Confronting KEITH KALFAS About His Landscape Business
A filmed interview (May 28, 2022) in which Keith Kalfas recounts his path from mowing with his father to founding a landscaping business under extreme financial pressure, his embrace of personal-development teachings, and his deliberate pivot toward building a media business alongside a small landscaping operation. He describes practical early tactics (Craigslist ads, hands-on selling), lessons about becoming legitimate (insurance, payroll), and the motivation to capture work on video — noting his channels’ growth (millions of monthly views, multiple channels and audiobooks).
Chapters
This is going to sound horrible. Like I never ever even wanted to grow a big ass landscaping business. I've always wanted to grow a media business my whole life. Well, it all depends on the questions that you ask yourself. And I was like, well, I'm a sh. Tty pop star. I suck. I can. And now you're a grown man acting like a little bitch. Bro, I don't think we can upload this. You went way too deep down the rabbit hole.
Shit.
How's it going, man?
What's up, bro?
Dude, your setup is awesome.
I love it. Yeah, thanks. So dream in the making, I guess.
Did you just do all kind of. You just kind of dink around with yourself or did you have someone come in and kind of fix the whole studio?
No, dude, I'm. This is all me. This is. I've been into this stuff way before.
I was a broke landscape kid doing music and shooting music videos. And at night, like no matter where, if I lived, if all I had was a corner to live in, it would be a studio. So in 2013, I was already making YouTube videos and all this. I was trying to find a way to get in at something that was like an open market. And I wasn't qualified to talk about anything because I had no life success, not even as a landscaper. But I knew how to get a landscape business off the ground. I'm just turning off my WI fi on my phones to open up my bandwidth. And then my buddy Anthony Vitali, he's like, bro, we're like multi level marketers. And he's like, why don't you start a whole thing about how to start a landscaping business? I'm like, yeah, but I. Dude, I. I barely cracked 100k myself. I don't even know what the I'm doing. I'm just trying to pay. He goes, exactly. And I was like, oh my God, that's really smart. I could start a future channel. So I do some research and it was wide open. There was only like three dudes making a couple videos. And I was like, this isn't already being dominated. So I just went nuts. And every single title of every video was how to start a Landscape was how to start. And I was uploading like 8 to 10 videos a day at times. And the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge thing came, you know, Remember that?
Oh, yeah.
My friend that works for me, still works for me. He's like, why don't you challenge that geek to freak guy and als? And I was like, wow. And so that's how it all happened like I never ever even wanted to grow a big ass landscaping business. I've always wanted to grow a media business my whole life. And so that's interesting. That's cool.
So, so talk to me a little bit about when before landscaping came around. I know after a few years you started doing the media side. That was your real passion. But prior to, to that, how, how, how'd you get into landscaping? And talk to me about those first early days. I know some of your stories are just from watching your channel, but some of Those not so YouTube famous YouTube riches days back in the day, bro.
I started out cutting grass with my old man when I was like nine. He, he had this little lawn care business and.
All summer I'd be out with him for four bucks a lawn and then it was five bucks a lawn. And by the time I was like 17, I'm like, dad, let's go into business. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. Because I was a really headstrong type of person and he, I guess he just didn't want to bump heads with me. He wanted to keep our relationship the way it was. And I didn't have any money to start a business so I just started. I filled out job applications for lawn care and then I cut grass for, you know, this company, couple companies actually, and then this one company, within a year I was driving a truck and running a crew and then hiring and firing people and I was basically doing everything. I worked for that company for two and a half years and I've jumped around to like, you know, probably 10 different companies and I worked for one of the biggest lawn care and landscaping companies in the state of Michigan. And I learned a lot there. And for a while I was like, how the hell do these guys get this business off the ground? And I would look at the owners faces and they all look stressed out, their lives sucked and they were the typical ball boss that you wanted to get away from. And it wasn't until that I met my wife and I would like, I was like broke now. I was like 27, still working a dead end job and I was trying to pursue this crazy stupid music career at night. Like I was seeing all these shitty pop stars make it for real and get on TV and, and I was like, well I'm a pop star, I suck. I can. I was making, making music and shooting music videos and doing media production with like these crappy cameras and it was an obsession. Every day after work, landscaping would make just enough to pay the bills and then Go out and do side hustles and stuff and trying to get.
