Live Consulting Call - Marcus Felmley

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care and the founder of Homeworks. And today I'm actually doing a one on one coaching call in person here in the studio with Marcus from Idaho. He's young entrepreneur, 22 years old, runs a business that has $2.3 million doing landscaping and construction work. And he's really trying to figure out how do I scale this, but also realizing that the way the business is built now doesn't have a lot of systems and it's going to burn out really good people. And so I really look up to him and admire him for being cognizant of the fact that he's going to have to have systems. He's going to slow down for a moment. And so we talk a lot about using admin as a way to play defense for 2026 so that in 2027 and beyond he can get to 5 million plus. So this is a one on one coaching call in person, in the studio. If you ever need coaching, you can always go to mikeannies.com coaching and book a call today.

Currently, I mean, this year we did 2.3 million. We average anywhere from 25 to 35% profit. It varies across the different services you.

Do, obviously, and how much of that is kind of give me a breakdown of the major services.

So I would say our two major services would be construction and maintenance. So construction looks like mainly commercial or high end residential. And so commercial meaning we just built an Amazon facility. So I mean they have like 14,000 plants. So big stuff like that, stuff for the state of Idaho. We just did a job for Idaho, Transportation department, Interstate asphalt. I'm sure, you know, crh, people like that. That's what a commercial looks like. High end residential blackrock. You ever heard of that? High end golf course, you know, private. We do, you know, the landscape jobs are, you know, six figures plus for private clients. I actually don't like those as much because I feel like the middle millionaires is what I call them like the most snobby because they like something to prove. You know, it's like they have to prove to you that they're wealthy. And it's like, dude, just the cheap.

Ones want you to feel like they're wealthy. So yeah, do whatever. And then they're really.

And then they're mad when you do it and then they have to spend the money on it.

So. So how much of it is that then? The construction side, I would say we're.

Sitting about 75, 80% of the revenue. So, you know, we're going to be about 1.6, 1.8 million of that. Maybe 1.6 of it would be construction and then the rest is maintenance. And that usually that's mainly what I like to call estate maintenance, those blackrock homes. So we have a lot of clients down there, some HOAs. We've had a hard time getting into the commercial maintenance. So if you have any insight on that, I'd love to hear it. It seems like they just are happy with their current providers. And over there in Idaho, it's like, you know, we're like 10 years behind everybody, so it doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't seem to matter how much you're on. You know, the Internet. They're just kind of like, oh, I'm happy with Billy. You know, he's been doing it. Him and his boys have been doing it for, you know, 20 years.

Like maintenance is a lot of times too a little more price sensitive. On commercial, they just want the lowest price.

Exactly.

Whereas installed, they're like, we want to make sure it's done right, but then after that we'll escape by. So that makes sense.

And there's one of my bigger competitors is my buddy. Like, I've gotten to know him really well. He's helped me out on a couple things when I was first starting doing construction. So I don't know how to step on his toes. And he has some of the commercial contracts that I could go after because he has a commercial construction company doing the landscape install. And then he just started a maintenance company. So now he's just taking on the work that he does. Right. He builds it, does the huge HOAs, and then he just takes on the maintenance.

Got it.

So I don't really want to step on his toes. And so that's why one of the things that that's keeping us from really growing in that sector is trying to be careful with that.

And the last few years, like, so since 2020, what's kind of been the growth revenue each year then?

So last year we were at 1.2. The year before that we were at 440. And then the year before that we were at like 80 something.

That was awesome. So basically nothing. 401.2 and now 2.3. And then assuming nothing changes next year, probably just momentum.

You're doing over three. Yeah, I would, I mean. Or actually, I'm probably actually going to slow down the growth a little bit. Okay. Because I would like to step out of the business. Not like out, out. I want it to be like what you say, where you know, if you chop the octopus head out, right? Yeah, chop the head off. It doesn't. The entire function doesn't disappear.

Still involved a lot in, in most big projects or you have a project.

Yeah, I had a project manager the year we did 400,000 because I was going to CDL school. My CDL and so I was there for a few weeks and I didn't pay attention. He literally told my guys to just milk the clock.

Really? Yeah.

I got back and which my leads were like, hey, you should come down and look at this. What were my leads? And then I hired this project manager that, you know, it was impressive because he showed me like hundreds of photos of projects he's done. I don't know if he just worked on crews that did good work or what, but. But I was really impressed. I'm like, why? You know what you're doing? Sure, go lead this guy, he's like, you know, a 40 year old guy. And my leads are like, can you come look at it? And I'm like, I'm too busy right now. Which I should have just listened to them and trusted that they needed me to come down there. Cause they didn't want to totally rat him out. But they just like come see it and then you'll understand. And I was too busy at truck school and I didn't go down there. So like three weeks later I go down there and they had like half of a little wall built. I was like, hey guys, this is unacceptable. And they're like, we've been trying to tell you this. It's not us. And he literally told us to milk the clock. And I'm like, well, have you been? And they're like, no, but what are we supposed to do? We don't even understand how half stuff works, you know.

Wow, okay, cool. And so kind of getting to that level, what do you kind of see as a constraint from going from 2.3 to a business with 2.3 that has better systems without you having to be that linchpin? What's sort of your next step, you.

Think it's a good question. I think my main hesitancy is the fact that when we did the year we did 400, we had like at one point we had 20 people because we were trying to grow and I was just running around putting out fires. Like that didn't last long. It was like a few week period. But the end, by the end, you know, that year we. Or no, I should Say that was the year we did 1.2. That makes more sense. Anyway, so that was that year. We did 20. We had 20 employees. And I had two of my brothers working with me. So it helped a little bit because they could help and do stuff like that. But we were constantly running around putting out fires. And I'm a Christian. My faith with Christ means more than anything to me. And having that understanding that maybe not all my clients, but some of them knew that I was a Christian. And then my work wasn't backing what I was saying. I was believing. To me, it was like, it's not worth it. So I ended up firing everybody. I had nobody coming into this year. And so we grew, and we still grew. It was kind of crazy, but tried to grow slower and not run as many crews without me. And so, you know, ran one smaller construction crew doing the smaller stuff, ran a lawn care crew and then kind of a split lawn care crew where they would. Sometimes they're three man crews, so sometimes one guy would go and do like, the ramp racks. I don't know if you guys still do that, but we have those racks on our trucks now. And then I would run the big project crew. My problem with just going, like, straight for like, you know, the 3.5 or just the huge excessive growth is that we lose the quality. So we've actually been voted the number one landscape construction company in the entire state the last two years. I think last year they had 88,000 votes. And so having our name out there as being somebody that you can trust, I don't want to fail people. And so that's why I'm here. How do I grow without sacrificing the product? And, you know, I guess my biggest thing is, like, one of my dad's big concerns is owning a company, especially like yours, where you have so many different things going on. Who do I hire or how do I hire somebody I trust in the office that can watch our numbers and know our metrics, you know, watch our financials, know where all our money's going, you know, handle all that, I guess. How do I trust that? How do I trust that person? How do I know they're the right person for the job? Because obviously, you know, I screwed it up when it comes to field guys, and that's not as big of a deal. It's like you fire them, whatever, you move on or they quit. But when it comes to somebody that's managing your money, or do you say, that's my job?

