Clarity in Action: How to Build Better Systems From Scratch |Podcast Ep. 276 |Toolbox for the Trades

Hello and welcome to Toolbox for the Trades. I'm Amanda Salvatore, and today I spoke with Karen Bueno, Service Division Coordinator at Corbett Irrigation in Massachusetts. For Karen, building isn't just a profession, it's a life philosophy. After starting her career as a civil engineer, she has applied those same principles to her personal journey. She has successfully built a legacy, a career, and a team from the ground up. All while navigating a foreign country and an industry she stumbled into by accident. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Karen Bueno, you are the Service Division Coordinator at Corbett Irrigation in Massachusetts. Thank you so much for coming on Toolbox for the Trades today.

Appreciate you having me here. Thanks, Amanda.

We are going to be discussing a lot about how to build from the ground up in many different areas within your business and also personally, which I think is something that everyone is always striving to do— build bigger and stronger. So very excited to get into it. First and foremost, we like to always start with a little bit of an icebreaker here on Toolbox of the trades. And since we are about to enter into some, hopefully, summer fun in the next few weeks, I'd love to hear your favorite summertime activity.

So I'm Brazilian, so I do love going to the beaches and just enjoying the outside weather, the sun, and yeah, having that. But I live in Massachusetts now and the beaches here are a bit cold and all the, you know, season that we have around here. So at this time, I like to myself enjoying the outside as much as I can, seeing the green grasses outside. I do work with irrigation, so it just makes sense, you know. And yeah, I do like to see myself as a bear over the winter. I just like to stay inside. You know, we gotta wait until July, August first to be able to feel really the beach and get in the water and feel, okay, this is good.

Yeah, I hear that. It takes a minute. It takes a minute up there for sure. Well, let's Let's dive in. You came to the United States as an au pair from Brazil, and now you're running the service division operation for an irrigation company in Massachusetts. Walk me through how you found yourself in the trades.

Very like, oh my God, how do I start from here? Because I don't know, I feel like it came from my father, you know, this feeling of just trying to build a better life for yourself, you know, just trying to do your best and see what life gets to you. And it's, it's funny thinking, talking about this and all this stuff and having the moments to really appreciate where I came from and where I can get. And I am also a civil engineer back home. I did take this degree and my parents, my father, he owns a store for so long and I worked with him since I was a kid. They used to like really install things with him and know how to use this equipment and things. But, you know, working with sound waves, it's something that it gets, and I needed to try my own way because if not, I was just taking it, you know, and taking it for, I don't know, I just didn't feel right to take it for granted and take as something mine. And I wanted to see the world, you know, I wanted to see the world. I wanted to open my mind. And my mom always used to say that She always knew I wanted to hug the world and I want to try to do a lot of things at the same time. And it's crazy. And it's crazy for me to feel like I couldn't without everybody's support. So hearing my father, Bill, his story, his, you know, seeing that fire of him having a better life for himself and now having a child and having to try to show this and to not take things for granted as well, just because I can try to have a little bit better, like, on something. It's not something that he, he has it, you know, it's his and trying to show this for kids. I don't know. It's just, yeah, I don't know how I got here, but I am.

But you're here and you're doing amazing, amazing work. So you started in Brazil and you studied civil, civil engineering. You come to the United States. As an opportunity to see the world, to get out there and really take life by the hand and attack it. And you find yourself in this irrigation company. How did you find yourself? I guess my question is, how did you find yourself in irrigation specifically?