Anything media off the ground and nothing was working. When I met my wife, my back was against the wall and I had to swallow that hard pill and just get rid of everything that wasn't purely taking responsibility and making money. Because now if I fail, I would drag her down with me. It was a huge, huge shift in my life. And I went out and got my own landscape business off the ground in six weeks by posting ads on like Craigslist, creating social media accounts. And so I was still working during the day at 27 and a half, going on 28 for like, you know, $12 an hour and going out. If the phone was ringing, I was stopping during the job and you know, I write their name down. Like a customer would call and I would like, okay, I'll be there at 8pm, 9. They're like 9pm, it's almost dark. I'll be there. And I would literally take my wife's car because I didn't have a truck. I had, you know, my car. I had like, I've, I'm not gonna spare, I'll spare you the details, but I've had like 18 vehicles. One after another after another, breaking down, blown up transmission, blown up motor. Just one thing after another. It's like, you know, it's like 12 to 15 years of hell when you have, when you don't have any money, the slightest thing goes wrong and it's just a catastrophe, right? And so it's hard to get like off of ground level and get from square one to square two or level one to level two, because money is like one of those huge common denominators. But then I learned it wasn't money. It was a lack of consciousness. It was a lack of responsibility. Wishing the world were different. Kind of like what Jordison, Jordan Peterson talks about this Peter Pan syndrome. Grown ass man doesn't want to grow up. The time he hits like, you know, early 20s, people still let him off the hook. Hey, he's still figuring it out. But the guy gets to his early 30s, like, what the hell? He's like, what the hell's wrong with you? Like you've had all these years to figure it out and you're still not getting your together. Nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear your, you know, your crybaby story about why your life sucks. It doesn't matter what happens. Like you're a grown ass man. Your problems are your problems. Go, go make it happen. I don't care. It Was like, so I'm going out at night and selling these landscape jobs with no money back in my trunk, back of, out of the trunk of my wife's car with like, like some Lowe's bags and a rake and a tarp and some plug in hedge trimmers from Home Depot. I felt like such a worthless piece of dude self esteem in the toilet, working 100 hours a week. Like, get home from work, use the bathroom, cram down a peanut butter sandwich out the door. She's screaming at me because she doesn't have a car and I'm taking it and we got an eviction notice on the door type. I remember somebody in a YouTube video like, well, why did you even let your life into that predicament in the first place? Were you on drugs? It's like, people say like that, it's like, no, I wasn't. It's just when we need to make enough money to make anything happen, every time more and more debts pile up, at some point there's a breaking point where, where it just all collapses. And so the craziest thing happened was just that type of like determined hustle. Within six weeks, I was already getting enough work. That was. I was making more off work than I was at work. And I woke up one Saturday morning. I was like, dude, it's time to quit your job. I just knew it was time to quit and go full time in my business. So there I am. I woke up Saturday morning, I was supposed to be at this dead end lawn care job. I called the boss and I was like, hey, man, I quit. He's like, what are you talking about? You have to be here in 20 minutes. I'm like, no, dude, I quit. He's like, what are you talking about? No two weeks notice? Nope.
I wouldn't like recommend doing that, but. And I went on that day and made like 360 bucks. And then the next day 120 and the next day 140, and the next day 380. And back then Wednesday, I was making more than I had making my. Made my like, day job landscaping. And I was able to like, you know, dump out change and take our rent money and get this piece of truck I called the Blue Goose. It was like a 91 Dakota with 250,000 miles and rust all over it. Like one of those trucks where for some weird reason it drives the dream, but you're scared shitless like that something's gonna blow up every second and you don't have the money to fix it. So that was My. My fear was like my biggest motivation. And I would say things. My wife would call me at like, you know, nine o' clock at night. When are you coming home? When? What are you doing out there? And I was like, as long as I'm behind the wheel of this truck, we're gonna be okay. And I mean, it was like, pretty brutal. And it was seven days a week, non stop, you know, but after like, I don't know, a year and a half of that, finally, like, you know, the bills are paid, we didn't have an eviction notice, and we got some money to make. I got the business legit, and I started hiring a guy or two. And I learned that, oh my God, this is amazing. I'm free now. I'm my own boss. And I would drive past those old companies I used to work at, and the same guys were still working there. And like, only like a year had passed. And I'm like, oh my God. I figured out like the secret this whole time. It only cost me, like, nothing to get the landscape business off the ground. I literally started with my bare hands and was able to get clients quickly enough to make money to reinvest and have this truck. I didn't even have a trailer. I just had like, I had a wheelbarrow and a tarp and some bungees and a bunch of all piled in the back of the struck. By the second year, I had so many tools and so much stuff. It was so piled up high in the backseat of this little Dakota, I couldn't even see out the windows. And my whole business was like that. And I hired my first dude and he was like, he gets in the truck, he's like, so it's like we're piled up. It's just us, just enough room for us. I mean, if we would have, like, rear ended somebody or hit the brakes hard, tools would fly all over us. But.
Those were truly, truly exciting times because.
There'S this feeling of, like, freedom that you have because you're. You're smart enough to know that you're your own boss, but you, you're just ignorant and naive enough to not know that you need payroll and workers comp. And if something happens, you can open a courtroom and that.