Yeah. At the smaller size, when I say smaller, usually sub 5 million, you still are going to have that function of the business be outside. So like an accountant or bookkeeper, someone else, because you just don't have a full time gig for that yet. And if you expect your office person to be able to do bookkeeping and like payroll functions even immediately, just, you know, probably increase their comp by 20 to 30%.

Sure.

And so I would say I'd separate like as in the book I talk about like until you pass 3 million, try to get as much of your admin by a specialist.

Sure.

Like I want a bookkeeper for my bookkeeping, I want a tax person for my taxes. I want as much of that moved off the plate. So my admin person like does the basic functions of answer the phone, do my email, process payments, run invoices, like as basic as possible.

Sure.

Because otherwise it just gets too expensive. And most the tasks of an admin person aren't the level of like a bookkeeper or a cpa. Right. And so, and also too, it's nice from a trust perspective, you do need to trust your admin person, especially if they're full time. You don't necessarily trust your bookkeeper as much if they're not on a full time basis because if they're not doing a good job, you just bail to someone else. Right, Right. And so I would just really try to find a really good bookkeeper. Like just know your numbers, have like monthly reports, have everything reconciled. Never surprise. Your balance sheet's always updated. I think that's a big turn. Like for me, right. When I was passing at 1 million 1.2 was like, okay, I need to see a balance sheet reconcile every month. I can't be, I can't be at the end of the year for taxes. It can't even be quarterly. I've got to have monthly. Just that alone helps, really. Having full insights on the financials. Do you do all the bookkeeping yourself right now?

No. We have a bookkeeper, but I don't know how much I trust them. Well, it's actually just like a lady and her helper.

Yeah.

The reason I say that is I fired them as my cpa.

Yeah.

Because they were doing a terrible job. I mean, last year they tried to make me pay like $100,000 in taxes.

Yeah.

And then I went to my parents. Cpa. I was on the books for like four years. They're local here. Maybe you know Melvin Danson, you heard of them? Okay. Anyway, they're local here, they're downtown, they're.

Still doing your taxes?

Oh, your parents taxes? They didn't do my parents taxes for all their investments and stuff. Co I was on the books for like four years. Every year I called, they'd be like, no, it's too busy, too busy, too busy. Finally got in with them and I called them this year and I was like, well, you got to go back and you got to go file my 24 taxes.

Yeah.

And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, well, you're going to pay fines. I'm like, I don't care. There's no way I owe as much as they say I do. So they went in and I ended up paying like 15 grand.

Yeah, yeah.

So my point is like, at that point, would you fire them as a bookkeeper, in your opinion? Like, if they did that bad of a job on your taxes, would you say, I'm looking for a different bookkeeper.

I do think those are two very different skills. Everyone lumps them into one. Because usually a firm that does their bookkeeper, well, some all of a sudden do your taxes. I think they're different skills.

Just like guys that mo lawn say they can put in a paper patio.

Yeah. Like, like my cpa, Brad does not do my bookkeeping. Okay, Right. He does my taxes. Sure. And I meet with him every two weeks and we go over taxes. We don't talk about bookkeeping, we talk about taxes.

Sure.

And I think the skill level is very different too. So if someone's like, I'm a bookkeeper, I'm like, okay, you're not doing my taxes. If they say, I'm a CPA and I run taxes, I'm like, okay, you're my tax person. And then if you're cheap enough, I'll have you do my bookkeeping. Because like, bookkeeping you is not the skill of tax strategist.

Sure.

And also there's a difference between someone running my taxes and someone actually creating a strategy. So like, for example, if you start getting real estate, like a strategist is like, okay, can we do accelerated depreciation? Okay, can we put a tenant on this so we can, you know, write this off faster? Like they'll think about those things. Whereas someone that is just preparing your taxes is like, yeah, just give me the documents and I'll run it all.

Sure.

And so I think it'd be probably at this size, like, definitely worth thinking, like, how do you get someone to do your taxes? It sounds like you got in now.

Yeah, they're just a CPA that's all they do. And then they do like year end planning.

Yeah. So as long as the bookkeeper, like, they have clean files, they responsive, they get everything done every single week. And they're giving me clean reports. I think they're probably fine. And so there's a very good chance that they're good bookkeepers and lousy CPAs.

Sure.

It happens.

Okay.

Or. And you don't need to be a CPA to be doing tax prep. You just need like a little license that says, like, you need to run people's tax prep.

Sure.

And so that's likely what they have.

Okay.

So I would probably keep. I would probably keep them assuming that they do a good job bookkeeping and then keep your other guy for the cpa. Just because they're bad at tax prep and tax strategy does not necessarily mean they're bad at bookkeeping.

Okay.

It's just a very different skill.

So in your opinion then, I should be meeting with them once a month?

I would at least have them reconcile your books. Quarterly, minimum.

Yeah, I know they do it. I think they do it monthly. I pay them a monthly fee to just keep up on it. All my QuickBooks and everything.

Cool. And then do you go over with them or is it just like.

No, I probably should.

I would go over it mostly because when you get your reports, when you see a number that looks a little off, do you just click on it and double click into it?

If it's off, I just go, man, that's off. I know it's off.

Okay.

That's why I'm here. Cause I don't do any of that. You're techie, you have all this stuff. I'm just like, yeah, you're good. I'm like, I don't even know what to do. I click on it and then it's like, you know, I clicked on the wrong screen. I'm like, I gotta back out.

Yeah, yeah. No, I think the level that you're at now, if you know the numbers wrong, it is. Sure. Like, there's almost never a time where I look at a P and L that I'm not managing at the end of the month. And I'm like, that looks off and I click on it. And there's not something like, oh, there's a subscription that we should not be having. There is someone doubled up on payments. Like, we put two months in one instead of making sure it was every single month. It's almost always something. And it's a good way to have your pulse on the business. And you'll never be able to lose control of it if you just know all those things. And I think you do know because you're so involved. And this is the time before you start trying to step away to make sure all that's dialed in. Because then your bookkeeper, a lot of times they just don't know. So they just filed it because they know you're not going to say anything. So they're like, oh, we'll put in tools and equipment. And you're like, well, no, actually that was a rental. That was a piece of rent. Like we rented that. And so there's little things like that that you can iron out and create rules with them in QuickBooks so that when you start stepping back, those things are accurate. So sometimes it's good to take a year. Like you are not grow as much systematize little things like that that you're kind of just kind of slipped in the carpet. So then as you step back, it's being done. Right.

Makes sense.

No, he will all kinds of you, like, I know you have questions, so like, let's just go through those and get as much value as we possibly can.

Pull them up. I mean, I didn't. I know one of the, I guess one of them I know is one of my biggest, is looking at, you know, where you've been, you know, and when you grew your original location. Talking to me as someone that hasn't got to that 5 million number, and that's not even necessarily like it's a number set in stone. Maybe, maybe I don't even go for that number, but let's just say 5 million. What would you say are some of those biggest pitfalls, roadblocks that I can avoid because you've made the mistakes or you've seen other businesses make the mistakes. What would you warn me against?

