​ @ it's HIS turf : From $2.2M Revenue & 32 Employees... Down to 12!

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes, landscape businesscourse.com and today for another episode of Roundup, we have a very special guest. Look forward to interviewing today and today. Actually didn't take a whole lot of specific questions because I actually want to go down a road where I want to have more of a dialogue and not so much go off the questions that I have written down. And this person specifically today has not had a lot for me to go off for the past few weeks, months, and even the past year in terms of what then posting online. So I'm really looking forward to catching up again with today's guest. And thank you everyone that has come live. Make sure you leave comments in the section for the comments and I will make sure we filter some questions over to our guests today without any further delay. Let's go ahead and get Blake Hawthorne from it's his turf on the show. Blake, welcome to episode eight of Roundup. How you doing?

What's going on, man?

Good, good. I know, sorry, it's a little bit offsetting with the. With the video, but you're. You're in shot now, so you're good.

Cool. Well, first off, I just wanted to kind of touch base, and I know I was able to see you for the first time in person at GIE last, I guess not last year, but the year before that. But obviously I've watched your channel on YouTube and recently it's been. You haven't posted as much. But I wanted to kind of get from a business standpoint, first of all, where's the business app? Maybe like revenue wise, employee wise, and we'll jump into all that fun stuff after that.

Okay. All right. That sounds good, man. Business wise, we're doing good. Kind of experienced some growing pains. And I did a major downsize a few years ago. Kind of got out of commercial concrete work, got out of some contracting work, things like that, and kind of just went back to my roots, landscaping, lawn care, little bit of hardscaping, just the higher profit margin jobs that we were doing, and irrigation work. And so with that downsize, we went from 32 guys to about 12. And that transition took about full transition, about nine months to get there. And when we did it, we not only lost a couple specialty crews, but we also lost, you know, office staff, mechanics, managers, and things like that. And so just kind of had to restructure the company and regroup. And it's been good. You know, we went from the downsize that year, which would have been we ended up doing just over 1.2 million that year. And we were on track to do a little over 2 million. And I kind of put a halt on everything in July. And we didn't do a whole lot of revenue after that point. But then, you know, we kind of regrouped, refocused, and with a lot smaller team the year after, we did a little over 800,000. And then currently this year we're having a pretty good year. Last year was a good year. This year's looking to be just as good, if not better. And you know, we're, we're sitting year to date. What is it? What month are we in? We're in May. June. So we're in June now. So we're sitting right, right over the four hundred thousand dollar mark, which isn't bad with the way that we've downsized. And so I'm, I'm pretty happy with it. And margin's a lot better. So that's one reason why I'm happy with less revenue, because margin is better. And you know, employee wise, we still don't have any office staff. We still don't have, you know, a lot of the managers. Just having one manager currently and then putting a little more responsibility on him, a little bit more responsibility on myself, and then my, you know, my foreman, the guys running the cruise, they have a little bit more responsibility. So it's just kind of delegated differently, you know, right now.

Awesome. So walk me through a little bit about that because I feel like there's a. I was literally talking to someone today and they need to go through what you just talked about, right? And they would have no problem with me saying that. And that is take a step back, cut back on revenue, but focus on the profitable services, simplify their life. And this specific individual, you know, is late in their 50s. I'm like, look, man, you're not getting any younger. You can't keep working 16, 17 hours a day. What was kind of the final breaking point for you? Because I assume it was a buildup over time, but eventually, like, hey, I got to pull the plug on this thing first. Tell me about what was the breaking point, but then why didn't you do it sooner?

Okay, well, I'm, I'm very competitive and I have this like, no quit in me kind of mentality. And so I don't care really what it cost me financially. It's more about my ego. And so I was willing to not quit or not lose, you know, in order to be successful. Maybe not financially successful, but at least successful in making it work. And so I just kind of had believed that and thought that was the only way to do it. And so I just kept pressing on and I had it. I bought out a big company. That transaction went bad, ended up costing me, you know, about 40, 50,000 in that transaction of buying out a commercial concrete company. We did some projects. That manager that I hired that I put on at a good salary, over 100,000 a year, kind of made some projects, big projects go south that I. I ended up tearing out over $30,000 worth of concrete and redoing. And so in that same time that this is going on, I'm working now 16, 17 hours a day, you know, and that's not all. Just, you know, office in the morning, going in the field, sometimes being in the field until 9, 10, 11, 12, even 1 o' clock in the morning on some hardscape jobs, doing some things and then back in the office and then trying to get a little bit of sleep in the day, doing it again. And that put a lot of stress on my marriage and on my family. And for a while I just kept telling, you know, my wife, like, it's going to get better, it's going to get better. I got to keep doing this. And it's just like nothing ever changed. And I just felt like I just kept, you know, I was the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, and nothing was happening. And so after that had a few audits come in with the growth of the company. I never changed my workers comp policy. And so I had like a $16,000, 800. $16,800 that I had in that audit that I had to pay in that I wasn't expecting. I got audited from way back and they before I was on payroll with my guys and was doing all that stuff. And I had a $26,000 fine for paying guys 1099 instead of W2. And so I had to get, get that right. Luckily, I'd already made the transition three years prior to being audited. But they went back so far and he said since I had already made the transition, I was doing right, I had done right for three years, that he was going to just, you know, penalize me this much where he could penalize me, you know, X amount more. And so just all of that kind of built. I'll be honest, I had a bunch of managers in place at the same time. So I had, I was paying a substantial amount of money and I had office staff, I had marketing team, I Had all these things going on, but there wasn't enough of me to go around. And I hadn't trained well enough those positions to operate without me. And so they were all pulling at me so much, every single day. And then I was being not present the rest of the time, and labor just ate me alive. And so we were pushing 20 to 30,000. It was in that mid-20s every week in payroll. And on top of that, I was paying anywhere from 5 to 20,000 a week in penalties or fixing this project or, you know, that fine for that. And it's just like, all that happened at the same time, and it just really built. And so that was my breaking point. My breaking point was my. My wife, you know, just telling me, like, hey, I'm done. I'm tired of you not being present. I'm tired of not happening. And until that point, I had said, I'm gonna. I'm gonna make this work. And I just had the realization that, like, hey, I built this once before. I can do it again. I can go from the ground up and get back, you know, up. And I remember, like, praying to God, just being like, God, if you'll just help me get to zero. Like, zero doesn't even seem attainable anymore. We're over $200,000 in the hole. I just want to get to zero. You know, if I can get there, then I'll make this. And, you know, for. For weeks and weeks, God provided, like. Like I said one week, it'd be 5,000 extra for this or 15 for that. And it's just like, all this stuff came up, and God always provided enough. And that was kind of his answer to my prayer on, should I keep doing this? And in that, I started praying, like, hey, God, what do I do? You know, what. What do you want me to do? And he kept telling me, like, I gave you a vision. What was that vision? And, like, I had to really think, like, what was the vision of my company before my pride got in the way, before I started trying to chase money, before I started trying to chase the world, trying to build up my own ego. What was that vision? And God gave me the vision, you know, of 12 guys, you know, similar, you know, to the 12 disciples. And, you know, I'm not saying that I'm Jesus in any way, but, like, that was the same thing that God kind of laid out to me. And so I said, okay, I'm gonna stick to that. I'm gonna go back to it. And in being faithful to that, God has blessed us. Coming out of that, not only did he get us to zero, but then he jumped us ahead and having, you know, great success financially. There's. And you know, one thing that I thought about in that whole transition was where were we the most profitable? What did I do early on in the business that built the margin so that I could grow the company? I was growing, you know, and so I looked back at that and I said, okay, I was the most profitable with four guys and a manager. You know, that supervisor was doing service calls, managing the teams, and I was running two teams of two, you know, you know, so I said, okay, we're a little bigger than that. If I take on the role of that supervisor manager and my supervisor takes on that role of that supervisor manager, can he and I then manage eight guys? You know, him having four, me having four, and then, you know, so with that, we're at 10. Can we throw my dad in the mix to have him run materials, doing the dump truck, doing some auditing, mowing, can we throw in a couple part time guys to kind of fill in on some of our big subdivisions? And you know, so that was our mindset going into it, you know, as far as what we did. And then we looked at, okay, that was the structure of the company. But now what type of projects were we doing? We weren't doing $30,000 landscape jobs, we weren't doing $100,000 hardscapes, we weren't doing swimming pools and all this stuff. We were doing little landscapes that we could get in and out of in a day, maybe two days, collect and move on. And so we said, okay, that's what we're going to do. That, that's going to be our main focus for landscape hardscape. We're going to focus on route density, let some customers go that have been really far outside. Even though they pay a nice penny for us to travel to them, we're still hung up for a half a day going to service them. We've got to be close to home. And then we just changed our whole structure that we're going to route everything together, even if it means a customer has to wait 10 to 14 days from a call in where we used to jump right on it, now we're scheduling it where all of us are on the same side of town together, together, and makes us a lot more productive.