You'Re not doing the right way, but there's that little gap where it's beautiful. And then I started getting talking to my friend, like, friends like Eric Reno, he's a roofer. And that time, I think very quickly, business had a million bucks and he was landing these huge jobs. And getting into insurance. And through him and some of my other friends started telling me these nightmare stories about what would happen if you don't have a legitimate business. And so I wasn't strictly fear and panic for, like, you know, a year straight, thinking, I don't have enough money to pay these excess taxes and go on payroll. We would literally go out of business. I don't have enough money to even get general liability because I thought it was so expensive. In that time, I had pontificated that, like, workers comp. Oh, my God, they're gonna audit you, and you're gonna get a $60,000 bill, and you're gonna go to prison. All these fears. And then I started becoming friends with landscapers, and, like, they like that dog. I ain't got no work comp. If I get caught, I won't get caught. And if I do, by that time, I'll have so much money, I'll just like. And then you start making friends with other landscapers who are. Are totally under the. You know, it's okay if they're doing it. Like, I'm like that. I'm paying my taxes, and I'm looking around like, these dudes are crazy. I'm trying to get more and more legit. And as by the time I'm totally legit, meeting landscapers that literally have, like, $800,000 in business and. And have 17 guys out working, none of them on payroll, pay them all cash. They'll have, like, six trucks. Only one of them has insurance. I'm like, what are you. How are you even doing this? You're like.
And I was like, that seemed terrified to me. So I had this. These huge premonitions. I'm listening to these audiobooks all day while I'm working, and I'm starting to meet successful people, and I'm learning. Like, why don't you learn how to iron out the kinks in your little, tiny business and make it legit and get it profitable and use it as a little miniature, miniature college university. Like, you can get a master's degree in small business by making all these little, tiny mistakes. Like, if you overturn some shrub, it's not the end of the world. Like, it's a perfect opportunity to learn so many things.
Become an expert in your own little small hundred to $200,000 business, and you could become proud of that. And then once you get some systems and some policies, then you can start to scale the thing up if you so choose. But I had these other premonitions. That meeting with the guys that want to, I want to have six trucks. I want to have a million dollar business. And if you really like ask them why and you get down to like the meat and potatoes of it, it's because they feel insecure and insignificant or unworthy. They finally want to make their dad proud or they want to show once and for all to so and so that they're not a loser. It comes down to this.
It's a kind of a justifiable reason, but it's some weird old egocentric, injured childhood issue thing. Like you wanted. You want to be worthy, so you want to have a big business. And I was thinking about that. I'm like, that's not really a good reason to grow business. I mean you're putting. These are people's lives that are on the line. You're hiring people who have families and responsibilities. And what if you wake up one day and you, one day you realize you're good enough, but now you have all these people on the line and you have like a midlife crisis. And I know it might be overthinking all this stuff, but I think it's important that you know when you have a real business and real clients and real employees and you take this thing very serious, there's a lot to, to. I know you should keep it simple, but there's, there's a lot of important principles that have to make sense. First that I've always been fascinated by that and, and, and with those thoughts, I'm getting online on Facebook groups, seeing other landscapers and these other YouTube channels growing and going to these live events and meeting all these other people that are successful in different service based industries. And what it's doing is, what it's done is not only for all these other people, but for me. It gives you this like, it's called cross pollinating different people's type of like knowledge. It gives you this, these epiphanies. You start to see the bigger picture. And then I think from that place it allows you to make wiser decisions and see exactly what do you want to do and what you don't want to do. What direction do you want to go in? I know I'm talking a lot here, but I'm just like, I painted the whole picture from like where I came from and how I got my business off the ground and some of the perspectives that I'm starting to see. You're just such a good listener. I just keep, I'm just going.
So when it came to, to you started with mowing and I was actually seeing a YouTube short you did the other day, and you're driving by some. A guy you actually worked for. It sounds like probably after your dad doing lawns and mowing. When was the transition to where you're like, okay, I'm going to do this legitimately, and I'm going to not do it. All these other landscapers are saying in terms of doing things under the table for payroll, not having insured trucks, et cetera. When was that epiphany? Or was there a moment like, hey, from here on out, I'm doing it legitimately?
Actually, that epiphany was.
So I. It was the first full summer. Like, I started middle of the summer one year, and then the very next summer, I was having those epiphanies. Like, I had just started my business. It was like, six months into the business. And this is because I was fortunate enough to have one of my best friends, Scotty. I always talk about my mentor Scotty. This guy had several businesses. You know, he was doing like 2.3 million in business at real estate, construction company. Got into the restaurant industry, lost everything, went bankrupt, got audited by the irs, ended up sleeping in the back of his freaking Jeep. And a lot of things in his personal life fell apart. It all came crumbling down at once. And so this dude end up ending, ended up working for me while he was picking up the pieces, and I'm paying him, like, 15 bucks an hour. And he would scare the out of me, bro. He'd be like, what, you're not saving enough for taxes? What are you talking. You don't have insurance? Look, and so this guy, even I'm on the phone with him all the time. He's always ahead of me in business, and he's taught me so many things. Like, we just had a partial flood in our basement.