The biggest thing, the skill that I had to learn going from 1 to 5 and even 10, is the skill of leadership. And that's one of those things where it stinks because it's not like, here's the step, do these things. But the reason it would be important because the difference between 1 million and 10 million is the ability to have other great leaders in the organization pushing as hard as you and finding them and then retaining them when they're that good. It comes down to can you lead?

Sure.

And so that is not an easy skill. And you will make a bunch of mistakes. Like you just kind of got to. You got to realize you're going to because you just will and then so you start kind of taking off the rough edges sometimes, like how your personality is, how you interact with people, your thoughts and opinions about things. You're kinda like, okay, that doesn't matter. I'm just focused on getting great people. And so I think back when you were 400,000 and 1 million in between there and you had that operations manager, you start to identify what good looks like and what bad looks like. Like, what bad looks like is okay. This person, the team underneath them, is starting to say negative things about them. Okay, well, does that mean I immediately jump in next time? That can be tempting. That's probably not the right thing to do, though.

Sure.

So, like, from my perspective, if a team like you had say, hey, you should come look at this, that was their way of saying, like, hey, we need this person stinks. But also what will normally happen is they will just straight up tell you, like, this person's not good at their job. And what you want to be very careful of now that you've been burnt in that direction, is that down the road, that will happen again.

Sure.

And you'll want to be like, oh, I gotta jump in. And then you could potentially jump in prematurely and make that leader now hit your guts. Right. Oh, so you don't trust me. You're just gonna believe whatever they say, right?

Just chop their legs out for anything.

Yeah, you tell me that I gotta push them and make them work harder and get these jobs done. And of course they're unsatisfied. They're gonna come to you. It's the daddy mommy situation. And so there's always this, like, yin and yang. And there's no, like, right way. It's just like, there's a blended average and you gotta figure out, where am I at in the middle? And so that will be the difference, though, is, like, finding great not technicians, but managers. And so right now, your org structure is likely. Like, you have your technicians. I know you're kind of running in operations, but what's the other org kind of look like right now?

So I just set that up this winter. That's why I love winter. That's like, my favorite part about winter is the fact that we get to kind of sit down and organize things. So I have a general manager. He's awesome. I think I told you about him. He's from my supplier. He was leaving, hired him on. Anyway, so he runs my entire maintenance division, like, all without me. I mean, I take maybe one call a week that has anything to do with maintenance. Everything else is the construction side, which is awesome. So he runs all that. And then he will also do stuff for me. You know, I'll just say, hey, I need this taken care of, Terry. Do this, do this. So it's. I kind of look at me being here. He's there. What I'd like to have is an office person that can do just the kind of boring, mundane part of, like, answering the phone, you know, doing lawn care. He does.

Oh, he does. Okay.

So you know that in my opinion, for how much he's getting paid, which maybe I'm wrong, maybe he just pay people. Maybe he's had to pay people a lot, But I feel like he should be doing more, like, important tasks than just answering the phone. And we have. I have like a whole on, like, estimating sheets. So I've got probably 10 different, you know, Google sheets. One of them's lawn care. And it's all. They can just plug in the square footage and they get the price and so they can do that. And we've kind of honed it over the last few years, so it's pretty accurate. You know, it's not perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. You know, you got accessibility, all these different things. But so it's me, him. That's where we're currently. And so we're more like this. We're kind of like this because I run my division, he runs his.

Got it.

And he's got his lawn care crews, and then I've got my construction crews, and I work with a crew. So it's kind of, you know, me and a crew over here and then one other little crew down here that kind of answers to me. And then he's over here, and he's got his two little crews.

So he really handles everything, like, on admin side, because residential or like, maintenance is way more admin.

Oh, yeah.

You know, like, you're probably in touch with the customer, but you're one of them. With one or two people.

Exactly. You know, you're on a big commercial job. You know, they just bill at the end of the month. Yeah, that's all you do.

Okay. And so right now, who does sales? Do you do sales for projects? You just sales for ad. For maintenance.

Yeah. So for small stuff, we try to do as much as possible just over the phone. Right. So. And then. Or what we'll do is for our maintenance stuff, like a smaller cleanups and stuff, they'll just drive by on their routes and look at it. Because my lead, one of my main leads is awesome. And he's really good at estimating. He does that for the commercial side. Like anything that requires blueprints or, you know, plan sets, I do that. So that's my side for sales. Like, we really don't have much in the way of like, quote unquote sales. Like, we don't really market ourselves. I think I told you, we're ranked number one on Google for Coeur d'. Alene. So, I mean, during our busy season, we'll get like 200 calls a day. And so by the time we would get to April, we're booked. And so I've never had the need to market, but I know if I want to grow, you know, then you're going to. You're just going to start growing out from underneath that. If you don't want to lose the profit. Right. If you don't, if you don't mind losing the profit, sure, you can just start taking all the jobs. But we try to land about 25% of our jobs, you know, and so by doing that, we get high profit. But, you know, as we're going to grow, we're going to need to find ways to market.

So, yeah, like, I feel like, like when you look at sales, operations, admin in the business from an operations perspective, you probably crush it. And the reason for that, I know that is because, like, just even being like ranked number one landscaping company, they look at operations, it's like, do they do great work? Right. And so that's the part where, like, you're likely crushing it and you're just good at doing the work and you're good at motivating technicians to do the work. The part that is going to like, be the bottleneck to growth is like the two other aspects, which is like defense and offense. So defense being admin, offense being sales.

Sure.

And so I would just look at yourself and be like, okay, I know operations. And like even the fact that you went and got your CDL and like these sort of things tell me, like, you are really good at doing the work and like, that will probably never be a problem because you have such an intrinsic connection to like, high quality work. So I don't really even worry about your operations. I mostly worry about the fact that like, you have these two levers. One is a defensive measure, one is an offensive measure. And I think right now, given what you're trying to do, I would probably pull very hard on the defensive measure of admin. Like creating a. What all the sheets that you have for like getting your estimates out, I would be Creating systems and procedures for your admin person. Because when you do that, you just unlocked probably 50% of the time for your GM.

Sure.

And probably, let's call it 10% of your time.

Sure.

And I think it's probably actually more than that because there's little things you're doing right now that you just hand off to them. But what you'd want to do is create like, okay, here's all the stuff that my GM's doing. Here's what I'm doing that is now going to not be done by us. It's going to be done by an admin. And here's the playbook to make sure all this stuff gets done.

Sure.

They're the person that also would look over the, the piano from your bookkeeper and see all the issues because they see the invoices coming in on the email.

Right.

Like you take email off your phone, like these. All these little things that unlock another 50% of capacity for you and your GM.

Sure.

And then, then you go on the offense.

Okay.

So I think it's kind of like 2026 is a year where you really systematize the admin side.

Okay.

And that is like you have phone scripts, you know. Exactly. They know how to sell over the phone. You create training for them on all these aspects. It' no one likes defense. Everyone wants to be like the other side. And that's like website advertising gets a salesperson. Like that's the thing that will get you to 5 million.

Sure.

And that's something we could do pretty quickly. I think you're wise in saying we need to have some defense. The admin needs to be taken off of your plate and your, and your gm. And I have a feeling you're both doing a lot more than you think.

Oh yeah. I'll tell you that. I hate it, dude. I hate being in office. Like I was not an office type person.