When I was an au pair, I stayed with this amazing Turkish family, which I also have a lot of care. I was a coded au pair. So that means it was hard. It was in that hard time, not like, and far away from all these things. With this family, I learned a lot. They are super special for me and we are still super friends, but grown-up life. And in this meantime, I met my partner in life now, who used to be an installer for the Techni— installer here for the company. And yeah, it's an amazing company. And let me tell you a little bit about that just because I know my boss is going to listen and he does like to stay here. Every meeting, and I always say, yeah, let's go. Anyway, our core values at Corbett Irrigation are family, pursuit of perfection, and preservation of our natural resources. And our vision is to be better. Corbett did this amazing project at Ayer High School, who is a high school here. Uh, my boss has kids growing up there, so you know, there is the community. And at this time, they invited everybody at Corbett and their spouses, their kids, Anyway, at this day, like I was able to really meet Corvette, really meet my bosses. And I am a hands-on girl. I am a let's go try to make things happen girl. So I was there digging holes and trying to understand things. And then they kind of invited me for an interview and then we clicked and then Aspire came on board and then all the magic and we're here now. And I will tell you, it's crazy because now I am a certified technician irrigation, even though I am just an office girl, but this year I took the test with my partner, which full disclosure, he's my boss. He's my manager. He's the service division manager now. And, you know, like being part of this and being able to see him grow. And when I came on board, he was in transition to be a supervisor already, but I was with him and she was installer. And then, you know, COVID came and all that uncertainty, but at the same time, like for a bit, just accepted him and then they just invited me over and they accept me on my weirdest days and my weirdest times and we just make it happen, you know, and it's just the team. This is why I wanted to talk about the family part, you know, like it's a family place here. Anyway.

It sounds like it. It sounds like you found your footing and that you are in a place where they value your insight. They value who you are. They value the work that you're doing. And it really shows. Now, I know when you came to the States, you wrote a little mantra down on a piece of paper, and I'm obsessed with it, honestly. And I've been utilizing it in my own life since we last talked. Can you tell our listeners what you wrote on that piece of paper?

Yeah, I would love to say. Portuguese and English, let you know, I did write that eu não tô aqui pra passar raiva, and that literally means like, I'm not here only to get stressed out, you know. I know the price I'm paying, you know, I know the, the miss and, uh, the word, another Brazilian word, sorry, saudade. It's just who lives the moments, you know, and who lives this special things with your family and these moments that it's in your heart and it's not really translated to the missing, you know, it's not really missing. It's that good feeling that, you know, what would like you leave with these people and you know that you will for sure be that again. This is what makes me wake up and, you know, and come here with a smile and, you know, try to cheer up my team. And I don't know, it's just all those nice things that are going on here that I'm so grateful.

I love this idea of, I didn't come here to only be stressed. And I know today we're going to talk a little bit about some stressful situations or, or situations that could feel stressful. But with this mindset, it seems like you've really conquered this idea. So let's dive in. I know a lot of people inherit a system that's already been built. They come into a company, this is the software we're using. But you actually had to build it yourself. What was the hardest part of being that person to be the first one to figure it all out? How did you set up yourself for success?

I mean, that was a road and it's still been as long as like, you know, in wintertime everybody's like, yes, I got this. I know what I'm doing now. And then the first hot, you know, it just comes and hits you and like, okay. It's, it's there. We, we got to improve some areas here. You know, it's, it's that living in that pursuit that I said about trying to be better a little bit every day. We know you're not going to get there and we know you're going to not make everybody happy, but you know what? You're going to try. You're going to try very, very hard because there's values for us, you know, and this is why this mentor for me makes more sense because I'm here to make it happen somehow, some way. And, you know, I want to be someone that my little sister, uh, you know, looks up to and say, yeah, I can try something like that. I don't know where I want to be. She wanted to be in Japan. Like, go for it, girl. You know, nothing's stopping you. Literally.

I love this idea. Yeah, I love, I love this idea of even if something is hard and you're having to build it from scratch or really coming at it from, you know, the ground floor, if you will, to not fear it necessarily, but take on this challenge and look at it as an opportunity to learn and to build. So what would be your advice to those who are listening who are about to embark on that journey?