Well, when we, when you kind of made that decision, hey, we're gonna like do exactly, you know, the scale back operation side of things. What was kind of the hardest part, aside from just like the pride, ego part, I assume you kind of got over that part. You, hey, I have to make the decision. But from a, an operational standpoint, obviously you have to let a lot of people go. Like, what was the hardest part? Because like, that's what I'm working with this individual right now is like, hey, time to unwind a bunch of 30 years of mistakes. What was those steps that you had to kind of do over the course those nine months?

So the first thing, you know, the first thing was kind of like figuring out when you have 30 something guys, you can kind of pull your top 10, you know, and you can get a real solid group of guys right there. Unfortunately, when you do that kind of cutting back, you lose some of that top 10 because they don't work well with so and so or their crew's now gone. You know, things like that happen. And so I had to say, okay, well, I originally went down to 17. And so it wasn't a huge cut. You know, that first week it was just like, this crew's really not that profitable. We've been training them. They don't seem invested. They don't really see where the company's going. They're just kind of here for a paycheck. Let's just cut them. That's easy, you know. The next was my rock layers. Full time rock layers. I had some big projects. I'd already been subbing them out to some other contractors. And so I said, okay, I'm going to help these guys start their own company and kind of go out on their own. And so that was kind of the next move. Two guys, boom, they're gone. And then the next was my concrete. If I'm going to get out of concrete and do construct, then now I have a seven man team. What can I do with these seven guys and how can I do that? And one of my guys was young and he really showed a lot of interest in having his own company. Showed a lot of ambition. And I wanted to see him succeed. He wanted to stay in this kind of work. And so I helped him get going, you know, whether it was tools or whether it was jobs or whatever. And so he and a couple of my employees kind of started their own concrete thing. And then the other people kind of stepped away and went and did some, you know, some of their own thing. And so it was kind of a good divide right there. And I still use them. I still use my rock guys. Several mount when I have rock work, I still use my concrete guys. When I sell them out to do concrete. And so that luckily that did happen in my favor. But then I had to go to the difficult things. You know, my mechanic, a guy that I had hired on at salary to manage all of our stuff, but with downsizing, we went from 15 trucks and crews. So we don't need all of this anymore. And when I started looking at the size of the company and what I was going to sell, I said, okay, I have a lot of headache in trucks, have a lot of headache in equipment. He's in here full time. If I take that salary and I invest it this year in equipment, what can I buy? You know? And so I looked at that and I said, okay, well, I can replace almost all of our maintenance equipment. You know, we have some really nice landscape equipment already. Can we pay a couple of these things off to free those payments up? Can we pay cash for a couple things to get some more mowing equipment? And so that's what we did. We made that transition. I said, okay, if I'm going to take this a step further and get rid of them. What about trucks? He's working on two to three trucks a week. So we sold nine trucks and we bought two brand new trucks. And I just didn't want the headache. I wanted a truck with warranty. I didn't want the headache. I knew that I needed my focus on the company for the next 12 to 36 months to get it where I want it to be going forward. And so I was willing to make that investment in buying a truck, getting into a payment, and then taking that cash from the truck sales and putting it back into new equipment and stuff for the, you know, for us to operate with. And so that's what we did. We kind of traded trucks for new equipment, lawn wise. And then we took what was our payments for our mowers and stuff and put that now towards truck payments. So kind of did like a little flip right there. And then we got rid of our mechanic. That was. It was hard, but he was going through a hard time in his life at the same time. And we both kind of decided that this is the best thing thing at this point. And it really has worked out for us. The next hardest thing, which was kind of already developing was with my marketing and office manager. I kind of put him full time into. It's his turf media. We had kind of been doing that. We've been launching turf and tools. All this stuff was kind of happening. And so, you know, we were making that transition. But he really wanted to do this on his own, you know, he wanted me to sub him out, he wanted to do it on his own. And so I felt like at this point in time, you know, save that additional, you know, 800, $900 a week in salary, let's let him go do his thing and we'll see what happens. And so I decided, hey, I'm going to take a break from social media as far as with all everything we're producing, focus on the company. It seemed like another opportunity. Like, hey, just, just like the truck payments were going to keep me from having to work on trucks. This was going to allow me to not focus on, you know, my social media and more on the company. And so we made that decision and went. And then I'd say the third most difficult was going back to the whole reason why I hired all these guys in the first place was because I like being in the field and I don't like the office work. I would rather pay somebody to answer phones, to send out estimates, to bill, to do all these things. And I said, well, what can I do to put that load on, you know, me and my manager? Because I kept one, my lead guy, he's been with me 11 years, I gave him a promotion, you know, step up and pay a lot more responsibility. But we just decided like, hey, we're going to tag team this. We're going to go back to doing our service calls. And so we got rid of our service tech so we no longer had a guy doing full time irrigation. We were having quite a few callbacks anyways. And so we were all constantly kind of going back and holding his hand and trying to train him. And we looked at that position and we had had so much turnover, four guys in three years. And so we said, hey, let's just do it ourselves, there's a lot of headache there. And so we took that on as our responsibility. And then we decided like, how can we split up billing and estimates, you know, because now that's still something we have to do. Luckily we've had the same mowing clients for five years now. We mow almost. I think it's a little over 400. I have to look. We picked up 11 new ones this year, so I think we're like 4, 16 somewhere in there every 10 days. So every 10 day rotation, 400 and something properties go through that rotation at least. And so, you know, how are we going to manage those? And so it took some sitting down and making a process, but I took about 3, 4 days and I sat down in QuickBooks I created presets for everything. Presets for rock, presets for gravel, presets for mulch, presets for mowing, basic mowing, mid grade mowing, unlimited. You know, everything you can think of. I, I did it. I thought about all of the calls I get about each of those things. And I put descriptions in there describing, warranty, describing, no warranty, describing what the product's going to look like, what we're responsible for, what we're not. And so people were getting a paragraph when they were just getting mulch. But I wanted to take away a lot of those phone calls. I was trying to think ahead, what are a lot of the questions and silly questions that customers call about? How can I nip it on the front end? And also with creating that process, it made us a lot quicker in the field where we can bid jobs instantly. When we're on a property like today. We looked at a job, walked it with the customer. Literally, as we're walking it with the customer, I'm building the estimate. When I told her, okay, give me a few minutes, I'll have it to you. Before I exited her subdivision, it was sent via email. You know, so I had already done, but that took three, four days of slowing down when you don't think you can slow down to create that process. And so, and then the other thing was, I told my manager, like, hey, you're going to be in charge of voicemails, you're going to be charged.

