday if you can. And that way you can ensure that you will get a free T shirt in the size that you would like. Yeah, it's going to be super cool, guys. I'm really excited about it. So try an RSVP by this week. Obviously we'll take RSVP after that, but your chances of getting a teacher then are way slimmer because we won't have your specific size. So yeah, it's going to be really cool, guys. I'm really, really excited and I'm praying for good weather. The real Elliot Miller says, are you in the new shop? I am currently not in the new shop. I am in our other the old building where I've been doing the podcast here for years. I'm still doing it here because I'm not ready to move all my equipment over there. And also I don't have a dedicated room there yet. And if I did it in the actual shop, I think the echo would be kind of bad. And I haven't moved it. I just haven't decided if I want to make one of the offices there into a studio. I really would like to build a more. You know, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to move it over there. I'm going to do it like a dedicated studio and I'm going to build it in the loft one day. But right Now I'm going to continue to do it here. This is also very close to my house. I can walk over here basically to this building where I do it and that it is kind of convenient to do that. So right now I'm still doing it in here. But today we got an approval that we've been waiting on for about two weeks from our surveyor's office, which is like the stormwater and all those types of things. They approved my as build, which is the survey of the property that checks all the pond volumes and all those different types of things. Basically your erosion where the water runs, the inlet and outlet of the ponds and my culvert pipe and all these different kinds of things. They approved that today, which was a big hurdle in getting occupancy. We don't have occupancy yet. Tomorrow, I believe we are getting the final inspection in the building. And I am hoping and praying that after tomorrow we will have occupancy of our shop. Really praying that that goes through tomorrow. Yeah, we, we have been working our rear ends off in the building, getting things put away. I haven't shown much of that yet, frankly. I just been really busy. I've been going from 5:30 in the morning until 7:00 clock at night, working after my kids go to bed because I'm not getting as much office time during the day because we're doing so much stuff. We have two jobs going on every single day, plus selling, plus designing, plus trying to move into the shop, plus trying to get occupancy in the building. It's just. It's been a really busy time for me. Yeah. So I just, I haven't shown a ton of it how it looks lately. But it's, it's extremely beautiful. And we last week, Saturday, we did a bunch of finishing of putting things back together and the whole shop is. It's seriously unbelievable. So I will do some more stories of that after we get occupancy. I think I'll wait until that's done and then do some stories showing how everything is. Currently all of our office furniture was delivered and it's put together. My son and my buddy's son worked last week about 30 or 40 hours putting together furniture and all that stuff. So it's, it's really ready for us to be operating out of there. But I can't legally operate out of there yet. And so I'm trying to be careful to make sure that they don't ding me for doing too much in there and all these different types of things. So we are very close, guys. It's. It's just absolutely incredible. The whole place and I again, the open house. You're going to be able to come and see it, walk through it, look at it, take pictures, whatever you want to do. It's. It's going to be the coolest. Let's see here. Questions that came in. Axe to grind firewood. What's going on? Thanks for being here tonight. Got a brand new Bobcat T66. Best thing ever. That's awesome, man. I've never ran a T66. That's cool. Jnam84 says, after that huge job on the lake a few years ago, did every other job feel underwhelming? As a designer and craftsman, do you feel excited about every job? That's a really good question. That's a really good question. I. That job. So what he's talking about is about four years ago, coming up on five years ago, we did a massive landscape and hardscape project. It was our entire season in one job. We had a crew, literally. It was basically almost the only job we ever did. The whole, we did the whole year. We started February 28th and we finished the week of Thanksgiving. And that was our season in one project. And the entire Build is on YouTube. You can go. It's called Building a landscape masterpiece. It's a 30 or 40 part series. I tried to do a video a week when we were doing that project. It's. I really need to do a re. An update video of the landscape masterpiece and I, you know what, I really should do that in the next three or four weeks because guys, right now, that place, I walked through it the other day and I, I took a bunch of videos of it. I haven't shared any of it yet, but it is truly one of the most incredible landscapes I've seen in our area. And I know I'm biased, but walking around that place is like, it's like an emotional experience. And I'm not kidding. Like it is. If you could see it and walk it and feel it and smell it, it's truly something extremely special. So anyways, the question was, did every other job feel underwhelming? As a designer and a craftsman, you know, you may think that, but no, that project was special. But those are rare. I mean, it's rare. I will say, like, I do feel like that project opened up some doors for us, many doors for us. And we've done some really, really cool stuff since then. I don't think anything that we've done has Topped that project. The other projects that we've done that have been larger scale are really special in their own way. The one that we're working on right now is really something, but it's a completely different feel and vibe. The one that we're working on right now is the biggest actual hard, actual patio space we've ever installed. The most amount of square footage.