Yeah. So I would just create systems for everything that you're doing. I just have a meeting with him and be like, hey, you know, list every single thing you do that's admin related. And like, well, what's that mean? Anything that has to do with making money after the work is done, whether it be automations, email, text messages, voicemail, looking over the expense. Like a lot of times your admin person can take bookkeeping over and they're actually better than the bookkeeper. A lot of times because they know where transactions are going. And then you have your bookkeeper just reconcile the books so they make sure everything's Lined up correctly. But they can just like. Because they know where they know that you're on a job site with so and so and that gravel is for something else. Like they know all those little details sometimes. So there's a lot of things I think they could take off your plate.

Sure.

And creating systems for that is just not the most exciting thing.

Sure. How do you teach them an installer of the phone? I mean, do you send them somewhere to learn? Or am I supposed to just like sit on the phone with them and like, watch me talk to this person?

Yeah. The challenging part is so it's kind of like, you know, do it with them, then do it for them, then do it with them. And then you let them do it themselves.

Sure.

And so like the first step is going to be like, hey, I'm going to take this phone call or I'm going to sell this job with the phone. Watch me. Or your GM would do this too. So that's why I think like you both listing off what you're. You would need to be unleashing from your schedule. You would then teach that thing to the person.

Okay.

I also, I try to doc.

Or you're saying like, hire somebody else to do the admin.

Yes.

Okay.

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Hiring someone else to do the admin. Like, I think at your size, you have an office, right?

We're going to have one.

Yeah.

We don't currently.

Okay.

So that's. That was my thought because I'm like, if I hire another office person, I need an office.

Right.

So what I'm doing is I'm just going to. We're going to have one. We don't currently.

Okay.

So that's, that was my thought because I'm like, if I hire another office person, I need an office.

Right.

So what I'm doing is I'm just going to actually take a like 40 foot shipping container.

Yep.

And I'm just turning it into an office. There's a place in Spokane which is just across the border there, and they're going to put all the windows and the doors and everything. And then we're going to turn the interior into an office. And then there'll be three offices would be my thought. One, one for me, one for my gm, and then one for the admin person.

And just realize as you get the admin person, the main objective is actually not to train them, it is to document everything that you guys are currently doing that is just being done. Right. Because that's what makes hiring admin person so scared your size most you would have gone admin percent 400,000 because they hate you doing it. Right. You haven't. Which is why you're profitable at your size. You didn't get overhead so early. It also makes it daunting because you're like, I have a bajillion things that I need to hand off this person. I do not want to train them. And the worst thing that can happen is you train them and literally a month later they leave.

Right.

And then you're like, forget that. I'm just going to do it myself. I don't have time to train this another person. So document everything. So ideally you screen record everything.

It's like you have a basically like a training procedure.

Yes. So like for example, again you list off everything you're handing off to them when they, when, when your GM says, you know, billing at the end of the month for their maintenance customers. Great. Screen record that.

Sure.

On the next month. At the end of the month when you send out the invoices and you charge everyone's cards, record it.

Sure.

And that goes into a Google Drive and it's titled appropriately.

Right?

Right. So you have maintenance, you have projects. And inside of those there's folders, there is billing, there's deposits, there's cards on file, there's selling over the phone. And then like it's. You could become. You create your own like learning management system.

That's smart. So then like if they ever have a question, they just go watch the video. They don't have to call me when I'm in the middle of something.

And, and when you. Number two, because inevitably there's turn admin. Unless you're able to get like, you know, a friend or someone close, like that's great. Or a spouse, like awesome.

Right.

But even those people will turn. And the thing that then pulls everyone back into the office is, okay, well I've got to do it because like I don't want to have to train someone else. It takes a lot longer to train someone an admin when you're at your size than it does someone out in the field.

Okay.

And so I would use the first person as like just expect them to leave. Just expect them to leave. Unless they like your spouse. But expect them to leave because you will then document everything you tell them.

Okay.

And you and your GM will be much more clear in terms of like, here's all the things that need to be taken off my plate. Then I'd create a 30, 60, 90 day plan for them. Like hey, after 30 days, these are the things you're taking off our plate. 60 days, this is what's going off your plate. 90 days, this is what's coming off our plate. And then after 90 days, they should have taken everything off of both of your plates. And it will literally likely allow you to double the business without the two of you being in those things anymore. So, so I kind of want like defense, I need to take those extra costs on. But the ability then grow to 5 million with you and your GM happens because literally 50% of your day is offloaded to this person.

Sure. So that makes sense. I like it.

And then that leads in like, okay, well then what about sales? Like how do we grow the business? Your website you can absolutely crush.

Okay.

Like that you already are ranking so high on Google listing. If you had a good website, that will be the thing that really catapults you.

Sure.

And so like even like your trucks and everything look great. Like the truck is a sign. When they pull into the parking lot, they need to see the storefront. The storefront needs to look good. And right now you don't have like the website that doesn't exist. And so if you have a great product, you have a great sandwich inside of the storefront and we can all tell each other about how great it is. But I still as the customer have to see your sign, pull inside the parking lot, see the storefront. Like I want to go inside.

Right.

And so what's happening right now? They're seeing a great sign. They're pulling inside the parking lot and there's like, oh, the storefront's like the lights not working. There's a cracked vinyl. It doesn't really work quite right on my mobile device. Like that's your storefront and inside is the best sandwich in the world. Well, sorry, best sandwich in the state. But like they'll never know because they're like, I don't know. Right. And so I think that would be like the lowest hanging fruit.

Sure. What would you say like with that being said, what is it a month for your guys service? It's like 300.

It's 499amonth. The thing is your size, like the reason becomes so obvious is you need one project.

Sure.

We see like most of the time when people join, they're joining around 4 or 500,000 in revenue. We usually see about an 80% increase in leads in one year. Now at your size, I don't think that's gonna happen. I think It'll be probably 30 to 40%. But I do believe that that's the thing that can almost double the business.

Sure.

Because you have the project, the projects are so big.

Sure. And because then you have people like Amazon that they would go look at, our website would be like, man, this company looks like every other idle company. Their website's falling apart.

Y and then you go, like, from the website, you just create like, hey, are you maintenance or are you construction? And then you have two different worlds they live in. When they click on construction, you want to see massive projects and excavators and trucks and whole nine. For the maintenance side, you don't want them to see that. You want them to see them adjusting the sprinkler and all this. A good web design will allow you to be able to also create systems for when people call in, they're like, I'm calling for a project. Great. This helps your admin person be organized. Now what happens is they just call in. They have a thing going on, and you guys got to juggle. Which of us is handling this? Which of us is taking the estimate? The admin person becomes the top of the funnel. But it's a lot easier for them to take that when on your website that you make it very clear there's two different divisions when they call in, hey, would you like to talk to the maintenance division or would you like to talk to the product division? By the way, that one filter will remove all spam calls.

Is that. Are you saying that's like an automated deal?

Yeah.

Okay. I heard people doing that. Like, that's so smart. I need that on my phone. I get all the junk.