You'Re going to be charge of emails, you're going to be in charge of billing the maintenance customers, whether you create them on auto, you know, generate on QuickBooks or whatever you do. And then you're also going to be in charge of scheduling. And so, you know, getting maintenance schedules out, you know, every single, every single week, I will take care of the landscaping, I'll take care of the phone calls that I can actually answer during the day coming in, because I try to answer most of them coming in. And then I'll take care of all of the landscaping and subcontracting and all of that. And so that's just kind of how we delegated. And then I used to go pick up a lot of the materials, but with my dad still being here and running a dump truck, I've tried to delegate more on him as far as some of the runaround pickup stuff, put it on his shoulders.

Got it. Cool. I think a lot of times people in that situation don't scale back because they have a lot of fixed expenses. Whether it Be like a shop or equipment that they, they still owe money on. How is the business set up in a way where you could actually do that? Because when I hear, look, I just hear it all the time like, well, I have this big shop. Well, my fixed expenses are, are like X amount. I can't scale back. How did you do that? What was like, obviously you have a really nice shop. We've seen your shop tour and things. What was the, how was the business set up in a way that allowed you to scale back and focus on these services?

It kind of goes to how I built and scaled it to be able to afford those things. And that was, I always looked at what was my residual income, what is something that I can count on every single month to come in. And that's why I've always pushed yearly contracts and that's why I've always pushed, you know, 12 months levelized billing. And all of that is because I base my budget off of how many clients we have and what we have. And since I was able to sit down and look and say, okay, we've had these 385 to 400 clients for five years now. We have good rapport, we're taking care, you know, we've kind of nipped where we were screwing up in the early days. I know I can base and count on this. I was scared in the scale back to take away from maintenance. That was my non negotiable maintenance. We are not going to take away from. So if that means I can't take on a landscape project, I can't take on a landscape project. That means I can't take on a hardscape job, whatever it is, a new install, whatever, I can't do those. I've got to focus on this because I knew coming in, even in the summer, you know, or even in the winter when we were, you know, just barely making by, I had enough to break even, still pay all my payroll, still pay all my shop expense, you know. And so that's, I've always kind of built it that way where the maintenance would provide for, you know, our $12,000 that we need to operate shop insurance payments, you know, bills, phone, except, you know, all that. And then it also would cover all the payroll that we needed, you know, the. Anywhere from 8 to 12,000 a week, you know, at the size we're at in payroll. And then anything extra would always come from the landscaping. You know, if I was going to be able to put any back if I, you know, and we usually, if we don't have excess rain or anything like that. We typically would have about 10 days a month, which is a third of our time to go do landscape projects. With that, we could usually gross twice as much that we could GROSS in those 20 days. But profit margin wise would be just a little bit higher than where we were, you know, maintenance wise. So we could put, you know, in that typically we'd put about 10 grand back into the company, you know, in those 10 days. And that's after, you know, all expense and everything. And so, you know, I figured worst case, if we can't do any landscaping, we'll still break even. Even. Got it. And that's how I kind of based that decision, because I knew there's still going to be a lot. And I was nervous, you know, I was nervous with taking one of the big payments that I couldn't decide on. I was on the fence about selling was my skid steer. My skid steer is $1354 a month and we're not going to be doing hardly any landscaping. It sat for three months and didn't move or go to a job site, you know. And so it's like that was a difficult thing to do. But I knew there was a season coming where I was going to use it and I was going to want that nice piece of equipment. And you know, now I owe nine months on it. So I'm nine months away from paying it off. And I'm, you know, I'm glad I stuck it out.

Very cool. Going back, you. You mentioned acquiring a concrete company. I don't really want to focus on why you did as much as going through the acquisition. What did you learn if you were to go buy another business? What was kind of like the. The learning that you could take away from that bad acquisition?