And he taught me this thing a long time ago, bro. You get a house, a lot of responsibility. You better have the home repair savings account, because if anything happens in your house, you got the money already set aside. I'm like, all right, I'll do it. He's like, even if you only put 50 bucks a week. So I started the savings account called the home repair savings account. And don't even think about stopping until it at least hits five grand. So I had, like, 4,700 bucks in this account. And last year, our washing machine or our dryer blew up, and I was like, I got the home repair savings account. We just went to Best Buy, bought it, and now partial water flood I just sent a 2700 check to a emergency remediation basement. What are they called, those companies?
Restoration.
Yeah, restoration company. And I think we're going to get a re. Insurance refund, but just in case. And it was like the money is always there because of these things that I've learned from my friends that have gone before me, that have taught me these, these beautiful lessons where if you, if you, you kind of. What's the. Where you mitigate or you fix a problem or you prepare for it. When it's a small little tiny seed until it grows into this big. Before it grows into a big oak tree, then you can. It's like the Whack a Mole game. It pops up here, you hit it and you're always on top of it and you're proactive. And so proactivity is the answer. If you stick your head in the sand on that problem will grow and grow and grow. And before you know, you know it's a bad. It could be a bad, bad thing, bro.
A lot of people, when they ask me like, what do they. What do you think about Keith Kalfus? I always say, I think he's a philosopher turned landscaper. Where does that kind of love for the deeper things of life and meaning of things come from? And how has it helped you get through some of those low moments getting into your business and even when you're first getting married, some of the struggles that you went through with your wife financially and even just in your relationship, how does that helped you and what have you learned from all of that?
Thinking back, you know.
I don't want to get too deep on here because I was on a video with Brian once. We weren't live, we were recording the video and at the end of the video, he looks at me, he goes.
He goes, bro, I don't think we can upload this way too deep down the rabbit hole and it's just not going to resonate. And I was like, oh, you're. You're right, bro. I'm getting into like, you know, quantum linguistic therapy and neurosynapic pruning and like stable datums of consciousness and. Anyways, so I think it was from a lot of pain and suffering and feeling unworthy and stupid and being like ignored a lot as a kid. And I remember, you know, literally hating myself and thinking that I was worthless. And whenever I couldn't figure something out or where somebody else could or somebody else had something that I didn't, it was just the self hatred was so bad of why am I so stupid? And at some point, I found Tony Robbins, and he's like, well, it all depends on the questions that you ask yourself.
Pretty good impersonation.
If you ask yourself a question, you're gonna get an answer. Why am I so stupid? Well, it's because you're, you know, it's like stinking thinking. Right, Right. I remember even. Oh, that camera shut off. There you go. All these cameras. I bought a special battery for that one. It was like $750 for. Anyways, I bought the dummy.
The dummy ones.
I got the dummy battery, and I got the cheaper one for 180. And it's shutting off. So now I gotta go 751.
So I was getting as many audio books and stuff as I could. Like, when the ipod came out back in the day, Like, I spent half the day listening to music and the other half of the day listening to personal development. Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Deepak Chopra, Louise Hay, Anything I could get my hands on. And they were all talking about the same thing. And after going through, like, a lot of depression. And then, like, I've talked about how my mom died of a heroin overdose, and I actually found out recently that I don't know how I didn't catch this. This is my own mother.
A.
This is going to sound horrible because my mom was a beautiful human being. Some of my family has actually heard me talk about this on social media, and they'll call me late at night, like, Keith, why are you talking about this is your mother? You're sharing this? Like, I'm like. Because I want people to know, for those of that are listening to this podcast right now that aren't going to come out and talk about how they have a husband or wife or somebody or a family member with a drug or alcohol addiction or some type of serious problems that are going on all over the place. I talk about that stuff to let people know that, you know, at least with me, this nobody. We're not exempt from this. Like, even Stan Genetic, the dirt monkey, he came out and made a video on us talking about, like, he has family members that were, you know, had heroin problems and had passed away. And I'm not going to say much else because. But he actually said this public on a video. And. And now look how successful Stan Genetic has become and how much of an inspiration, inspirational, influential guy he is. Like, so some of the hardest things that you go through in life are some of the greatest fuels and motivations. And I didn't have anybody around me to talk to. So I found all these audio books and physical books. And so it was really just seeking for answers and learning about the subconscious mind. And what my friend co. He's a. He's a coach. I call him Coach Rob. He's one of my best friends. He says, you develop this toolbox, you work on your interior space, and once you get really good at it, then you can work on your exterior space of, like, how the world works. But the lens that you see the world through, if it's filtered through all these pathologies and all this neurosis and basically all these mental problems that make you freak out and have anxiety all the time, and you just literally. Some people have their own small lawn care and landscaping business, and they. They can't even handle it because, say, if the phone's ringing too much and their schedules booked out too far and one customer gets upset and it was. It was their fault because they dropped the ball. They. That feeling, those feelings of unworthiness can come up. See, that's why I'm stupid and that's why I can't do this. Or. Oh, my God, it's so, like, you can have these meltdowns and you go into this, what we call an unresourceful state. If you go into the unresourceful state, you bring it home to your. Your wife and your kids or the people around you. And now you're a grown man acting like a little bitch, basically, and you're having all these schisms and all these problems. And what happens is it spills over into everything else. By midway through the season, a lot of lawn care guys get totally burned out. It's like only August. They're burned out and depressed. They're not even answering the phone anymore. The voicemail's filled up and they're just barely hanging on for dear life to make sure they take care of their. Their clients and get through the damn season. And so I'm fascinated by what causes all this stuff and what's the. You see, when we talk about causality, it's a higher level. It's upstream. What's the cause? We're. We're seeing the symptoms of what's going on. You feel the pain and the sting of the symptoms, but because there's gross, subtle and causal consciousness, basically.