The journey, it goes and it has the ups and downs. And when I started here, I literally was, I make this joke with my amazing coworker that I went from a Cocomelon English to, you know, actually leaving voicemails and making phone calls and making hard calls as well. And, you know, being the person who translated into the Portuguese and to English and all these things at the same time. And at the same time that it was challenging, I didn't know what to do. So I studied Aspire as much as I could. I went in, I watched the videos. I, you know, tried to get ready in this first before the season started because I knew it was coming something big. And I just wanted to be as much ready as I could for my team that, you know, a stranger was just going to call them and start asking those things and they They trusted me, you know, I was, I feel like this process of the beginning of me just trying to learn something that nobody really knew, it was hard, but the trust that they had on me on this weird girl that's Cocomelon English, just trying to make the run for it and just like, go, go, get it, go, go for it. You know, they give me the support. So that makes me fine. It's not like something that we are able to build and we are happy with it because I'm always looking to talk with people and like, How do you do this? Really, like, how? Because I have so many questions on this. This is how you're able to do, but tell me how. And, you know, just try to figure out ways to make things work, make our clients happy, because in the end of the day, that's important, you know, like it is important as, as much as we know, as much as we can get prepared, we can be better able to reply to these questions from the clients. So it's a process. I'm not gonna lie. It's like, it's being built, but I feel like I am so happy to talk Aspire anytime because I feel like it was my opportunity. And in the end, everybody's looking for an opportunity for you to do something right. And, you know, from an au pair, it's just like, okay, it was a big jump and that was my chance. And I'm so thankful for Aspire, but sometimes when the uploads come, it's like, yes, girl. But we were dealing with them. I still like them, you know, go Aspire.

That's good to hear. So it seems like your advice would be reach out, ask questions, utilize those resources, watch those videos, especially when you're maybe in those wintertime months, so you can feel prepared and hit the ground running when you enter busy season, as well as finding opportunities to learn while in the field and learning from your clients and for your customers what their expectations are, what their needs are, and being able to implement that as well.

It's funny because I was reaching out in the community in Aspire because I really was like, okay, what can I do to make everything flow better, you know? And it was starting asking these questions to them and how they're doing reports, how are they doing this and that. And then Bree, our amazing community manager there, I don't know, she's just so nice. And she just reaches out to me and she tries to connect me with people that she thinks I can try to help. And she tries to, you know, she just tries to do this whole little thing. And I, since I started, I was actually looking for something like this, you know, where I could ask questions and try to reach someone that could answer, but at the same time understands not to reach me in this busy season, you know, it's that wintertime that we need to have the time to plan, that we have the time to think on what we want to do, because now it's just dealing with listening to customers, you know, now I feel more prepared on getting a phone call than I felt when I started. But now I feel like, okay, sometimes there are hard calls and it's this busy time where you just feel like you're holding so many plates and you want to convey to them, listen, we're doing our best and we are going to keep looking for more ways to make things, you know, go smoother.

Now that you're in this leadership position, you've taken on this team of 4. What would be your advice to anyone about training and how to have a successful training with a new team?