Okay, so I don't think I would buy out another company. I just don't. I don't think I would. Reason being is I bought out all of his assets. I paid off all of his debts. And then I. We had a one year agreement and worked for me and worked for me for a very hefty salary after salary after some other personal things that I was paying for. It was about120,000 a year. And so yeah.

Yeah, I want his job. You want to buy my business.

I mean, it's crazy what we were grossing. I mean, of that 2.2 we were going to do that year. You know, he only wrote it out three months. And in those three months we did 280000 in revenue. And so, you know, him. Him being in that position, we were doing good. And then literally the last week he was there, some things went south, some jobs went bad, and we lost 30 something thousand, you know, plus I paid an extra, like 20 grand to some personal debts of his because I was showing him, I'm in this for him. I want the same in return. And, you know, would I change that? No. That was my heart. That's who I am. That's my integrity. I would do it all over again for that. But do what? I buy a company out to go down that road? No. I just learned there's some better ways of doing it. You know, I've went in my early days, before I had the money to throw around at buying a company and going down that process, I would exchange my time. I'd go work for a company for free. Whether it was when I was working at the nursery for free, learning plants, loading trucks, doing all of that after I just got done mowing all day long, or whether it was when I was working with the contractors, helping him on a new construction, doing irrigation, and learning, you know, grade and all that stuff on a landscape job, I think I would go back to exchanging my time or I would find the right sub, bring them in and work alongside them, being very transparent on the front end that I have every intention and possibly bringing it in house and find a relationship there to work on.

Awesome.

So when you made the big step back, I know a lot of it, you kind of pointed to your wife kind of pushing that direction, not being present. How has that changed? And I feel like, what steps did you take personally? Not just. Just the business, but personally, what things did you have to do to become more present for your family outside of work?

Okay, so the first thing was Saturdays. I felt like I had to work Saturdays. I felt like if I took Saturdays off, then the competition. Not even that. I feel like there's competition. Like, we're gonna get you.

Someone's gonna catch up.

Yes, yes. It's crazy because you just feel it that way and you get like this lie in your head. Like, I, we have. We mow a half a percent of our town, and we're one of the biggest companies in town. Like, there's plenty of work. Like, but that's just where I was. And I. I just never believed the fact that it'll be there Monday. So I would just, like, I would feel guilty going to the lake or going camping or doing these things with my family because I felt like I was letting someone Down. I felt like there was somebody out there that just had something so pressing that it had to be done that day, and I was letting them down. And so that was just where I was. And so in like 12 years, I may have not worked.

Three dozen Saturdays. Like, literally, it was probably like 30 or 40 Saturdays in like 10 years easy. I said 12, but yeah, 10 years. And so I said, okay, Saturdays are non negotiable, you know, and that's what my wife said. Like, hey, I want, like, if it's an emergency, I understand, but let's really figure out what's emergency and what's Blake emergency. You know, let's. Let's figure out the difference there and then, you know, dinner, same thing. Can I be present for dinner? Like, let's figure out what. How cannot wait till tomorrow and, you know, and then figure out if I can be home for dinner or can I get home and go do something if it is at the office after everybody's in bed or whatever. And I said, yeah, absolutely. Those are things we could do. So I set those non negotiables and I had to be very intentional with my family time. So we started going and going to state parks and going camping, and that kind of just became its own thing as well. You know, I'm, I got an obsessive personality. So the first summer we went to 36 state parks, you know, it's just like, you know, it just becomes this thing now.

Now you're competing on how many you. You be everyone else.

Exactly. Yeah. I gotta get some more state parks in a year there, but fun. And it was good.

You mentioned a good, you mentioned a good thing there and like making, how I kind of talk about is making other people's emergencies, your emergencies. Right. And I, by no means am good at this. Even with the franchisees, if they're going through something at two in the morning on a Sunday night, I will be there. Right. And I know eventually that has to stop because I physically will hit barriers. Right. What kind of was that transition for you to realize that, yes, this customer needs me right now, or this employee is needing me right now, but this is not my emergency. This is their emergency. And I'm not going to help them. Even though as much as I want to in myself, because that's the way I am. Right. Like I want to help, I. I have the capability to help, but I know that eventually I can't make their emergency mine. What was that kind of process for you during that time?

So the first thing that kind of like led to that being even a problem was the fact that I gave out my personal cell to everybody. And the fact that I told them they could call and text me anytime. Like wrong and wrong, like business line, business hours. Here you go. And if it is an emergency, they'll figure out a way to get to me, you know what I mean? And so I kind of just set that non negotiable and I've kind of got laid back this past year. I started giving out my personal again because it's more convenient for me versus like trusting technology in this app to send me the calls and whatever from the office line because it doesn't work all the time. And so, you know, I've got a little lazy with that and I shouldn't, I need to get a little more discipline back. But that was the first thing. And then the other thing was like the, the good thing about the state parks is a lot of them don't have cell service. So even though I was gone, you know, and I was out, I wouldn't get a phone call until I was on my way home anyways. You know, that is like.

Text coming in, emails coming in, you know, voicemails. But luckily in that season of my life, I was able to do it enough consistently that I kind of just created a process where used to, if I heard it come through on my phone now I, you know, my wife got me this watch. So everything pops up on my watch and you know, I would instantly look at it and do it. I've actually been able to discipline myself enough where I don't just jump at it, you know, and then when I do look at it, I can look at it and say, okay, this is something that needs to be taken care of. And I've always told everybody like, hey, if it's an emergency and it can't wait, call me two times, three, you know, I will answer. Like if you call me back to back, I know it's important and I will stop whatever I'm doing and answer it, you know, and, and I've kind of just told everybody that and they kind of know, like my guys, my wife, everybody knows, like if it is pressing then, then do that and I'll. And I'll jump on it.

Cool. I want to take a bit of a turn. I want to address eventually it's, it's his turf, media kind of what you've been doing on that side of things, or lack thereof. But before we go there, I want to address obviously in the name of your business, it's his turf, for those of you you don't know. May explain why he named it that way. And then I want to delve into a little bit more of that side, but just briefly share kind of why it's named. It's his turf.