Subtle is when you. You have, like, the feelers and you understand that there's something else going on, but maybe you don't really have. You understand it's coming from something upstream, but you're so busy you don't have time to actually. It's like the joke. There's a guy who's mopping up the floor like crazy, and there's water all over the place. And he's frantically mopping. He's like, oh my God, I got a mop and mop up all this water. And then someone comes, they're like, they see that, like, the sink is overflowing and the faucet's on and the sink's clogged and it's spilling all over the floor. And they're like, why don't you just turn off the faucet? The guy's like, are you kidding me? I'm too busy mopping up all this water. The problem is the sink's going. So.
That'S why I think money can solve a lot of these problems if you're conscious enough to understand. Because you say, oh my God, if I had more money would solve this problem. But one of the things that I'm seeing is when people finally get money for the first time in their lives, some people freak out because, like, oh my God, I finally got money. So what do you do? Go get instead of like taking a break to work on your education. And. And I've made this mistake as far as. Well, my wife and I lived in this tiny little one bedroom apartment and we were like, suffocating in our. Some of our neighbors were, I think, drug addicts and alcoholics. And it was like, really, really tough living there. We didn't have a front porch or a back porch. We couldn't breathe. I was parking all my outside and the cops were ticketing it and the people were compl. Like, like I had to, like, upgrade our lifestyle and move from this tiny apartment to a condo. And even though it was more expensive, I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe I'm spending this money when I should be putting it back into my business and back into my education. And this craziest thing happened was like, consciously, logically making that choice when we didn't have an abundance of money upgrading the lifestyle a little bit. So we actually had a front and a back porch in a garage like this condo, and now a storage unit to put my landscaping tools. Oh, it took all this pressure off and it gave me more bandwidth to actually expand my life and my business a little bit and make. And make things more cohesive and functional. But what I mean is, if you. You're trying to throw money at problems and you have an abundance of money it can become this horrible bad habit where you haven't developed the skill sets necessary to even deal with the problems in front of you. And then you just get in this weird habit of like delegation by abdication, I think it's called, where you're not doing anything proper. And so this obsession with personal development is like, wow, what if I could like, make and sock away enough money to actually take time to work on that interior space I was talking about, to figure out the issues in the family, to get my faith right with God, to get my diet right, to literally get some balance in my life and restore what's supposed to be there already and then maybe work on growing the business and growing the lifestyle afterwards. So people, like I said back to that, after I laid that foundation, I want to like close this loop by saying some people get money and they write out. They go buy the FT F350 diesel dog and they buy this and that, and then because they want to feel like they're successful, and then they get tricked. Because I think that it's like this consumerism and Instagram and all this stuff. It sequesters our understanding of where real value is. And we think if we have like a brand new truck and nice clothes and we buy all this, then we actually are successful. But from what I see, like, real, real success is, is your time and your presence.
I think success is in your heart. And the success is if you're happy and you're healthy and you get proper sleep at night and you can actually take time to spend with your family and you can do some of the things that you love, that some of them don't have to cost money at all and be successful in your career and have money. I think success is when you can finally hit some sort of a balance. Like, I saw you posted this. This one thing made me get so much. Like, I already have respect for Mike Andes.
And just when I saw you at the GIE Expo, just the way that you stand and the focus in your eyes, like, you're on, dude. You're on a mission, bro. But you posted this one thing, I think last year, talking about how you sleep in your office. There was like this room. It's like a broom closet or something. You were like, this is like some true life Elon Musk type. Who in the hell who. Anybody who works for you or works with you or is on your team that sees the level of passion and consistency and commitment that you have and how this, this character, this person that you've built, who is the real you. But you, you're consistent and you never break the pattern. The, the messaging and the mandates don't change. You're the type of dude who is building that huge solid, fat foundational infrastructure because you're going to scale up to the sky. You're that dude. And I really like the attributes that you have. And I think that I hope that a lot of people I want to interview on my podcast, the Untrapped podcast, my podcast on Apple and Spotify, we just hit like450,000 downloads because I, I really like your tone and stuff. And like I'm like the startup guy. 0 to 100k. And a lot of people have come to my YouTube channel when they were starting and starting out. They're fledgling entrepreneurs. They're stuck in a dead end job or they want to get their business off the ground or they're stuck at like 50000 and they want to get to a hundred. They come and they find my videos. I'm like, this Kelfus guy's crazy. But.