Yeah. Just immediately will take the junk calls out and, like, then you could even have it where it's like, okay, maybe the admin person is getting ramped up. They're not ready yet for big project stuff. Great. When they click one, it goes to Rio. And when they click two, then they can handle it. But then day 90, in their 30, 60, 90 day plan, all calls for projects should be able to come to you.

Sure.

And then you just do their comp against that. 30, 60, 90.

Sure. Right.

So it's like, hey, you're starting at 20 bucks an hour. You go to $22 an hour after day 60. Assuming that happens after day 90, then you go 25 bucks an hour.

Sure. Do you see paying hourly better than paying a salary for an office person.

Like that for your work. I assume you're pretty busy throughout the winter, right?

Yeah, with. I mean, we have a lot of, like, prep for the next year as far as work goes. No, we end up closing down because our nursery is all closed down. And you know, obviously over there it's snowing so we can't mow. So we do snow blowing and we have, you know, commercial, a lot of commercial accounts and we do a lot of snow plowing and assaulting, stuff like that. But as far as compared to summer, no, we're not like busy at all. We just do like catch up work.

Yeah. Your office manager. I don't mind being on salary. Like you're going to keep them all the time. I'm very hesitant always of increasing overhead during the off season.

Sure. So you're saying like my gm, basically.

You don't mind gm, like so when gm, sales operation, admin managers, as you scale this up, like those people, I'm keeping on.

Sure.

And I'm taking the L on their wages during the off season. But I'm trying my best to make sure I don't lose money.

Sure.

But I need to keep them on just from a leadership perspective and continuity.

Right.

I can't lose my admin manager and then three people underneath them, 5 million. Right. And so I don't mind salary for those ones. I just am very cautious around overhead, fixed overhead throughout the off season.

So while we're smaller, staying here, just pay them, you know, by the hour and say, hey, you know, here's the possibility of us growing if you help us and then we can put you on salary.

Yeah, I would, I would hear a really good ramp because again, when it comes to what gets you from here to 5 million, it is going to be attracting that leadership talent. And so if you, if you in the application and hiring process, like, hey, we're gonna fix 30, 60, 90 day plan, you're gonna make jumps in pay hourly along that period. And then when you get to year one, you, we're going to have a, we're going to have an assessment as to whether or not you're going to be the office manager.

Right.

And you know that you're going to buy that time, need an assistant for them because you're going to go back into sales mode. You're going to go from 2.3 to 3.5. Well, you now need someone answering the phone, not just one person. You need to. And so now, now like at year one marker, it's like, oh, will you become the office manager and lock in a salary? You just make it that way.

Sure.

And then that defining moment is when we hire an assistant and you are now the manager of all the admin. And then by that time, you always want to make it that the manager is responsible for creating the systems. You no longer. So you will train them, but then you make it like, hey, by year one, you need to redo all the lms, the learning management system. You need to do all of that again. We're fine because we stink at it. And you need to make it your own so that when people come in, you get your first assistant, your second assistant, etc. You. You train them and it's all better than what we showed you. So I always try to bake into my manager's job description, the fact that they have to make the systems better. Sure. So that way I'm not like, oh, then they're leaving, I've got to go make the videos. It's like, no, like, that's their thing. They know how to do it better. They should be creating the systems. And it also helps a team underneath them. If they build a team and they leave and they have no systems in place, you are right back in their job. Right, Right. Yeah.

So that makes sense. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, especially with just, you know, having the systems in place. Building that.

Yeah.

Is super helpful.

And you're going to the winter, like, this is the time to sit down with your gm, go over what he had admin on his plate. Same thing with you. Create the videos. It's a pain the butt. It stinks. Get Loom. Just like, just do it. Sit down for a day. Like we're crunching through all this stuff.

Is Loom like a.

Okay. It's really basic. There's like a bajillion screen recording apps, but Loom is the one that's like the most common. Super easy just to do screen recordings.

Sure. That makes sense. So we're. So I'm assuming, like, is it mainly a desktop type deal. Then you can.

You can do on mobile too.

Okay.

Yep. So if you want to do like a mobile on like an app or whatever, and I just like do a screen recording.

Okay. Yeah, sounds good. What do you think about that question I was posing about my GM?

Right.

He's like 50s. Your thoughts on is it worth trying to train him how to do construction, estimating, or is it better to just continue to do that myself until I can afford to hire somebody younger that's already doing stuff like that?

I don't think the age has anything to do with it. So if age is the only thing that you're questioning, I would go for it. I think that what I'm looking more for is do they have the skill and the ability to lead? Because like, the reason you've grown so fast is because you are really good at projects and you're good at project management. And so like in the book I talk about, like, there's the project manager. The project manager is like super systematized and they have tons of standardized work. They know how stuff gets done. They have 13 spreadsheets. Like, that's what you're really good at. And so someone that's really good at maintenance and leading the team might not be that person.

Sure.

And so assuming. I'm going to assume they have the skill of doing the big project stuff. Sure. Does he, does he, your gm as.

Far as like, does he have experience doing big projects? No, not, not as far as like actually doing that.

Does he want, does he want to learn that skill?

I don't know if he necessarily wants to. He said he, he said like, he's. He's a super like, go getter type of guy.

Right.

And I think I told you he was a area manager. Managed like half a dozen.

Why don't you just let him keep scaling up the maintenance side?

Yeah. Good. He's. I think he's a little less keen.

On doing the maintenance side.

No, not even necessarily that. I just feel like sometimes he takes no for an answer.

Okay.

You know? Yeah, that's just like, dude, like, not. That's not like a harsh way at all. But it's like, dude, you know, you can't take. No, like they're literally about to like, say, sure. You just got to convince them that they need to go for it.

That's where like, like from a sales perspective, Is that what you're saying? Mostly.

Yeah.

Yeah. So like, that's when I would. From a maintenance perspective, you can put as much as possible of sales on admin if you create the correct systems, like people calling in, you can sell them over the phone on the estimate that. That he creates. Your admin knows. Just add these other things afterwards as upsells. He doesn't have to have upsell. Admin just does it.

Sure.

And so the more you can bake at the. Turn admin into an offensive measure, they'll take things off of his plate in terms of sales.

Sure.

And so if I was you, given that fact, unless he learned the skill of sales on his own, I would probably let him keep doing maintenance because you know that maintenance you can pass off to admin and sell. You can't sell a $50,100,000 project over the phone. And so that level of sales skill is why you've grown the business. That's why you're so hesitant on it. You know, it's the secret sauce. Like, it's you and your skill. And so I would just hold onto that for now and focus on like, hey, you keep doing what you're doing, which is like, the guys love you, you train them great. You're amazing. You're a go getter. You just don't do not great. And so either a, you learn that and then we can address whether or not you want to go into projects, or just keep doing what you're doing. You're crushing it. I'll move as much of your sales stuff over on the admin side because I can in maintenance. Sure, you can. Almost like even quarterly, like upsells to maintenance clients for annual color sprinklers. That can be all done from the person on the phone.

Right.

An admin and even just like formatting the estimates. All of that can be done on admin. So I would probably just let him be more comfortable in the operations. And if he's pushing back on sales, he just, he doesn't have that skill yet.

Sure.

Just let him do his thing. Like we call them operational GMs versus sales oriented GMs. And if you push an operational GM, trying to push them in to be a sales GM, you might lose them.