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You sweat, you struggle, you're the first one there in the morning, the last one out at night. You don't need another issue to deal with. In fact, if someone or something could pull a few things off your plate, that'd be amazing, right? That's what synced up is for. How about we take care of the knowing your numbers part and streamline your operation for your cruise while we're at it? How would it sound to have every job priced for profit? Synced up does invoicing, scheduling, time tracking, and syncs with QuickBooks Online. All job info, notes, photos and lists are easily available to your crews. Even work hours are tracked for automatic payroll. And the big one, every job is job costed automatically. Visit syncedup.comsye and queen ke dup.com and book a demo today.
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The elements on that project, the landscape masterpiece. It's like nothing you've ever seen in our area. There's not anything like it in our area. I can assure you there's nothing. From what I know, there's nothing with that much natural stone that scale of a project. I don't think there's another project in our area that is like that one. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. In fact, I don't know, maybe the state of Indiana. I don't really know that it'd be. I'd be really interested to know that. I'm sure I'm. I'm sure I'm wrong, but it's really special. And so like, I don't. I haven't become bored with other projects. I would, I definitely wouldn't say anything is underwhelming. Our company is not. I as a company do not feel that we're a company that is above doing any size project even after doing that. I mean, that project, it's massive and huge and took us a whole year to install. But you know, I don't think I would do a project like that every single year. I don't think it would be good for my company to do a project like that every single year exactly like that. I mean, we had a big project after that that we did and that Took a long time, but the timing of it was different. We left, we came back, we did all the work. We came back. The one that we're on right now, we started a little bit in the summer last year, left for a little while, came in the fall, worked through the fall until winter, shut us down then. We've been there from the spring until it's July now, and we have had a crew there the entire time. We are going to do. We're going to finish some things there in the next two weeks. I would say two to three weeks, and then we're going to leave that project for probably a month and a half, and we're going to come back and landscape it in the fall. Plants, softscape, irrigation, all that stuff is going to happen in the fall and when the weather is better for planting, because that's a very complex planting palette. It's not something that I want to keep. Try and keep alive through the middle of the summer, and it will allow me to leave and go take up care of another project that we have in the works. The timing of it will work out really well. And I think, like, when you look at that project, the one that we're on right now, it's a bigger one. I just shared some photos of it the other day. It may not look like it was a project that basically took us a year to build. Cumulatively, I believe it will take us a year to build, but we didn't. When we did the landscape masterpiece, we had more people on that for the entire length of time. This project that we're on right now is something that we haven't been able to have as big of a crew there specifically because it's so intricate and so. So many details to make it perfect. It. You just can't do it fast. You can't. And that's why it's maybe seemed like it's taken longer, but you just don't have a choice. I mean, it's. It's so complex and just a lot of really wild details. So, I mean, at the end of the landscape masterpiece, the last month, we had like, 12 people working on that every single day to get that thing wrapped up by Thanksgiving. And anyways, do other jobs feel underwhelming as a designer? No, they don't. I think, like, the landscape masterpiece, that project didn't start out that big. It didn't. It only started out with, like, the backyard of. Of the client's house, and then it was the front yard, and then it was the pond, and then it was this part and then it was over here. And like, so it just felt like I kept getting more jobs, but it was all on the same project. Does that make sense? So it wasn't like I designed the whole thing at once and quoted the whole thing at once and then said, here you go. Do you want to do it? It wasn't like that. It just felt like every time something got added, I was like, oh, cool, we got another job today, but it's on the same project. I think maybe that's why, because I just looked at it. Every time we added something to that project, it was just another job basically. And it just happens to be for the same client. So I don't know. I definitely do not feel underwhelmed by other work that's smaller than that. But I most certainly go to that project now and I just walk around and it's. Seriously, for me, it's