Okay, so a little bit of backstory is I started a company in 08 called Lawns for tuition. And so as I was going through college and I was doing all that, I had that company, and I used it as a mentorship program. Actually, up until this last, like, two years, I was actually putting, you know, using college students and going through that same program and stuff like that in some other towns. But that kind of stopped once my brother graduated college and came here. But that was. That was a way for me to kind of start my business. I graduated from college a year before I could become a firefighter. My birthday was a cutoff a day before. So my birthday is May 1st, and the cutoff was the day before April 30th and 31st. I don't know. I think it's 30th, but, you know, so they wouldn't let me take the test for a year. So I said, okay, I got 17 clients. I'm gonna give this a run for its money for the next year, see what I can do. We'll see what happens, and then I'll become a firefighter. And in that year, I changed my company right away to it's your turf. And I instantly felt a conviction. Like, you know, I just felt this conviction about it, and I was. I was praying about it and trying to just kind of go through it, and it's just like this little voice in my head, like, said, glorify me, and I'll bless you. And I was like, well, how do I glorify you? You know? Well, it's your turf. Like, all this is yours, you know, like, this is yours, God. And so I said, okay. And so I talked to my business mentors. I even talked to my dad. Like, I talked to all these people. I mean, you're doing really good how you are. Like, why do you want to mess that up? I'm just like, well, you're great. Now I can't talk to you. Like, that's not what. You know what I mean? Like, I should have gone to the world when God's trying to tell me something, first off. But, you know, it's a different. Different story and a different sermon. But I said, okay, I'm gonna. I'm. I'm gonna do it. I'm Gonna go against what everybody else is telling me to do. I'm gonna trust God and I'm gonna glorify him. And so I knew it was gonna be controversial, but God said, glorify him and he blessed me. So I did it. I took the leap of faith in February, I think that's 2010. I changed the company name. By April, we grew from 17 to.

From April to August. We grew to over 90 clients, you know, going up into May. By the time we got to May, we were to over 150 clients. And so in just, you know, 13 or 15 months, we grew from 17 to like 156 clients. And I said, okay, God, I'm gonna take a year off from firefighting. I don't have a piece about taking the job. That's what my degree was. That's what I thought I was gonna do. I thought this was gonna be my part time gig. And so I stepped in it one more year. We grew to over 300 clients. And I said, okay, God, this is, I know you have a different plan for me. And even though there's a lot of security, even though there's a lot, you know, just comfortable, you know, ness in this, I'm going to trust you. And so then we just started, you know, trusting God and growing this company, glorifying him.

Got it. And so here's my question, and I'm playing a little bit devil's advocate just because I want to spur the conversation. And that is so for the person that says, hey, keep like religion and faith out of it and just focus on business and business and then do something else outside of business. When it comes to faith and glorifying God, what's your response to that and have you had kickback from clients or employees about that topic?

I absolutely have had some, some kickback on that. Um, and I knew that going on, you know, I knew that early on, going into it, I was going to have those customers that, that, that would do that. Some of them are going to be very blunt and just like, no, I don't, I don't, I don't want you. And so I was very upfront with it. The back of our shirts have Isaiah 48 on it. It says, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of God stands forever on the back of our cards, on the back of our door hangers, on the, on the front of my brochure. Like, you open my brochure to the middle and, and it's that scripture over a waterfall. Like it's two Pages as soon as you open the pamphlet. Like, I was going to be very upfront with it, and hopefully those people wouldn't be controversial. They would just decide to go elsewhere for their service. I've had customers that didn't catch it at first and then fire me after the fact, you know. Yeah, I had. So we used to do. I. I did service cards, and on the service cards, we would leave them on the door the day we service the property. And it would have a scripture, an encouraging scripture. I would have a lady send me those back every month and say, please don't do this anymore. And she. She eventually fired us. And I did a lot of work for her, but yeah, she eventually fired us in a nice way. Just didn't need my services anymore, you know, type of thing. But I just felt like, you know, we had to be. We had to be faithful in that to the guys that would say, like, keep it separate. Like, I respect that. If you want to keep that separate, that's your deal. But I would tell you this, that if God tells you to make them the same, then you better be faithful and make it the same. Because I don't think I would see the success that I've seen if I had stuck with it's your turf and ignored the conviction that God had placed on my heart. Do I think that you have to stand bold like this or even, you know, be a Christian, you know, business boldly like that, to still use your company as an opportunity to love people as Christ would? No, I think you can absolutely do it without it. There's opportunities and ways to do that without standing bold in that. But for me, it was all about that conviction. I had to stick true to what God, you know, said in that moment, and I've had to stick true to it ever since. And I'll be honest, I've never second guessed that. Like, I have never second guessed my company name. Even when I lost the clients, even when those things happen, my prayer and all of that was always, you know, God, was there a way I could have loved them better to not have been? What I feel like, you know, is maybe, you know, maybe I offended them. You know, like, is there something I could have done better? You know, there. And so. But I've never once regretted, you know, that. And I respect guys that don't make a part of it. But like I said, if God tells you to do it, you better do it.

What would you say to someone that kind of points back at the scripture and says, well, you can't Serve God and mammon. So, like, you can't be. Make a bunch of money and be a business owner and serve God at the same time. What's your response to that?

And. And I absolutely agree. There's been things in my business. We do a devotional each morning. It's optional for the guys. Every single morning, I'll pay them to do it. I tell them, come in, clock in, come sit up in the loft. You know, we'll do a devotional at a meeting, whatever, and I'll pay you to do it. I will pay you to hear about Jesus and. And gladly do it.

You know, same thing. We'll do some, you know, different events and stuff, and I will gladly pay them to be a part of it. We have some service days early on in the church where we were out serving the community. I would pay my guys to come in and help and assist doing those things, just to be around that type of stuff. You know, there's times where I was, like, where money was tight and I would try to nickel and dime, be like, man, I just can't do the devotional today. I just got to get them out. I got to get profitable. I got to get making money. And I would feel that conviction. And so God, you know, I did get away from that in the stress of us losing all that money and trying to be profitable each day. And. And I got away from the meetings. I was like, God, this is useless. Nobody's listening. Nobody cares. Like, you know, I can't do this because it's not making a difference. And he, you know, guys that were with me years prior showed up in my life at that season and said, hey, man, I just want to tell you, like, you know, I'm going through this divorce. And, like, you're the person I thought to call, and, like, I hadn't talked to him in two or three years, and, like, you know, it's the guy that had his head down in the meeting or where I was reading the devo, and, like, I didn't think he was hearing a word, you know. And so God used that in cool ways, you know, to be able to come back and. And show me. But, you know, the biggest. The biggest thing for me is if you go out and you chase money, you're chasing the world. And if you chase the world, you're going to get more of the world than you're going to get of God. And I'm a firm believer in we are going to experience an eternity, the relationship that we put into Jesus now. And so it's a reflection of how I walk with Jesus today, is how I'm going to spend eternity with him. And I'm not satisfied with it just being from a distance or barely getting in. I want it to be that intimate, personal relationship for all eternity. And so I've always like, you're, you're gonna roast me for this and that's fine, I understand, I'm good with it. But like, I didn't even look at my bank statements or balance a checkbook for the first nine years of business. I just trusted God, you know what I mean? And I seriously like that blind walking by faith like God had grown it, he had blessed. There was always abundance. I was paying cash for everything, not building a lick of credit, which, you know, is a different conversation, but you know what I mean? Like, all that stuff's happening and.