Okay.

So yeah, we're gonna do sales and you're gonna learn how to push and overcome objections. And you might like, I'm out.

Yeah, it's like, no thanks.

And that's like, there are people who are just really good people as operational GMs, I would just let him keep doing that because I think you'd eventually double or triple size of that department without him learning new skill. Just keep doing what he's doing.

Sure.

Scale up the team.

Okay, that makes sense. No, I mean, he's really good. It's like, he's awesome. You know, I think I told you that prior when I had the younger person working for him. He, you know, we weren't billing everything and I didn't wasn't watching anything. So I mean, he come in. He's come in and he's caught, you know, like 50, $60,000 of unbilled from last year, you know, and so he's awesome about it. Like, he's super thorough. But I guess my. Yeah, my main thing. What about like if I just taught him how to do the estimating it's like he could do the, you know, three hours of, you know, sending, you know, takeoff to our, you know, what would you call them? I guess suppliers. Right. And then he compiles the numbers for me. I can review it, you know, and spend half an hour. Do you think that's reasonable?

Admin can do that? Okay, Admin person can compile those numbers. Run your spreadsheets. Like, literally the least amount of work you can do on sales, the better. Right now, sure. Like, I think it's a matter of, like, you guys do a great job at operations, but you're splitting your attention a bunch of admin and a bunch of sales. I think you can take a lot of what you're doing. Like, when you're talking about, like, putting numbers together, that can all be done from the admin. You can just do it using AI or like a voice note right back to your. Your admin person. They then put the numbers in the spreadsheet they compile. Hey, just want to send this over to your review. And you're looking at a finalized estimate with pricing.

Sure.

Like, that would save you huge amounts of time on projects. So I'm mostly focused on that because I think you double your capacity.

Sure.

And double the size of the business without having to then fix the biggest problem, which is going to be very difficult, which is sales of projects. That is going to be extremely skilled person and have also the gift of Gavin sales. And this is why, like, it's hard to many times replace yourself at the project level as an entrepreneur, because you have the gift to give any of the skills. And so he has the skills and likely not the gift of gab or wanting to push and, like, do that sales kind of jig. And so that's fine. Let him do operations and he'll scale maintenance and he'll slowly grow, and that'll be the backbone of the business. You can then hand us as much as possible of your estimate creation. His sales upselling to the admin person, making that defensive measure an offensive measure. And then once the business doubles, that will become the bottleneck is like, we have this problem that is you are great.

Sure.

And that is a matter of price. Like this matter of fact.

Sure.

And that's why, like, I was able to push artificial turf and excavation and tree chipping and all this stuff. And then it was like, right when I'm like, okay, I got to start pulling back, I'm like, oh, this huge void that I will have to pay someone gobs of money to fill these shoes. Or I'm just going to have to close it all down, right?

Yeah. So that being said, I've got a kid that works for me. He's very much kind of techie type guy and he's done some stuff for me because that involved more computer type stuff. But originally he wanted to get hired on to work in the field. Okay, hired him on to get to work in the field, put him with one lead, the lead in the crew didn't like him, said he didn't work very hard. Second, with a different crew leading the crew, didn't like him, say he doesn't work very hard. Well, now the kid wants to work in the office. Do you think that's even a possibility? Because my, my problem I'm coming at is like, how do my crews and leads that worked with him ever trust him if they couldn't, if he couldn't work with them? Or do you just say no? It's a completely separate skill set. You know, he's just an office person and you know, sometimes they just don't work out in the field. What's your thoughts on that? Like, could he work in the office or do you think like, nah, he's broken the trust, you gotta get rid of him.

If, if the leads depend on the office person for materials or anything like that, then you need their buy in. If you're like, hey, I'm taking this person away, you will never see them again because they're gonna be over here answering phone calls, doing estimate request forms and doing upsells like you then don't even have to consult them. But if there's gonna be any sort of trust needed between the leads and the admin person because of order materials, equipment, estimating anything like that, that's when you would just bring your leads in. Be like, hey guys, I know I've been trying to find a spot for this person and I think that they actually have a lot of raw skill and we can use them in this company. I think that we put them in the wrong spot, which is we put them in operations and doing the work. And it was very clear to me that from all of your guys feedback that you don't think that that's a good fit. Do you think he's a good fit for admin, answering the phone, et cetera? The reason you could probably get away with this and they might say yes is because they don't want to be doing the admin.

Right.

As long as the operations people. I do not want to be locked in that box at all they'll be like, yeah, put him in the box.

Yeah.

And then that might work out well.

Right.

The only time that I've seen that backfire is when the people in the operations look to people in admin as like the cushy job.

Sure.

And then it looks like you're promoting them and like what, you just like moved him from like, what is like, is there nepotism? Is there like, like, are you just friends with this person? What's going on?

Right.

And so that's where you wouldn't be careful. I would, I would get the buy in of the crew leads in that, in that situation, I think you could get it.

Sure. But for you, like, if you had somebody like that and they weren't going to deal with a crew, you wouldn't be hesitant to just train them in a different position.

Not if they weren't going to be involved with the crew.

Yeah. So their work ethic in the field doesn't necessarily mean they're not going to have a good work ethic in the office, is what you're saying.

I don't know about work ethic, but their results.

Okay.

Because like, you can. Absolutely. If I put like half of my admin team, all my admin team I put in the field would not do well. If I put all my admin team or office, see.

Yeah.

In the tech, they'd also fall apart. So like, they're very different skill sets.

Sure.

And so it also depend on like, what were they complaining about? Was it like they just sat in the truck all day long and didn't do anything? That's a problem. Like I have a, there's a character problem. Like there are people here in admin that wouldn't do a great job in the field, but they would die trying.

Right.

And like, that's the work ethic that then I can be like, okay, you do not. You stink at mowing lawns. But if I put you on the phone, you upsell like a beast.

Right.

And so I think that's the part I'd be trying to measure. And only, you know, that part is like, what were the complaints? Was it more actual. This person does not care. They don't actually have any desire to make this company look good. They're, they're, they're actively pulling us down. Or is this a function of they're in the wrong role.

Sure. They were like, I can't leave him because they come back and he's like wandered off and is doing something completely different. Or one of them, they apparently were digging up a water line. You know, you put the tape in there.

Yeah.

And they have, that they have tape that they use for water lines is blue.

Right.

Well, they were digging and they hit the blue tape and apparently the kid was like, man, we hit water that fast. Guys in the field are like, what? Why do you think water would be blue? Like, come on dude, it's dirt, it's going to be brown. Yeah.

So very possible you have an admin person out in the field and they're going to look bad, that everyone's going to pick on them. Everyone think they do a bad job. And assuming that they're like, if he was down in the hole, kudos to him. He was working hard, I respect it. And so you put that same person in the office and now they have some skill at least have been out in the field. They might actually get through a lot of your systems and training faster because they have a little bit of contextual of the trucks types of work. They know blue lines, stuff like that. And so it might be a good fit. I would just say if they're going to be leading or telling your crew leads what to do at any point you gotta get the crew leader's buy in. Sure.

Okay, that makes sense. I guess the two questions, kind of a two part question. One, did you think that's. Do you think that's paying myself too much? Is there such a thing? And two, what do you think is paying somebody else too much?