still a pinch me moment. And I mean this in the most sincere way. It's crazy to me that we did that. I mean, we've done lots of incredible work and I'm very proud of it. But that job, I am the most proud of that job. And the longer it sits there and weathers and matures, the more I'm. It's just so incredible. I really wish I could show, like, have everyone, whoever would want to come see it. I would love that. I don't know if that will ever. It will never happen. I mean, it's somebody's house, but it's just. It's beautiful. Do I feel excited about every other job? About every job? There's definitely jobs where I haven't felt super excited about it. But at the same time, like, I love what I do. I do. I have a passion for landscaping and hardscaping and a passion for running my business. And I love being outside. And every job has its good parts and its bad parts. The landscape masterpiece. There was parts of that job that were not fun to do. They weren't. And I think everyone can relate. There's not a job out there, a career path out there that you're going to love. Every single aspect of that career path, there's just not. I don't think there is. I truly love everything. I do. I really do. But there's definitely days when we have to do something that's just not fun. But I have tried my best to invest in things equipment wise, specifically to make tasks that are not fun, make them more manageable. Because there's things in landscaping that are so dang hard to do, but if you have the right equipment, it makes it like it's the easiest thing ever. So I don't, I don't know if I helped answer that question at all, but Airdron Landscaping said that job with all the black yukara wall and pavers is so clean looking. Thank you. I appreciate that. Do you cut all your brick on IQ saws or how do you keep everything so clean? That job we have not taken the IQ saw out once. I even can't even tell you the last time we used the IQ saw. We're going to use one here in a little while. We're going to do some brick edging on a new job, but for the most part we use demo saws for everything and we cut with water as much as we can and we also clean the job site. The most recent pictures that I posted, that was after the job was sanded and so the whole site had been cleaned. And then we run our sand, our Optimus sweeper on there from Pave Tool, go check them out. And that also scrubs the pavers, obviously. So, yeah, I do appreciate that though. That job is, like I said, it's really going to be something special when we're done. I hope that. I don't hope. I know that people will appreciate the craftsmanship that went into that project to get it to fit how it fits. I'm. I'm really proud of my team for this project. They really, really did a great job and captured what I was trying to do with it. And we worked a lot of hours working through measurements and working through everything on the project trying to get it perfect. And it's a near perfect project. We're not done yet, of course, but the hardscape part of that is about as perfect as you could get it perfect in the aspect of fit and finish. Working in full pieces, just squareness, like there's. It's really darn perfect. And how we built it, we had to do some of it from the top down, which is opposite of what you want to do. The pool wasn't there for a little while of it because then we would lose access. Like, logistically, that project took some planning and some work through to make sure that you were getting everything into this, into a said section before, before you lost access to it. And so that took some screwing around and just thinking, okay, guys, we're about to do this part and after we do this part, we can't get over here anymore. So if we're gonna do whatever we wanna do, we Better do it now because you're not going back. So there was a lot of things like that that you just had to like, stop for a minute, pause, look at the project, think about what you're doing, and make sure that you got it all, you know? J. Nam84, says, Change of topic. When you go to hire, how do you weed out the guys that are all talk? And how do you know if you're going to get a good employee? Oh, man. I mean, a lot of times I have to trust my gut. I really do. I've had. Two years ago, I was on a really hardcore hiring spree for a foreman and I. I had interviewed someone via phone twice and I, for some reason decided that I wanted to meet them in person, which I highly recommend that you can say whatever you want to say on an email or on an application or, or even on the phone, but you get them in person, you look them in the face, you see their body language, you. All these different things. And the second he got out of his car, I was like, I can tell that this isn't going to work. I even had that one time with a video call, a video interview. I thought everything sounded great on the phone, Great. I was like, I was going to hire this person. We got on a video call, and within five minutes, in my heart, in my mind, I was like, this isn't going to work. I could just tell. So I highly recommend you, if you're going to hire someone, you have to get them in person, talk with