I just trusted God the second that I. It's just like Peter when he was out, you know, in the Sea of Galilee and the waves are crashing and he took his eye off of Jesus as he steps out into the storm of Jesus and he's walking on the water. And the second he took his eyes off of Jesus, he began to sing. The second that I took my eyes off of Jesus, I started focusing on the money and focusing on my ego is when I felt like I started to sing. And you think it's easy, like just turn back to him and you're good. But like, you know, you don't do that. You go into panic mode and you go to flailing water and doing whatever you can do to keep your head afloat.

That's awesome. I think it probably ties a little bit into the last part I want to cover. That's kind of like your YouTube side and you know, creating the media in the past little while, it's really shifted. Just really more conversational, devotional things like that. Before that time, I'm assuming that's when you had your full time office slash marketing person. Was that part of the, the problem you feel like in terms of adding to your sort of, you know, as you call it, pride. What was that shift like? I know for some people in the comments are like, well, where you've been for so long, like, what has that transition been like for you and how is that tied into the business and spiritual side of things?

So initially on the very front end, YouTube started to help guys. YouTube started to be able to help guys not experience what I experienced, from the severe depression to the suicidal thoughts, to the stress of the company, to the stresses of my marriage, to almost losing my marriage, like, everything that I went through in that process, it was to show them what not to do. You know, this is what I've done that's worked. It worked for me. It may not work for you, but it worked for me. This is what didn't work for me. And this is why. These are the things that I feel like have been the keys to my success in the structure of my business. And these are the things that I think you can apply to it. And that was the main focus, was to help guys. I always said, like, if there's one guy I can help to not experience what I experienced, then it's worth it, you know, And I didn't want to have, like, man, I know we stress, like, I know we all deal with the same depression, the same, you know, maybe it wasn't as dark as the suicidal thoughts that I've experienced, but I think that it's even in the, you know, anxiety or even getting in, you know, creeping into depression. I think we all face that or at least some level of that stress. And I thought, well, okay, I can. I can find a way to be able to help guys, you know, or ladies, like genius business owners, I could find a way to help them. And so that was the focus in that, you know, you want to, as competitive as I am, you want to grow and be the biggest and put as much as you can can into it and, and. And everything. And you see opportunity and you want to chase that opportunity. You want to, you know, you see a way to capitalize on, you know, on something and you want to capitalize. And I'm all about giving stuff away. Like, that's just been my thing. I want, I want to give. I really don't care to get back in return. Like, as long as I feel appreciated, then I will usually do, you know, a lot of things that cost me financially.

And so I brought some business partners into that, and the focus kind of changed with that. We were looking at going completely in house where it's his turf, wasn't going to be floating the bill anymore. The channel was going to be on its own two feet. So what are some ways we can bring in some revenue? You know, that's where kind of like turf and tools was birthed. That's where, you know, the playbook and some things like that were birthed. And training programs, there were some things, you know, and I, I'd drawn all these things out, but I had every intention of just giving it, you know, just, just giving it to the audience. And so those things kind of built and developed. And.

As you know, the YouTube channel doesn't exactly pay for a manager like that is an investment out of the owner's pocket if they want to do it or not. Adsense doesn't cut it, you know, and so that was, that was, that was a hard thing. And for the first few months, we were, we were paying for it. Like, it. We were bringing in enough money through all of our different avenues to pay for it. And we just kind of, a few of us didn't see eye to eye. I did a big giveaway, I did a big truck trailer giveaway. And that was something I want to do to give back to the community. Community. And you know, just some things like that kind of started the crumbling of that company and that media team. And so we, we kind of split up. You know, some of us did. There's me and. Me and Kevin with Fall river are still together with turf and tools. But that's the only thing that we have, you know, there. And that's just because he said, like, hey, I told you I'm in this for the long haul. I'm not going to abandon you. Like, we'll, you know, what you invested to. To for the website, what you invested for all this, I'll make sure you get paid back. Which, you know, who knows if that'll happen. But, you know, it's. It's all still up in the air there. And so that made me kind of take a step back. And so I took a step back from social media, from making the entertainment videos. You know, I want them to be educational, but I wanted them to be entertainment. I wanted to be in a good production. Like, I wanted to be the best of the best of the best in each one. And I think if you look at a lot of those styles, especially before, you know, I got into the. The Devotionals and stuff, you'll see that effort put into those videos. Right before the Devotionals, we kind of tried to scale back because we saw that we just weren't getting, you know, the return that we needed from. And we saw where people were dropping off, you know, in the B roll or whatever it is, and we said, okay, like, they just care more to listen and look at the face, so why put all this extra hours into the video?

And so I decided to take a year off. I decided to take one year away from making videos and pour it into the devotional and pour it into my company. And.