Yeah. So first off, I would, at your stage, I would pay myself enough from a salary perspective so you can survive and live.

Sure.

And you know, I don't think that's very high. You're not like lavish. So like I think I would just reduce as much as possible because your taxes on that can be pretty high.

Sure.

You're an S corp too. So you can take distributions and get around self employment taxes like there's no reason to have a high salary. If I was you, I would create some sort of system for distributions.

Sure.

So how we do it is anything above one month of revenue is able to be removed from the business.

Okay.

So we do on a quarterly basis. You can do it monthly if you want. If you have a very consistent cash flow for the off season, you can do it monthly. It's like, hey, we did $110,000 last month. Okay. At the end of the month there's $120,000 in the bank. Great. $10,000 distributions. And so you get in this habit of taking money out of the business. And also down the road or even now, you start giving a percentage of what you take out of the business to your management team.

Okay.

Right. And so you're very involved. So you might not do this yet, but, like, down the road, when you're, like, never there, you want every dollar you take out of the business, five, you know, 50 cents, 40 cents, 30 cents is going to the team.

Okay.

Whether it be managers, frontline team, etc. But you start giving them a piece of what you take out of the business. But you just establish that habit of. We live off of what is after our working capital. And our working capital is defined as one month of cash flow. Okay.

And is that how much you would have in the bank? Does that also answer that question?

Yeah, I like to have that much. Just from a working capital perspective, especially when you're doing big projects like you're doing, because there's months where you're doing 200,000 in monthly revenue. So there's.

You take the entire amount, even though obviously your profits lumped into that number, you take that entire number and that's.

What you look for, mostly for the sake of simplicity.

Okay.

Right. So there's. The thing is, there's also months that you do way less than that. And so during the winter, I'm not expecting have $200,000 in the bank.

Right.

I'm expecting that revenue as it comes down. You're also having less in the bank.

Sure.

So that's why I like that is also because if you start doing like, I want two months worth of operating income or I want two months of payroll or whatever, it's like, well, no one knows that number. If I asked you how much money make last month in revenue, you know that number. And so that's mostly why I actually use that number, is because everyone knows it. Okay. And so if you want to determine a more accurate form of, like, amount of working capital that you need or two months of payroll or two months of expenses or whatever, great. Do it. I just know that you don't know how much money, how much expenses was last month. But I know how much you made in revenue.

Sure.

So that's why I usually say that. And then as your revenue goes down in the winter, you don't have to keep as much in as it goes up in the. In the spring, you have bigger projects, you should have more capital on hand.

Sure.

And then I know some people with big projects, what they'll do is they'll do lines of credit just to fill in that gap. So they don't have to go as high. That's fine. Especially for big projects.

I know a lot of the companies that do the big projects, that's all they do, they just get huge lines of credit. I'm just, I kind of hate that.

Yeah.

Kind of stressful for me. Well, I want to respect your time. So I guess in closing, what would you say, or would you say like maybe five key takeaways for this next year that I should tackle? I mean, I'd say obviously one's an office admin person. Systems. What would you get for the last three?

Yeah. So I think first off, I think strategically when we look at 2026, I would just say like, let's play defense a bit. Like knowing how much cash in the business, knowing how quickly you've grown, knowing that the next leg to 5 million is going to require great leadership. And great leadership is not going to want to join a business that you're running everything like greatly like great. A talent looks at that as like a liability because they step in there like, okay, I get it. So if you go down, this business is gone. Like, I don't want that. I want to have more dependability. So you're actually building the business in a way that great talent wants to join it.

Sure.

And so I think we take 2026, you will probably still grow the business, I'll be honest, because if you just literally made a website and got an admin person that can like funnel in over the phone estimates, you're probably going to grow maintenance quite a bit. And so in my opinion, I look at 2026 as we probably grow maintenance a little bit because we're have a website, it's going to be customer facing. We're start ranking that will now be driving over the phone estimates and sales on maintenance that will probably go up a little bit. But what we're really focused on is how do we get as much sales and admin off of the play of you and your GM?

Sure.

If you figured that out in 2026, you could easily double the business in 2027 and do so very profitable. It'll simply come down to what's your level of ruthlessness in training that admin person and then giving them the skills to take things off of both of your plates.

Sure.

And then that ramp for that person in terms of their compensation, the ability at that one year marker you want them, the office manager, because you're going to immediately put an assistant under them so you can double the business. Sure. Right. And then I would say in 2027, it's going to be, how do you now start delegating your sales on projects? Very, very hard. It'll be the same logic, like, simplify it. How do I standardize it and then create a system from it.

Sure.

And so I think as 2026 goes on, the skill of training this admin person and giving them systems, you will learn like, okay, these are the things they have problems with. These are the things that they do really well at. Okay. When I do the same thing for sales and projects, I'll need to make sure I cut out some of these services that always take my time. Like, you know, the three or four services that if it's on the estimate, you're gonna be there. And so those are things that likely will have to be removed before you then hand that off. Because you're gonna have to do that exact same thing. When you start handing things with admin, like, okay, these type of calls, I know they won't be able to handle that. They'll be able to over the front estimates, but there's no way they're doing a $50,000 work change order. So, like, that will have to come to me. So then you start thinking about, can I actually just cut things out of the business? Can I simplify this? Can I create a standard operating procedure for how they handle these situations? That skill that you'll have to do for admin is what you'll also use for sales down the road on the project side.

Sure.

So I think it's really a systems and defense. And I'm really happy to hear that you're not like, next year we're doing 5 million. Because, like, that you could probably do it. It's just a function of you will get to 5 million and realize you have no systems. And the only way to keep doing that is working like insanity hours. And you will likely lose your gm.

Sure.

Because like, that rate of growth with no systems makes systems people stressful. Just stress out of their mind.

Oh, I've seen it in him. He's like, holy mackerel. Could we get stuff straight? And I'm like, he'll be like, I asked you this like two hours ago. I'm like, dude, I'm gonna deal with like 30 other things. I don't know.

Yeah. So I think I. As simple as it is, this is gonna be throughout this offseason, get a really solid list, and it's probably gonna be 40 things off your plate and his plate. And then whoever write if you say, hey, if you write it down. You've got to create a system for it, whether a video or a document. And it's going to be less than one page. So either one page, doc, or you got to give me a video screening. And you're like, I don't know how to do that. Great. We're meeting on this day and we're just going to pound through all of them, and then, you know, they're not going to be great. But then when you hire that person, they're part of their one year to become office manager is you've redone all the videos, you've redone all the systems, you've organized it better. They probably will have doubled the amount of content in it. That sets you up for, like, a phenomenal 20, 27.

That makes sense. Is it all right if I ask one more question?

Yeah, take your time. I got extra. I got 10 minutes.

On the personal side. What's it been like for you now that you're not just, you know, you're lone ranger running around doing your thing? How have you found that balance with that work life? Balance?

Yeah. Have you recently got married?

I just got married in October. End of October.

Oh, October. Like really recent. Dude, congratulations, man.

Thanks. When was yours? Wasn't it this spring or February?

Last February. Yeah. So last February.

So like over a year ago?

No, this February. How old are you?