So having this training, it's kind of funny because you can talk about methods and ways to do, but in reality, I really accept when people start taking the calls because you can take and do everything at the same time and you're really feeling the pressure, you know, and I have an amazing team and I will tell you that I'm grateful because they all came in a time that it was important for me to teach me something new. And now I feel like I have a team that I have my friend Maya that helps me on the schedule. I have my friend Maria that is helping me a little bit. I have Nick that is helping me follow up with issues. I have Nanette that helps me understand and explain to the clients how important it is, uh, like what we do. What are the expectations, arrival time? Help me do this follow-up that me, myself, I can't be doing all these things and also trying to assist my technicians when there are some updates that we don't know and trying to get access to things because irrigation, we need access first to perform some services. And there are times that clients do allow us to go inside their houses. There are times that, you know, we just it's just so, so many things can happen and having this training, it's weird because I went for vacation. So let me tell you something last year and my partner being my boss as well. And, you know, we just went out for a week after my son's vacation. And I had Nick, who is someone that has been working here for some time and he was on the field, but he's also graduating from college now. And He just came to help me on the office because we were sending reports on Ethereum and I couldn't, you know, like I needed someone and he was ready to take this on and he came on board and I don't know, having this energy and this young positive attitude on like, you know what, let's make this work. And it's funny because I have this phrase here to remind me of him, be kind, be useful, because that's how I see this guy, you know, and that's how the training just goes well, because it's hard for me to tell you, Amanda. Today I was a little bit nervous about this because it's something that I was really looking forward to. And I did call my team up and I was like, guys, I really want to go and feel like my emails, the email is cleaned up. We got back to this client here and they just jumped on it. You know, in one hour they were able to get the clients their answers that they were looking for. I don't know. It's not there is not a playbook, you know, for training. It's about the people again, because he brings in ideas that sometimes I'm sure not, let's not do it now. But at the same time, I do rethink and I'm like, yes, this is good. Let's go. You know, they have the power. And I just realized that, you know, trying to roll Cologne, it's just not going to work. Yeah, I was just surviving and I feel like we can thrive with a good team.

Yeah, I think this is great. You said something— there is no playbook, it's about the people. And I think that really sums up what you're trying to say, that it's really about how you're hiring and who you're hiring. And are they willing to jump in and do something new? Are they willing to jump in and help you work in an efficient way so that you're able to actually step back and do some working on the business as opposed to working in the business. And that goes— we often talk about that phrase when we're talking about ownership of a business, but it, it really is true when it comes to different factions of your operations and of your business. And I love that you bring it up because it's not just for owners and operators, it's for everyone. It's for all leadership.

I do believe that. And you know, it's funny to see myself as a winner, right? After this time and coming here and out there and all these opportunities that just life presents to you. And it's a lot of pressure. And I did mention to my team on this training that we had, my full team, my guys on the field, that I could not do my job if I didn't have them. So they know I appreciate them very much. And in the training, I did like to put in there that pressure is a privilege. And that's how I like to see the summertime and my journey and this company and the irrigation system just because it's like, why not?

I love to say pressure is a privilege. Pressure is a privilege. That is an incredible, that's incredible. That's an incredible—

I'm trying to just like pass this along to my team and tell them like, we train for this, guys. We have the winter, we talked about a lot, and we have some fun times near And they're Friday, sometimes they let us drink, they even buy us IPAs and I'm a huge fan sometimes. So, you know, like it's a good environment. So they all have this feeling, you know, not, you know what, let's make it happen. Let's just take the chance. And I don't know.

Yeah. I love that.

It was on Pochi, but yeah.

So having the right team allows you to stress less. But also the right technology also helps in that department as well. You solved a real problem with how overhead and indirect costs were being tackled and how they, how they're being tracked. Can you walk us through what that problem actually looked like for your day-to-day and how did you crack it?

Yeah, it's funny because it's, it's the process of the Aspire implementation, I feel like, and we were in a moment where now you understand a little bit more than we understood like a year ago. So before there was this whole magic of dumping everything in the same bucket and calling it indirect time. And when my boss was going to check the numbers, he was like, okay, what's this big pile of indirect here, guys? And it was all this checking around and trying to understand what happened here, what happened there. And we do have a really good structure here at Orbit. We have the service division side, we have the consulting and technology side, and we have the installation side as well. So, you know, there is this divisions and being able to understand that with Aspire's help after some talks and understandings on how we could make that happen, like understand how we could allocate the proper, like, so if my team is at the shop now doing something on inventory side, that's coming out of my budget. So it's the thing that it takes us accountable for our team, only our team. And before when we were looking at this big pile of hours or big tickets, we could not. So having, you know, being able to understand this piece. It's been the first year that we are trying this and we are working with a budget now, which does help me understand and plan like what can we do for our team and we have goals to hit and Aspire has this amazing leading dashboards where we can see and like every day understand a little bit more. I feel like before we were making it work, but now we are making it work and making it work better for us, you know, so we have the quick information here. And this talks with people, these webinars that I go to, this community topics that I read something here and there, it's just building to this whole technology, being able to make things work.