They'Ll binge watch a bunch of videos and, and learn and get through a lot of the head trash through some of the transparent things that I share. And then they go and they graduate on and they move on and they start. Now I think a lot of newbie guys watch you too, but you talk about some of the.
Components of scaling and I like that this community has these different tiers and different. I don't know if you'd call this influencer or whatever because anybody can pick up their phone and start a YouTube channel. There's people listening right now that if you feel it in your heart to start a YouTube channel because you have something positive you want to share, you need to do that. Because I believe that God puts these, these things inside of you. This like it's, it's like a mission. And don't be afraid, just make the channel do it is what I'm saying. Then you'll thank me later because. But these people can move on and jump around on YouTube and now that we have access to all these different online courses and books like, check this out. One second.
I know that was a little add, but I, I had, I had your book right here forever. And I brought it downstairs in my basement because I was reading and I was going to show it the P4P and I got it on audible, the audible.com too. It's a great book, bro. But I like how people can, can jump around on YouTube and get access to all the information that they need. And they can find youtubers and just real life, real life guys like you and I that they resonate with. And then if they want to go deeper, they can listen to their audiobooks, they could buy a course, come to a live event. And then it's at these live events where you literally compress time. You can take what takes the average guy five, six years and literally compress it into, you know, sometimes 12 months by first of all, believing that it's possible and getting around other people who have had the same struggles as you. And then we're able to do that. Like, I know you got a live event coming up, and I saw pictures from your last one, and I could just tell by the tone in the room that the level of seriousness, the level of necessity that is raised is, is it's a place where people can get deep focus and really work on the issues of their business. I know that you're like interviewing me, but can you tell me about your live event? Like the transformation that happens there? Yeah.
Like, I think it's like you said, it's a matter of getting serious about someone's business. I think people a lot of times get started in lawn care, landscaping, usually from a pretty dark place. We. No one usually starts a lawn care business because they have a bunch of money and their parents were doctors and lawyers and wanted to go to Harvard. They're usually coming from a pretty rough background.
Right.
Or no money, in backgrounds like yours where it was pretty rough getting started. And so to come to the place where it's like, okay, it's time to actually start figuring out how can I be 40, 50, 55, 60 years old and not be pushing a mower the rest of my life, because I'll have employees and systems in place and things like that. And so like you said, it's a matter of, I think internally, most of us don't have. Start with entrepreneurs as, as our parents or connections. And I didn't, you know, my parents weren't entrepreneurs or business owners. And so getting around those sort of people is, is like you said, you kind of jump through the hoops and, and, and get through, get places faster. And like, I, I started college when I was really young because it was like at every stage when I was going to school, I was trying to figure out how can I get this over with as soon as possible.
Right.
So starting early, skipping grades, doing college and high school at the same time was all a matter. How do I get how to speed at which I'm get getting to the end result. And so I think for someone that wants to grow a business, like you said, these type of personal development, self development, you know, meetings in person and conferences is a way to do that in business and not have to figure out every single thing and make every single mistake that everyone else already has. And so I think that's the power of it. I wanted to go back to something you said that I think was really interesting, and that is you really have deliberately not grown a large, large business. And really your passion from the beginning has been the media side. And I think what's interesting is the fact that you were able to put the brakes on potentially your passion for growth and expansion, which, as you're reading, self development is a lot of times the drug that people will start to drink and that is growth. Build the business bigger, more employees, make bigger impact, whatever it might be. And all of a sudden they're running the machine, is running them. And so what was it in you that was like, hey, I'm not really passionate about the lawn care landscaping thing. I'm passionate about media and I'm going to go start this media thing because that's what I'm actually passionate about. Talk to me about that. Because for a lot of people, growth is like literally a drug that they start to get on and eventually it starts to run them.