them, go for lunch with them, walk them around the yard, whatever, just see how they are, try and get them talking, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I highly recommend that. And sometimes you make a mistake, sometimes you think it's going to be somebody good and it's not. But I would say for the most part, every time I had a team member that I hired and then later had to unhire, which has been very rare. If I am really being honest with myself, looking back, I should have known better is what I'm trying to say. I should have known better. I should have. I just shouldn't have been so desperate. A lot of times it comes down to being desperate. It comes down to we had to fill the position and, and I think we all do those types of things at different times in our business, but it doesn't help. Ultimately, it doesn't help anything and we should have just not hired said person. So I, yeah, I think that's what I can say. I guess in the podcast format I think there's, you know, that's a really big topic. I am also not the king of making the correct hire all the time. I'm not. I've done my best over the last 12 years. Sometimes I've made a bad call, sometimes I've made the right call. But I will tell you, like right now, we have a team of. A team of seven. And I'm very thankful for each and every one of them. They are blessing in their own way in each with each one of them. And I am really grateful for the team we have. They're working really well together, in my opinion. Everybody seems to get along and the work is getting done and people are growing and getting better, if that makes sense. Hiring is the hardest. Hiring just people in general, it's the hardest part of our business. I think everyone would agree that it's the hardest part of any business is the people. It really is. Lucas Lieferman says, how has your business evolved into getting more quality hardscaping jobs? Trying to get more into design. Into design, build. Sorry, I. I'm tired. How has my business evolved? It's just been building blocks. The first hardscape project we ever did was for a lady from my wife's old church. She still goes to church with my father in law. She had a sidewalk that needed to be replaced and she asked us if we wanted to take out the concrete and put pavers. And we did that. I had never, we had done pavers for my old company where I had worked, but we did everything there the wrong way, in my opinion. And from that day, that small holland stone herringbone pattern. The first time I had ever done a herringbone pattern, not gonna lie, that was the first time I had ever done a herringbone pattern. Up until then, we had done running bonds or like, I don't know what they're called, like a basket weave style. Never had done a herringbone until that project. And that was the first year we were in business. We did that. Hand dug the patio out, rented a compactor, wheelbarrowed the stone in the whole deal.
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from that day it's been building blocks for 12 years to get to doing what we're doing today, which in my opinion, we are doing the best, most complex and highest end landscape jobs in northwest Indiana. And I, I don't feel bad saying that because I believe we are. There's definitely other big projects going on, but I think that we have been blessed to find the customers that want to work with us that value our project management, our design and our install and because of that will only use us or their friends say you should only use them. I lost a project two weeks ago now, a big project that we are going to start this fall. I spent a lot of time on that project. I thought I was going to get that project. In the end, we didn't get the project. And frankly, like, I feel bad for the client because I know where that project is going and I know for a fact that they are not going to get the value that we were going to provide. And I know for a fact that it's going to take longer than it should. And but I can't. I'm not the type of salesman to knock down other contractors. To them I think that's tacky. And at the end of the day you either want to work with us or you don't want to work with us. And I'm not going to try and I'm not a salesman. If this is Molder Outdoors. We're the best person for your project if you want us to work for you and it's gonna be perfect and it's not gonna be cheap, but it's gonna be right and we're gonna be there when you need us after the project and we're gonna care about every detail. And so you know, you ask how has our business evolved into getting More quality hardscape jobs. And really what it comes down to is consistency over 12 years. You do what you say you're gonna do. You do a really, really good job. You make sure that the clients are happy, you clean up really well, and you do the little stuff that makes you a better contractor. And then it just. It builds on each other. It would be so cool one day if I could take a whiteboard and somehow go back. I could probably do it on my Instagram. Literally. I probably could, because I've been sharing projects that we've done on Instagram from the day we started our