That was this past February. And so you say well, okay, well, what about now? Because that was, you know, it's pushing 17 months now and I, I'm, I'm kind of on the fence right now. I've really felt I've, I didn't have a computer. Our computer crashed. When all this breakup happened, the computer crashed, which was our third high dollar computer to do this. And I said, I'm not going to buy another computer. My camera actually broke in the last video that I made. My camera was set up or no, I was, I had just put out the hedge trimmer video, which is the last video I did before my, you know, devotionals, like in the midst of them. And I was making one of my. When I was decking out my trucks, I was like, I'm gonna make this banger, you know, 2020 setup video. And I was decking out all my new flat cabs and you know what I mean, like doing that. And my camera on the tripod fell, broke, like bent the lens up, like ruined it. And it's like, well, I can shoot it on my session five GoPro, you know, or what are we going to do? You know. So I was like, okay, that video is not happening. And so since then I have bought a new camera. I do have equipment, I do have a computer, a nice computer to do that. But I don't know, I've thought about hiring an intern, but I'm a little greedy, you know, I've been like, well, we're really profitable. Do I want to bring another person in? Do I want to take away from my time in the field, which is going to take away from profit, to make sure that they're being productive? Do I want to do it myself when I'm already enjoying time with the family I've become? I've kind of enjoyed my own time that I never had for years prior, like fishing and camping and stuff like that. And so it's like, well, do I really want to take away from that time that I have? So I'm, I'm on the fence about it. And then I've also been really convicted about not doing the devotionals. And so the devotionals are about to kick back off. This morning's devotional actually punched me right in the teeth about that. And so the devotionals will be kicking back off. But I don't know about the other videos because I wasn't the greatest at it. I'm not the greatest at a lot of things in my business. I find people that are and I hire them and I put them in that position. And then I work alongside of them to help them be the best that they can be in that position. Social media was the same way. I'm not good at editing. You know, I've only edited a handful of those videos that are on the channel. And the ones that I did, I probably spent way too long for what little they have in them. So I don't know, man. It's hard. My ego. My ego took a hit. My ego took a hit. One, to see the channel fail because I felt like I failed. Felt like if I took a step back, I failed, you know? Two, I didn't reach the goals I wanted to reach. It was a lot harder without playing the game to grow the channel. And I wasn't willing to play the game. I just. I wasn't gonna do it. I wasn't gonna be in the groups or the clicks or the, you know, this or that. I was gonna stick true to me, and I was gonna stick true to this, and I wasn't gonna go chase some different videos just for the views. I tried it and, like, dude, I got roasted. Like, with the times I took off after, like, not being what the channel's about, like, oh, my gosh, it just like gut punch after gut punch. So.

Well, before. Before we wrap up, I want to kind of ask a more overarching question we've kind of touched on briefly, and that is, how do you kind of feel like someone's business, personal life, physical health plays into their spiritual walk with the Lord? And I asked that because I feel like a lot of times people will confuse the two. They'll say, okay, well, I'm not doing good spiritually, or I'm not having a good walk with the Lord. But really, they're just stressed out to the max in their business. They don't have. Their finances are falling apart. They're not taking care of themselves physically. They're not getting enough sleep, and it's starting to affect them, like, mentally and emotionally and all the rest of it. And then I see the flip side, too, where now you have a spiritual struggle going on now, affecting the business. Now things are falling apart in the business side. What have you seen even in your massive transition in terms of balancing and sitting, seeing that relationship between the business and your personal life and in your walk with the Lord and your spiritual side.

So that balance has, like, been key. Like, it's been something I've been striving after, you know, between, you know, the business, my faith, and my family. You know, like, how can I do that? And I was really this past Sunday, like, our. The way they're preaching, they're talking about it, and it's a really good place to be. And that's, you know, it starts first with your faith, like, that's got to be your first focus. And the next is your family's like the four Fs. You know, you got your faith, your family, your fitness, then your finance. And like I, I always say, you know, I would say the fitness needs to go first because there's so much mental clarity and stuff that comes into that. You know, just being able to exhort that energy to actually be in the right place that you can, you know, go to your business and make the right decisions and the right strategies to be successful financially. But our self tells us the opposite. We think our focus, if our stress is coming financially, we have to focus on the finances, we have to focus on the money, we have to focus on the strategies with that. But like, take this for instance. So we were 200. I'm gonna go back to it. But we were $216,000 in debt, upside down. It happened in seven months. So from January we were profitable till July. July 7th we were.

Which year?

2017. Yeah, 17 or 18. I'd have to look back at a calendar. I think it was 18. So 17 I made the purchase of the concrete company. And 18, this happened. So, yeah, so 2018. And in that, like, I went like 30 days, literally, I would come up to the shop, I couldn't sleep at night, my wheels were turning. And I would come up to the shop at 1:00 o' clock in the morning, at, you know, 5:00', clock, like, whatever it would be. And I would focus on the strategies, I would look at the projects, I would look at everything on my board. I'm a visual person. And so, like, over here's a big marker board down in the shops, a big marker board. Like, I want to see it, I want to draw it all out, I want to color code it, I want to, you know, connect the dots. I want to, you know, put the right guys in the right places. And so I would do that every single day. Strategy. How am I going to make the most money to today? And, you know, that's what I would do.

And it wouldn't work. Like, everything on paper said it should work, but it wouldn't work. And like, God told me, like, you're not doing the devo, you're not seeking me, like, you're not trusting me. Like, you know, you're just trying to do it. On your own. And so I said, you're right. Like, one, this business was made to glorify God. Two, Two, I've always told God that if I'm not seeking him, take it away. Like, that's always been my cry to him, because I don't want to gain the world and lose Him. I just don't like, that's.

How did you justify. In the moment, though, when you were growing so big and perhaps did you not feel that you weren't neglecting that side of your relationship with the Lord? Or how do you do you justify, like, oh, this is only going to be a temporary thing. What was your way of explaining to yourself or God that you were justified in doing so?

Right. So even through the time of losing money, I was still doing I. So I abandoned the vision that God gave me for the company, and I chased the world in my own ego. That's what led me to 32 employees in this big company.

So I abandoned his vision. I was still seeking him, but I was really just going through the motions in my head. I was seeking Him. I lied to myself personally, being transparent with you. I was going through the motions. I was checking the box off of the Diva with the guys in the morning. You know, I was praying, whatever. I was hitting church on Sunday. Like, I checked all my boxes. I was succeeding, you know, whatever in my walk. I really wasn't, though. I was just checking them off and chasing after the world, doing what I wanted to do. And so in all that time, it seemed easy because I justified it in my head. It wasn't until I fell flat on my face, realized that my marriage was crumbling, realized that all these things were happening, that I had to seek him. And you think, okay, when those things happen, okay, you turn and you seek him and you're good. I didn't. I still wasn't personally seeking him. And it took. It took actually chasing after the money, trying to fix the problem week after week, month after month, to finally come to the realization like, I don't care anymore. I'll go bankrupt. I'm just going to trust God. And so when I stopped coming up to the shop super early and I started coming up here, you'll see, I started doing a devo, you know, you said 17 months ago, that's when I started doing that devotional. I started, you know, really trusting God to kind of get rid of all of those debts.

And I would come up to the shop and I would actually do a live stream. I would do the devotional and pour into the guys. So I was seeking him first. I wasn't getting on, checking my bank account, you know, like I always do. He used to do when I rolled out of bed. I wasn't then coming up to the office and figuring out a strategy. I would do my devotional first and I would truly seek him. And then I would go into the planning of the day. And so it was that. It was that heart change there. It wasn't the. It wasn't the motions or the action, but it was the actual heart intention and the heart change. And so as soon as my heart actually changed in that moment and trusting God, it's crazy, the level that the stress, you know, was relieved. It's crazy, the mental clarity that I had to realize where I needed to be, what I need to say no to, you know, things like that. And that's when some things I'd been like, pushing really hard for project wise to happen and stuff that just didn't seem like it was going to happen, or projects I bid 14 months ago that never heard back from them, they started calling in. The things started happening and those things started building. And so God, like, showed me, like, once again, just trust me and seek me. Like, truly seek me. Don't just go through the motions to say you did it. Make sure your heart's there.