Yeah, that's awesome. So. Well, first of all, where my business is at right now, we got my wife answering the phones and doing the scheduling, and Jill's office handles the overflow phone calls. We have two guys out in the field and I'm got a second truck I'm literally launching again Monday and I might hire a third guy. And asides from that, it's small. And besides from that, we have like the bookkeeper and the accountant is like, simple, simple. And so this actually really bothers me that I spend most of the day in the truck on the job sites like running the business. And I, like, sometimes I might get the guys started and show them what to do, or I, like, leave and get materials. But I'm very much what you call a stage two business. Stage one is where you're pretty much by yourself and you're running around like a chick with your head cut off and you're doing it. Stage two is where you have some employees and like, some stuff going on in the office, as far as my understanding. And then. But you're still all over the business, like, and that's where I'm at. Stage three is you're like, Totally out of field in, in the office or maybe just doing sales and marketing. Stage four, you're completely out of the business. You've hired other people to do everything and you're just like, maybe doing marketing and innovation type stuff. And I am still very passionate about my landscape business. I mean, we're all over it right now. The phone, it's still ringing right now. And I literally just did a quote 2 hours ago before I came home and ate dinner. And we're booked out with work all the way till July now. And so this consumes my whole life. But so the passion for the media stuff is so strong that I noticed that when I was trying to grow my business a bit a few years ago, it kept interfering with the media because it was consuming so much time and attention that it was. I was actually getting depressed because I love making YouTube videos, I love communicating with people, and I mean, I love helping people so much that now this is just me. I don't, I don't, I don't. I like being very positive and optimistic because there were times where I was in a dark place and I've said dark things to people that I've just severely regret that.
Like, I'll give you a quick example. I was at the Gae Expo a few years ago and there was this like this month period. I was just in a dark, frustrated spot and I met some landscaper who, he was like, with his wife and he was so excited. And when he met me, he was like, bro, I watched a bunch of your videos and just, I had this like negative energy, tone of energy. You know how like, if you're real pissed off and you're trying to smile and be happy, like, but it's just leaking out. And I just know for that one moment after I talked to him, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, why the did I like when someone else is positive? Just because I'm in a pissed off mood gives me no.
No excuse to ever, ever like, be responsible for the energy that you bring into the room. And I was just kind of being and like pessimistic when I was talking to him. And I was thinking about, like, who, who, who the hell am I? Like, I think about this. No matter what you go through in your business, it's not your customer's fault or it's nobody, it's your own damn fault and you own your own right? So basically, with that being said, I'm all over the landscape business like flies on shit. But at the same time, here's where I said I didn't want to be negative. I was in someone's backyard once, and we're doing this, like, I was like, 12 grand. We're doing this whole landscape makeover thing. We're planting all these bushes and shrubs, and I'm taking before and after pictures, and I'm taking the videos and making a YouTube video. And then it hit me as Weir leaving. I go, oh, my God. If I wasn't taking pictures and videos of this, asides from that customer and maybe their friends and family, nobody would ever see this, ever. And all of my hard work and the. The valuable minutes of my life that I'll never get back, and when I'm in my grave, nobody's ever going to see that I made someone's backyard look beautiful, cool. I can make. I could take all this passion, this just me speaking. I'm not trying to be negative. All this passion and art. And I made a drawing and a design for. And it was like. And I closed the job, and me and my guys did it, and we were like, that. That part was cool. Like the real.
Quintessential life experience that I'm talking about. Before any of this media, media and any cameras were out, there were people building, like, you know, Rome and people building pyramids and, oh, maybe the aliens built a period.
People are building without cameras and YouTube and all this. But I. I had this weird epiphany that, like, if. If you don't capture it, it's only captured in your memory. And for some odd reason, I love media so much that that was driving me crazy. And I was like, that's when it hit me that I don't even really want to do this if I can't make videos about it and capture and talk about it and. And inspire other people and have this whole other thing going on. So when the landscaping business gets so busy that I can't make content about it and take these little painful lessons and epiphanies where I've been, figured something out, or at least I think I have, and share that with people where they can go, oh, my God, I never thought about it that way. And then it actually helps them in their business or. Or inspire somebody. I felt like it's like, not. It's almost as if it never even happened. And then I'll never get that time back that was with me really, really, really hard. And so I started telling myself, videotaping is more important than working. I have to find people to do this so I can spend my Time doing media. And that was the whole, the whole whole goal, I think that you say philosopher turned landscaper. That's a funny thing. But.
Dude, it's the media business all the way. The media business is now kind of eclipsed the actual landscaping business. I think we're getting like, well, compared to some of these other guys on YouTube now. It's crazy what these channels are getting these views, like, but we're getting about 4 million views a month. And I think we hit 65 million views online. And my wife and I, we have like what, five. Well, we have, I have like 10 YouTube channels, but five of them that we upload to regularly. Like, our dog channel just got monetized. And we're excited about this. And you're like, your dog channel. This guy took one. So we, I think about this. We already play with our dogs already every single day anyways. If I just hold the camera while I'm already doing, I'm already doing, and then we upload it and be like, doggy squeaky toy goes bananas over daddy squeaky toy, you know, and then put some dumbass music in there, it takes an extra 120 seconds. And now we've got like, I'm not telling you the name of the dog channel, so don't even ask. But, but we've got, we got a video that's got 327, 000 views. Another one with 170, 000, another 104,000. Like 80, 000. And it's a little channel, but it's growing. And we're gonna monetize it and it's gonna be fun and we're gonna make money. My window cleaning blueprint YouTube channel just hit 15,000 subscribers the day before yesterday. That one's monetized and we talk all about window cleaning over there. My landscaping channel is going to hit 120,000 subscribers next week. And.