business. If you scroll all the way back and build some kind of hard. Some kind of hardscape landscape, family tree, and somehow I believe that 90% of the projects that we do are connected to itself in one way or another. They're connected, you know, and maybe there's three different way the leads come in. You know, it's word of mouth, the website or suppliers. That would maybe be the three ways that we get a connection. And then basically, how do they all build on each other to basically create an upside down project tree? How cool would that be? I should try and do that sometime. I think that would be a fun exercise. Like, I have the time to do that now. I do not. But one day I want to do that. It doesn't happen overnight. It really doesn't. Literally, you guys, if you're new, following your new listener, whatever it is, you may come to our page and be like, holy cow, look at this. Look at these projects this guy's doing. He gets the best projects. He gets the biggest projects. Look at the trucks, look at the new shop he's building. Blah, blah, blah. You all, everyone needs to understand, like, that you're only seeing it. You're seeing it in a snapshot of what I'm showing you. You're not seeing 12 years of work, and you're not seeing then 13 years of work before that, where I was learning how to be a landscaper, then the start of my business, then 10, 12 years of work to get to where we are today. And then where you're seeing the snippet, snip, snippet of our current day right now. And it looks pretty. So I took a photo of it and I shared it or whatever, you know, like today I shared that we started a new project today on Instagram. I showed. I did a little story. I didn't have a lot of time at the job site this morning, and it was very busy the first day on the job site is always very busy, and I couldn't be there, unfortunately, for very long. And so I was going 100 miles an hour. And so I caught a little clip, posted it later, but. And that's all cool and exciting and, oh, yeah, lots of equipment and materials getting delivered. And we just got. We're just cranking and all this stuff. What you didn't see is this morning, get to the job. We preloaded everything Friday because I wanted to be super efficient this morning because I knew I didn't have a lot of time at the job site. And I wanted to basically get in, talk about the day, get in the trucks, drive to the job site. Everybody gets in the trucks. They start the trucks. Somebody closes the door on one of them and somehow locks the keys in one of the trucks. That truck was parked in front of the trailer that another crew needed, so now that crew couldn't leave. And where are the keys, you may ask? We haven't fully moved from my office at home to the new shop. So where are the keys? They're in my office at home, in my safe. Where does andy go? Driving 15, 20 minutes home, gets the keys, drives 15 minutes, 20 minutes back, while three guys, the one guy that needed to wait for the truck and then the two guys waiting to get the trailer sat there and twiddled their thumbs up while I went and grabbed the keys. And those are the things, right? And it's just. It's a silly thing. I mean, I'm not mad at anybody because stuff happens, dude. Like, we've all done it. I mean, whatever. I didn't have all the keys at the new building yet because we haven't moved in there yet. And so those are the things. Like, you know, it's not all sunshine and roses is what I'm trying to say. And how did we. How did our business evolve? That's how it's evolved. It's been 12 years of consistent quality, install, quality customer service and doing the best that we possibly can for 12 years straight and making good connections and networking and talking to people and meeting their friends and always answering the phone as much as you possibly can. You know, I. Speaking of that, I told my GC the other day that built our building. I told them that one of the main things that I've really gleaned from this experience, working from them, with them, and. And I would say, overall, it was. It's a good. It's been a good experience. It was the hamster group. That's who built my building. I've never really said their name on the podcast, but there you go. The Hamster Group, they, they, they do a lot of commercial building in the area, and really a lot farther than the area, but whatever. Anyways, they built my building. And one of the things that I appreciated the most about my GC and the project manager that helped me was that no matter what, he answered his phone. He answered his phone all the time. It didn't matter how many questions I had, it didn't matter, whatever. He just always answered the phone. And that sounds silly. That's what I noticed. But they just spent. I spent basically a year with them building my shop. And the shop is beautiful. It's turned out really gorgeous. And that's all fine and good, but what I remember the most is how basically what I would say is their customer service, which is basically, he always answered the phone. And like, I feel good about that because I know that if I have a question, they're going to answer the phone. And I may not like the