I know that you're in this first year after understanding with this allocation. Have you seen any improvement, or where have you seen the benefits?

So for example, last year, the, the divisions, they were set, but we didn't really have budgets or goals to be hitting or really understanding where we are going down, where we are spending money. Do we really need this piece of equipment? And now being able to manage this, because if before it was going only to one big bucket, how could we? So now every month, I feel like meetings are a lot sometimes, but at the same time, they are necessary when they're important. So once a month, we can quickly review it in the budget meeting, see where my team and where we are at, how much time we spent because I'm overhead, you know, I am not direct to any other, you know, I'm not direct to any job or anything like that. So I am part of that. My team that is with me, it's part of that. So if I have a quick way to manage that, because don't get me wrong, my team is mine, but my team is also helping in the other divisions, you know, they are helping me here 3 hours here and there one of these days and then they're also helping the consulting and technology area where my friend Maya is helping develop this amazing map system. So she can kind of flip to sides and it's amazing to tell you that this girl was able to make the winterization schedule in like a month that she was working here after this training is fast, like this training is absolutely hand, it was just in the action. But if the person don't really want that, like there is so much I can say and talk and, but if there is not the wish or the, you know, the desire of making it happen, it's just why, you know, and that I do feel in my team. So yeah. Yeah.

You need that desire and that drive and also that you're doing your due diligence. It sounds like it's just making things easier for you to really get an understanding of the overall health of the business. Now, I know that, uh, you're dealing with irrigation. It's a little bit different than your traditional landscape services, and Aspire did not have a solution necessarily for when it came to mapping out irrigation systems specifically. So you built one. So tell me about that moment when you realized this thing that we built ourselves is is really actually able to help a lot of other companies.

That's fun because my boss always likes to tell this story on how he realized that being able to, you know, map this with information of geolocation and really being able to get to a— he always likes to say the story of a valve box, and I'll tell you about because this is the irrigation side of things. When we go and we install these valve boxes with these valves in there, We need to service them to make sure everything is working well. There is no water passing through and, you know, all this little magic. For us to be able to service them, we need to find them. And what happens is there is a system built 15 years ago and the soft boxes installed and then things get moved out of the way, things get repositioned, a shed is built, a pool is built, and all these nodes that before literally were explaining like, okay, it's close to this shed house and under this tree, things change and mulch come and then new law comes. And, you know, this was really a problem for us. And we didn't really have a place to house this information in an easy way in Aspire in the beginning. So they developed this with help of a lot of great people and, you know, have this information there, taking calls from clients and being able to show, okay, what's your address? I look into the property name. It's how it's set up for us in the system. I click in there and it gives me the information on the number of zones, what kind of controller they have. I have a picture of the controller. If a client has a problem that they have a main line leak and, you know, I see a picture of where is their shutoff valve and they just send to them and like, hey, go under the basement. It's all this information that it's housed in years of of experienced people that worked here, but sometimes no longer work. It's just being able to pass this along for new people coming in and, you know, trying to help. And it's nice to say that my team is viewing this, you know, so it's a new adventure that we are trying to roll out and it's, it's something that we do believe that can be changing.

So this new system is called Green Gap and this is a new service that you guys are providing. What does it feel like to watch something that you helped develop? Become its own service and its own offering.