21.

How old is she?

Actually, I just turned 22.

How old is she?

She's 22 as well.

Okay, cool. And is she working in the business at all or not?

No, I don't really want to do that just because I feel like then I'm gonna put her in a place where I can't lose her.

Right, right.

And then it's like, great, you're stuck, you know? You know, I put you in a spot and you need to do this work, like, and then it's our relationships now. It's work. And I noticed that with my siblings, you know, it was awesome. Loved working with my siblings, but that's all we'd ever talk about was business. And I was like, it was great. Didn't mind it. But with my wife, I'd rather not come home and talk with business with her. I'd rather. I mean, I'm happy to share what I'm up to. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I wouldn't want our conversations to all be like, what's our P&Ls? You know, this project went bad. Are we gonna get a one star review from that Right. Did you get enough five star reviews? I'd rather just keep her out of it.

Yeah. One thing that Dr. Kashi told me, he's like, because you and I'll lump you in with me too. It's like we think about business all the time.

Sure.

And so what we can quickly do is start judging our spouse based upon them being able to supply to us the business mentality and like being involved and inspired by the same stuff.

It's funny you say that, I've literally noticed that.

And so like we can judge them based on that. But what he said is like a great wife can be a really bad business partner. Sure. The same that a really good business partner can be a really bad spouse. And so I think that like understanding that one person can't be everything to you and that like she is a great wife.

Right.

She is not going to be able to stimulate you from a business perspective and entrepreneurial. And so like if I was your age, like doing what you did, like, were you like, hey, can I please just travel out? I was like, I gotta respect the hustle. Because like that's what you should be doing. Because like this is what she can't provide to you. And that's okay. She's an amazing wife that takes nothing away from her. She doesn't have to be everything to you.

Right.

And so when you start, especially being younger, I'll lump my wife in with like she's 21 as well. Is like, you can very easily build your entire life around one person instead of realizing that like there are many people that are required to build a full life. And so she will need friends, she will need girlfriends, she'll need other family that is outside of you because you can't be everything to her. And so when you fall into this trap of like, well, you're not home enough, it's like, oh, like this person. Like, you need to go get friends, you need to go shop, you need to go be with other people, you need to go get your nails done. Like. Cause I can't be that to you. And if you're trying to expect me to be everything in your life, everything revolves around me. For some guys, they get off to that. They think that's so cool. Like it's very unhealthy in my opinion. And so being a great husband, great, very different than being a great boss. And like she does not need to be the person that spars the intellectually about entrepreneurship and your business and she doesn't need to. And she can still do not do that and be a great wife.

Right.

And so like the role based part is something that like we've had to figure out. And for myself too, like, and like adjusting schedules and times and like turning it off and not looking at my phone. Like very different because like I also live by myself for 10 years.

Right.

And so like I was very much used of, oh, I had an idea at 2am I wake up and I just work. That doesn't happen, like doesn't happen anymore. And out of respect for her. And so, and it's not even like we didn't have to have a disagreement about that. It's just a function of. I don't think that's right. And so there's like certainly a lot more give and take and like there's a lot more considering another person on every single front. Sure. The upside is actually when you're working, you can be fully focused.

Sure.

It's distracting to be single. Right. It is. Like you have this other thing preoccupying your head all the time. And so not having that allows you to like really focus a lot more. I found that's just my, my experience.

No, I can see that. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's a big one for sure. She's definitely like awesome.

Yeah.

You know, amazing. I wouldn't ask for a better wife. But that's one thing I noticed like, you know, before we got married and I was like, geez, like, you don't understand any of this. Like, and then I was like, you know what? I'm kind of like ruining the relationship in a way because I'm just so focused on like wanting you to be like my intellectual partner. Like, and you're not that like, I can, I just need to decide right now if I can accept that and I want to live my life with you or I can, I was, no, I love you. I don't want to do that. I'll go talk to my buddies that understand these concepts.

And realizing then it takes maturity on both perspectives. When you leave to talk to your buddies about business, it's not that you don't love her. It's that you need that part of your life that she can't be everything to you. And if you're going to expect that, it eventually leads to an argument because she sees the world from different viewpoint. Early in our relationship with Bran and I, I told her I was like, the most sexy thing I could possibly see in a girl is her ability to like run business.

Right.

And like, I know that she heard that and I was like, sick. I can't do that. And like, later on I started realizing and like, understanding that that's not what I actually want from a wife. That's what I need to get from like business people and business partnerships and podcasts and like reading a book and listening like. Like that's, that's where I can get that stuff done. Sure. And so not requiring her to be everything to me and that to some people that is like love is supposed to be like, they are my everything. My life is wrapped up in them. And that can be like very damaging in the long term, in my opinion.

Sure. Would you say that a focus? Because I've heard people say, and I've talked to a couple different business people, they say either like, build yourself a job or you build yourself a business to sell. Do you necessarily think that's accurate? And if it's not accurate, do you think it's possible to get to where you don't need to be in the office? Like with a business that's that size, you know, say 5 million, you know, unless you really want to. Or do you think it's. No, you pretty well start going to have daily things that are going to be going on that you're going to be taken care of.

Having clarity as to whether or not you're going to sell early on is important because you do build the business in a different way.

Sure.

I think that everyone should build their business if they're gonna sell it though, because you build the business in a way that doesn't need you.

Sure.

Because that's how you maximize the value of the business when you sell. I think everyone should build the business like that so that when life inevitably happens, regardless if you think you're gonna sell or not, there's other things that take you out of the business. Health, relationships, calamities. Stuff happens in life. And so most business, small businesses fail because. Not because they sold, not because there's. It was doing bad, it was because everything relied on the entrepreneur. They built it because they were going to do it forever and realized they can't for whatever reason. And so I think building the business as if you're going to sell it is always the best move because you give you optionality to sell it and increase the valuation if you can down the road. But also if you decide not to sell it, you can go take a vacation.

Right.

You have kids, spend time as a dad. Like you can do these things that you will want to and you don't come this existential crisis of being 35, having three kids, and like, I spend no time with them. So I'm going to shut the business down. That happens, sure. Being very successful business, but realizing I cannot unwind all of this. I'm just going to close it down. So it's like from now you start building this as if I'm going to, quote, sell it. So that way if I don't, if I said not to sell it, I'll be 35 with my three kids and I'll check in twice a week at the office. Well, thanks for coming by, man. I really might asking coming out and making the trip. I know it's a lot of effort and it's only like a few little things to change, but I do think that you're making the right move in terms of defensive in 2026 and then go on the offensive. And I think even as like, it's a good year to go defensive too, because you have to figure out like, the whole marriage thing. And it's an adjustment and it's. It's very positive adjustment, but it will take a little bit of your time. And so being on the offensive sucks a lot of time. So, like, being a little more. You will delegate a bunch of your admin. You'll have days. Right. Okay. Like, I would usually be answering the phone or doing emails right now or making estimates, and that's not being done. Go home. So, like, I got out of here earlier than, than ever before.

That's awesome.

So.

Right. It probably feels good, but then it probably also feels like sometimes you're like, man, I don't know if I'm doing enough work.

Just work at night. There's always work to be done. So thanks for coming by, man. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Dude.