answer they're going to give me. Or maybe I'm calling them because I'm unhappy about something. It's. I'm not going to sit here and say that like the. Everything in the building went literally perfect all the time. I don't. That that's. I don't think you can have that kind of expectation because that's unrealistic. You're not going to be perfect all the time. And I don't think anybody expects you to be perfect all the time. There's definitely customers that expect you to be perfect, but you don't want to work for those kind of customers anyways. But ultimately, my experience as a client of another contractor that built my building, the thing that I remember most now, looking back a year after, is again, the building, you look at the building, you walk in, it's gorgeous. Okay, there's maybe a few flaws here and there, things that maybe could have had a little more attention to detail. I'm not gonna nitpick it. It's gorgeous. I love it. It's truly nicer than I ever thought it would be. And it's. I have a little bit of. If I'm being honest, I have a little bit of imposter syndrome with the building. Like, I don't deserve to have building that nice. And I'm being very vulnerable saying that I do. I feel it's just. It's really cool. I'm very thankful. It's. It's such a blessing. But from a client contractor perspective, I am most grateful That I had a contractor that was always available to answer my questions, take my calls, help figure it out an issue. They didn't have an attitude when I would ask too many questions or want to change something. They never, I never felt any kind of attitude or frustration about me changing thing or changing anything or adding anything. And I think that's very important. I get people. I have had people in the past ask me, do you get frustrated when people add things? No, I don't. Why would I? It's the easiest sell. So you're doing a project for a person. And while, you know, in my shoes, I project, manage, I sell, I design, I run the business, I wear a lot of hats, right? In our size. That's what I have to do. And I am well aware that that's the case. And so my time is limited. Right. So when I need to sell a job, I have to take the call. We have an office manager, whatever, get the information, decide if I'm going to meet with them, go and meet with them, get pictures, get site analysis, design the job, make revisions, create the proposal, have a client proposal meeting. And if it goes really well, it's one meeting and the job is sold and the job is done. How many hours does all that accumulate to? It could be anywhere from five hours, two hours, up to 50 or 100 hours, depending on the size of the job. Right. So why would I not, why would I be frustrated about a client that we're currently doing work for that wants to just add more work? Usually that's the easiest way to get work is when a client adds work to a project you're already doing. So why would I be mad or frustrated about that? But I'm, you know, thrilled to go and spend five to a hundred hours going to meet with a new client that I may not even get the job. So like, I think it's important to remember that because I just never get frustrated if a client wants to add work. I've had clients be like, I'm so sorry, I know I keep changing things. No, it's fine. Of course there's the other side of the coin where they want to change stuff, but they want, don't want to pay more for it, or they want to just nitpick things and change things that, and then change them. They can't make up their mind. I've have, I have had every experience under the sun. So don't, don't come at me with that. You. I think you all understand what I'm talking about. Most of the time. Clients that want to add work are clients that I have I'm already working for. We like working for them. I try to work for nice people and good people. That's why we don't get every job because the clients that suck or are super mean. They don't want to work with us anyways because they want the cheapest contractor anyways and I'm not the cheapest contractor so they'll bypass me for the next Joe Schmo that wants to do it for free or whatever, get out of bed for free. I'm just not going to do that. So they're usually very they value us, they value our time, they value our business and they want us to do more work. So anyways, I all that to say is I really appreciated that about my GC is that they never complained or were frustrated about added work. They always answered the phone and ultimately they did everything they said they were gonna do. They did a good they're doing. Ultimately the punch list is almost done and that means a lot to me. So yeah, I don't know where I'm going with that except it just comes back to how has your business evolved into getting more quality hardscape jobs? All of those things are the way that our business has evolved into getting more hardscape jobs and why I try to make it a point of answering the phone all the time. And I don't always do the best job at it, but I will always get back to people. I will. I think it's just important from a business standpoint to be somebody that people can get ahold of when they have an issue.