One of the things it reminds me of, one of the things I always think about a scripture in the Bible. It says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. And I always think that's really interesting because, like, the wages, when you think about wages, you think about you. You work for it, right? You work for it. And the wages of sin, like, is as an employer, sin is the employer. And the wages of that is death, right? Like, you work and you work and you work, and the wages at the end of the day is death versus a gift of God, which I did nothing for, is given to me, and that's eternal life. And I think sometimes being a business owner, having money, having confidence, we want to work for it all the time. And it's like, no, like, this is a gift. This is not something you can. You can be achieving. Right? And I think that's. That's a big unlock for so many.

Yeah, business owners, men like, in, like, particularly. I think it's hard for us to accept that, you know, for sure. I couldn't agree more. And, you know, a lot of people are just like, oh, dude, this is. This is baloney. Like, you know, whatever. Like, how is this, you know, Business advice. But I can tell you, like, what makes sense on a calculator, like what makes sense on paper hasn't made sense for me and my company. It's. It's been trusting and seeking him. And, you know, we talked about it early on, and God doesn't care what you and I do. He doesn't care for landscapers. He doesn't care if we, you know, we're firefighters, if we're doctors or whatever it is. All he cares is that whatever we do, we bring him glory. And how can we bring him glory? By loving his people and loving them well. And I don't think that not everybody is not just like, not everybody is called to be a pastor. I don't think every business owner that's owned by a Christian is called to stand bold and, you know, proclaim him in their name or even in their mission statement, but it's in the actions that we take every single day and influencing our customers. You know, we have over 3, 000 customers in our database now. You know, we're servicing over 400 of them weekly. You know, and with those customers, we have a unique opportunity to love and serve them well and to have integrity. And that's what makes the difference. And, you know, some we have deep relationships with, where we can pray with them and we can help them through the things of life. There's others where, you know, it's just the smile on our face or the encouraging scripture that we give them that helps get them through that. And then others, they just try to ignore the fact that we are a Christian business and just let us do our thing because we do good service and whatever it is is fine. We'll keep planting those seeds until they hit fertile ground and the fruits produced.

So last question before we head out. For someone that their name is not, it's his turf, it's some other random thing like Bob's lawn care.

How can they bring glory to God as you say that, without making it such? Maybe they're a little more reserved. They're a little more. They don't want to be as external about it, but they still have conviction. They still want to bring glory to God in some way. What's something in our business, whether it be the employees, the community, our families, what are some of those things that they could do that they might be looking for an element or a way kind of. Kind of express those feelings and those desires.

Right. You know, the first thing is, is always integrity, you know, with the company, whether it's cost me money in the past, or it's, you know, humbled me. I've always done what I said I was going to do for the price. I said I was going to do it. And if I made a mistake, I owned it. You know, whether it was a yard, I ended up having to triple cut because I bid it sight unseen and didn't tell the customer, there may be an initial cleanup. You know, I still did it for that price. I shouldn't. I should have ran out there and looked at it. Or now I have a process in place where I tell them an initial cleanup, you know, once we get to the property, whatever. Or if it's $37,000 that you lose on a swimming pool, which I did. And so that was part of that 216. And so, you know, I owned it. I took a loan out, I finished the job, I paid the subcontractors, and I owned it. It was integrity. I did what I said I was going to do for the price I said I was going to do it for. And, you know, God glorified that. The next thing is just, like, it's in our handbook. It's the way we carry ourselves. I ask my guys, you know, like, it's down to the language that they, you know, that they're, you know, talking between guys, the way they're acting, you know, between each other are, you know, the way that we look, you know, wearing a company shirt, not wearing, you know, Miller Light or, you know, whatever it is, like a beer shirt or, you know, whatever. Just don't. Don't do that. You know, that's one reason why I do enforce company shirts. I wish I'd do a full uniform, honestly. But, yeah, company shirts. And then I think, you know, I always challenge my guys. I challenge my guys every morning to have integrity, and I challenge them to look for an opportunity to serve someone well. And I tell them, whether it's blowing off, if they see somebody, you know, sweeping their driveway, go run over there and blow it off and give them a business card, you know, or if it's holding the door for somebody at the gas station, don't rush in there to grab your energy drink and your, you know, your pizza. Like, just hold the door open, let somebody get in there in front of you. Like, you know, serve people well. And that. That's always really helped. I can't tell you how many times we've got calls just saying, hey, I ran into your crew at the gas station. And they were so polite, you know, or, you know, we have a lady that we've serviced for nine years now that I literally blew off her driveway when she was sweeping it. And they had, you know, their grandson or something was going to the yard, and we've taken it over and serviced it ever since. And so you never know when those things are going to pay off. And I think by having that integrity and that structure in the company, it'll work out. And then also you've got to make sure if you're going to put that structure, you hold guys accountable. Because I've had it on the flip side where I've had guys, you know, acting a fool and they've got to have repercussions. But I think if you set your foundation for your company there, have that integrity and then just always look for opportunities to serve people. And if you pray that prayer, God, give me an opportunity to serve one today. Like, be ready for picking up a hitchhiker or buying somebody lunch or providing on work for the day. You know, like, I've picked up guys that say, I'll work for food. Like, I'll pay you. Actually, like, just come work, you know, and I'll pick them up and put them to work, put them in a hotel that night, you know, go buy them dinner. I'll do all of the above just so they'll go out and work. And it's serving somebody, you know, community stuff. Like I was telling you with my company, I pay my guys to go to a community day, you know, serving the neighborhood, you know, putting mulch out in the parks or cleaning up elderly's house, you know, things like that.

That's awesome. Well, thank you, Blake. I really appreciate your time. I know it's been quite a bit of time here, but I really appreciate you coming back on here and I look forward to hopefully seeing again, whether it be at gie or down the road in person.

Yes, sir. Absolutely. It's good time. I appreciate it.

Awesome. Thanks so much, everyone. Let me go ahead and wrap the things up. Appreciate you joining us here on roundup and we'll see you next week.