I love it. I, I wrote these three books, like, how to start a landscaping business right now with no startup money. Your first year in the landscaping business. And what is this one? The window cleaning blueprint. They're all on audible.com and Amazon. Keith Kelfus. And so you can like, listen to these while you work. And I'm so excited because I meet people in person and they like at a live event and to hear somebody say that they watch my videos and listen to my audiobook and it helped them get through that really, really hard time that got their business off the ground like two years ago. And some of these people like they'll be emotional and they'll be like, bro, you don't even understand, bro. I watch your videos and like, like, that means so much to me. That means more than landscaping somebody's backyard. It means more than money. It means more than anything. Because if, if a broke ass kid who was riding the bus, whose mom died of a heroin overdose, who thought he was a piece of me, could have that type of effect on these many, this many people's lives. Dude, that's like, that's why I'm doing all this. So if I'm trapped in someone's backyard building some landscape or trimming someone's bushes and I don't have enough time to make these videos that inspire people.
Then I feel like I failed, you know? So it was prophesied that the new, I guess what was the word influencer people, that the inspirational people that would rise up won't be like Patanjali and Buddha and like Mother Teresa and Saint Francis of Assisi. These, these inspirational people like Martin Luther King. I know those are huge names and huge shoes to fill. I could never fill those shoes. But what I'm saying is that someone had prophesied once, some prophetic person, that the people would rise up out of this, out of a civilization that would be average people like teachers and garbage men and janitors and landscapers and just regular people would rise up and become people that inspire tons of people. That there would be this nexus point where human consciousness just explodes and people wake up and become aware and fight for their freedom. Which to me means, you know, part of that is becoming your own boss. It's one of the first stages of getting out of like a dead end job. And this has happened very much so because of social media, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook and all that stuff. It impul appalls me incredibly when I see.
Some of these people that have YouTube channels that do just crazy horrific prank type negative just to get views and make money. And it doesn't like really inspire anybody or it doesn't make the world a better place. You know, there is a place for entertainment. But I like social media and I love how you can, when you use it the right way, you can do amazing things to you. You can fill up your funnel with tons of leads and get actual real customers who watch your videos, who know you, like you and trust you, want to hire you because they saw your videos and you can inspire other people or be part of an entire community that has your back just because of social media. So it's a Huge, powerful tool and I love it.
It's awesome. Last question as we wrap up here. I do have to run here, but kind of parlaying to what you said at the beginning and you know, in my, in my estimation, kind of what's happening now with social media and on being online is it's really changing education. Because what's going to happen, in my opinion, is instead of having a physical classroom where people gather and we pay an educ. An education system to go to this place and watch this mediocre professor regurgitate information from a textbook, now we have the opportunity to put tens of thousands of people into a virtual classroom and pay the person in the front of the room gobs amounts of money. But they're the best. The best. And they've been to Harvard and they've ran business themselves or they. They're not. They're not just a math teacher, they're a mathematician. And that's going to cause a consolidation of the money in the educational system away from the universities and towards the best of the best professors, the best of the best teachers. As that's happened, obviously, with even our industry, you know, people like yourself and me having online courses, et cetera, giving that accessibility to personally getting started, trying to learn, et cetera. What would you say to someone though, that's asking the hard question? I kind of know the answer to this is from getting myself. But I want to hear from you. What would you say to someone that is negative in that state of mind and would comment on your videos, for example, and say, hey, you're not a successful landscaper. The only reason you can do this is because the media side and selling this information and your books and your courses, and you admittedly didn't have a successful landscape business before. Why should I listen to you now? Without this media stuff, you'd be in the same place as me. What would you say to that bullshit?
That's total bull. Because if I didn't do the media stuff at all in my landscape business, it would be four to five times the size, for a fact. Because whatever you put your mind to, and you got to make that work, you make it work. I got a family to feed, I got a mortgage, I got bills, I got, you know, all types of responsibilities. And I have huge goals and it doesn't matter what I put my mind to, I'm going to make it work. So, I mean, thousands and thousands of people have grown. Landscape businesses and service businesses and factories and shops and all types of. It's not like the hardest thing in the world to do, especially with all the information that you have. It totally can be done. It's not like some impossible thing. So if that's what you want to do, go do it and I don't know, don't comment on my videos. Go can do it. I don't know.
I love it. Cool. Well, thanks for coming on, Keith. I really appreciate it. Maybe one of these days we'll have a part two and go into those deep philosophies because I watch your second channel. We could definitely go there together one of these days.
Maybe not on this podcast.
Oh, that was a real laugh, man. That's funny. All right. I'd like to have you on my show sometime too, man. And thanks everybody for listening.
Yep. Take care, brother. We'll stay in touch.
All right, later.
Later. Bye. Bye.