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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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A
Somebody told me once that I don't have a problem getting told bad news. I have a problem if someone won't take the time to tell me the bad news. Did I say that right? Basically what he was saying is I can deal with bad news if I know what the bad news is. And that could be scheduling, that could be material, that could be something got broken. That could be a variety of things. But ultimately, a lot of contractors, in my opinion, get too busy or they feel like they don't. They. They feel like they're in this cage that they, they just don't want to make that phone call because they're tired, they're lazy, they're occupied with something else. They just, they're just don't want to say the hard thing, and so they don't say anything. So instead of making the phone call and giving the bad news, they just won't say anything. And no news. When you don't say anything, then your client starts to make up reasons in their head why. Right? And I have not been perfect at this my whole business career, so please do not think that I've been perfect. But I think it's important to just pick up the phone and tell your client the bad news if it's bad news. In full transparency. Before this podcast started, I sent an email to a client telling her that we're going to be two weeks later than I thought. But I have to tell them. I can't just wait and not say anything and then just tell them the day before, oh, sorry, we're not coming. It's rained a bunch, it's about to be a million degrees for a week straight, minimum. And we're just behind. But you got to tell them, right? They can. Most of the time, clients that have done projects or construction or understand some of the. They're usually rather reasonable. But you gotta tell them. You just gotta tell em. I mean, and the same thing goes with anybody that I work with or whatever. Like, I can handle the bad news, but I can't handle when no one will tell me the bad news. Right? So. And when I was told that, and I'm pretty sure it was a client that we were working for and he was frustrated about another contractor that was. We were waiting on something to get done and he told me that. And when he told me that, I'm like, man, number one, I'm gonna never forget that because I'm sure there'll come a day When I have to give him bad news about something. But number two, I just really took it to heart. And this was years ago that this happened. And I just always try to remember that. Your client can't. Can't. If you don't tell them the news, they can't. They're making up some kind of story in their head. You gotta say it. You gotta just get it out there. You know, if you're not talking to them, then their friend or neighbor or whatever, family members be like, oh, hey, when is so and so starting? Or, I heard they were doing your job. Did they start yet? Well, no, and we don't really know why, because they haven't told us. And they're already starting to get a bad taste in their mouth. And now they just told someone else about that. You see what I'm saying? And you haven't even done anything, and already it's like this weird thing that was said, now it was relayed to another person. And now what if that person says to another person, yeah, you know, Jim and Sue over here, they were going to do a project with Mulder, and he told me that they just weren't showing up and hadn't said anything about it. Now you have three layers of. You know what I mean? Like, and instead you could have just picked up the phone and said, hey, I just want to let you know I'm really sorry about the delay. We're running behind. It's rained. We're just behind. The last project took too long, blah, blah, blah. Just tell them. And then when their family members over, whoever these people are, they're like, oh, yeah, Mulder's going to start. But he told us that they're going to be a couple days late. They just got behind on a few other jobs or whatever, but they're getting started soon. You see it, See what I'm. See what the difference is. It's completely changes the tone and the feel of the whole thing. So Sitescape says, agree with you a hundred bad news. When you don't call or delay giving the bad news, you're asking for an upset client. Sorry for the word sound, dude. It's all good. No problem. Setimo Kevin says, Andy, your lifestyle changes are paying off. Looking good. Oh, thanks, man. Appreciate that. Above that said, Innovate, M.D. said, It's all about who you know and your network exposing yourself to people with money. Yeah, I mean, that's part of it. But like I said, everything above that, what we were talking about, with business evolving and all that stuff, promo Landscape says bar box. It's amazing. Have you thought about either building out another skid for hand tools or maybe attaching them to the back with some kind of rack? I have not. But that idea about attaching it to the back of the bar box, that's a really good idea. I'm glad to hear that you like the bar box. If you are wanting a bar box, it's basically a giant toolbox. I don't think it's on the Pave tool. Not on the Pave tool banner, but they sell this thing called a bar box, this massive job site toolbox and they're so sick. Use a Coupon code molder outdoors 50 when you buy one. They're absolutely amazing. We brought our, we brought ours, brought ours out to a new job today and I really like the idea of some kind of rack on the back to hold the hand tools. I have never thought about that. That's a great idea. I will. I will have to mess around with that a little more. Oh, guys. Well, I think we're going to wrap this one up. Coming up on an hour here. I really appreciate all of you guys tuning in tonight and the great conversation. I did not spend a lot of time preparing for tonight and I didn't know what we were going to talk about and it turns out we had a lot of great conversations. Guys, I encourage you to go to pave tool.com check out every. Check out everything they have there. If you're looking for things for your hardscape business, take the hardscape hard out of hardscaping ultimate hardscape solutions. I encourage you to go there pave tool.com use our coupon code also synced up syncedup.com and of course ncon. Thank you to them for being our studio sponsor. And don't forget the molder outdoors open house and encon demo day is coming out July 25th. Go on RSVP today at molderoutdoors.com and guys, I appreciate you tuning in this week and we will catch you on the next one. Foreign.
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This has been a molder outdoors and Mr. Producer production.