Amazing, because I was about to say, like, I do see as a training tool as well. I did see there's people passing along information in weird ways, and there is this new technician is starting now. When he's getting to the house, there is not that weird feeling of, where are my things? We can tell the client because we have this information and we can be like, hey, I do see that this is located there. It's my first time here, but I know what I need to know and I can do my work the way that I need to do. And it just reduces the number of phone calls, you know, because the hard time of being in this position where you're trying to make everything happen, it's trying to be able to communicate to everybody, but in the, you know, work hours time. So there is so much you can talk and say in a day. So minimizing this kind of guessing. It's like a really nice to see this fine. And I do trust that this news is helping me at least. And I do take some, you know, phone calls and I don't know, I really hope they fine on it. I wish them the best.

And yeah, I think it's incredible and I can't wait to hear how it's going and how it grows over time. Let's talk about building community. I know that in irrigation and landscape, there's a lack of representation when it comes to women and It is something that you feel, I'm sure, as a woman in the industry. I think women have so much to offer— detail-oriented, project management, being able to have a communication style that feels encouraging and nurturing, as well as having, you know, some gravitas behind it as well. So how do you think we should be building community within this industry.

Oh, it's funny that you use the word build because I am a civil engineer and I love that you're making me realize that because, and you know, I do have amazing coworkers. Uh, my boss lady here who is the installation coordinator, she's somebody that I do look up to. She has been working here forever and I do see her as somebody that is here to help me, to teach me, to kind of mentor me. And not only the woman, I'm not going to say like, The men around me, they're awesome. You know, like it's not about that. You're right. You got it. But you know, it's time for sometimes other women see this as a chance and an opportunity for them to try to make their life a little better. And you know, it doesn't need to be with irrigation. It can be with whatever makes sense for their life. But if life gives you an opportunity, see what you can learn, if it makes sense for you. And if it doesn't make sense for you, thank for the opportunity. I would take the lessons and, you know, and it's how I like to see life. And for women now being a mom in this part on building too, like, I feel so grateful for having my son now and I feel I have a reason to build things now. I feel like I have a base to be building something great for me, for my life, for my family, for my partner. And it's funny because all this family environment and these people that are surrounding you, just giving you here, go get it, girl, why not? And doing these fun activities, having this new young generation come over, like, you know, it's just different. And having these new perspectives and new ways of doing things and then getting to know my— I don't know, it's just something that it's worth seeing the future. I like, I don't know why there is not a lot of women here. Maybe because the guys do, he needs to dig a lot of holes and, you know, do some hard work. And it's okay. Some women can do that. And if, but You know, it's women's choice. Do what it makes sense for you. If it makes sense for you to try to install irrigation, that's my goal actually. Install my own irrigation system. I don't wanna be out on the field. I respect the guys for that. I think I know what I'm doing a little bit more now, but you know, it's this trying it out and trying to, if you have someone to look up, it's, you know, it just makes life easier and someone to give you a hand when you need. I don't know, it's all about the people, I guess.

It's all about the people. It sounds like mentorship has really been a place where you found some empowerment, people being able to tell you, go get it, go for it, like, if that's something you want. And I think very often as women, we're not necessarily necessarily offered, uh, opportunities within these industries because it's just not thought of. So finding those mentorships, finding people who are in the same boat, who have lived that experience and can give you that edge and that encouragement to like, go get it, girl. Like, that's, that's what it's really all about, just opening eyes and opening doors. And I think that you're doing that in a, in a great way. Is there a way that listeners can reach out to you and maybe start these conversations and find those opportunities to hear, go get it, girl?

If people want to follow me on, not follow, connect with me on LinkedIn, I'm just getting into this new world of understanding how that works. And it's nice to see the community that's, it's building there and how much people connect with each other and really try to push to, okay, Go get it, you know, like it's, it's fun. It's nice. And I don't know. Yeah. I love that. So yes, by all means, send me a message and respect if I don't, I mean, I'm terrible on replying, but you know, we will find a way. We always do. That's how.

Yeah. It's busy season. Everyone is feeling it. I don't think anyone will, will be too worried, you know, they get it. They know they're also busy right now. It's, it's Tis the season, right? Oh my goodness, Karen, thank you so much for coming on Toolbox for the Trades.