Co-founder of Little Dumps and Bulk Delivery Pro, Ross Peterson, shares his entrepreneurial journey from building websites to solving real-world problems in the green industry. He discusses streamlining logistics, reducing friction, and using technology to help contractors and businesses grow.
“Friction is anything that takes more time than it feels like it should, and solving those inefficiencies can transform how businesses operate.” – Ross Peterson
Here’s what we discuss in today’s episode:
[00:00] Introduction
Rob introduces Ross Peterson, co-founder of Little Dumps and Bulk Delivery Pro, and previews a discussion on solving logistics challenges in the green industry and scaling businesses with innovative technology.
[01:10] From Skate parks to Soil Delivery
Ross shares his journey from building skate park websites to creating a solution for delivering bulk materials, sparked by a real-world problem he encountered with a landscaping contractor.
[04:32] The Birth of Little Dumps
Ross explains how a small website and a single truck turned into Little Dumps, solving logistical challenges for consumers needing small-scale material delivery.
[06:47] Scaling to Bulk Delivery Pro
The transition from a minimum viable product to a full-fledged software platform that helps businesses across North America streamline bulk material logistics.
[09:18] Green Industry’s Tech Challenges
Ross discusses the lag in technology adoption within the green industry and the opportunities it presents for innovative solutions.
[12:33] Frictionless Online Sales
How Bulk Delivery Pro simplifies selling materials online by removing barriers and making the process seamless for customers.
[18:11] Selling by Volume vs. Weight
Ross explains the consumer preference for buying materials by volume and the challenges of adapting traditional industry practices.
[22:27] Identifying and Eliminating Friction
A deep dive into finding pain points in business processes and removing inefficiencies to save time and enhance profitability.
[29:51] Target Customers for Bulk Delivery Pro
Ross outlines the key customer segments for Bulk Delivery Pro, including nurseries, quarries, and entrepreneurial truck owners.
[35:18] Real-World Impact
Examples of how businesses are using Bulk Delivery Pro to streamline operations, improve customer experiences, and increase profitability.
[41:31] Mentorship and Learning
Ross reflects on the value of mentorship and entrepreneurial podcasts like How I Built This in shaping his approach to problem-solving and business growth.
Actionable Key Takeaways:
- Identify and Eliminate Friction: Look for inefficiencies that waste time in your business processes, and implement solutions to streamline operations.
- Adopt Consumer-Centric Models: Make it easy for customers to order and interact with your business through online platforms.
- Leverage Technology for Growth: Integrate tools that simplify logistics and reduce the need for manual interventions.
- Focus on Contractors’ Needs: Cater to contractors with tailored features like job-specific ordering and seamless pickup/delivery processes.
- Build Momentum: Capture customer excitement and act on it quickly to enhance the buying experience.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Bulk Delivery Pro Website: bulkdeliverypro.com
- Podcast: How I Built This: Inspiration for entrepreneurial storytelling.
- John C. Maxwell: Leadership books and resources.
Episode Transcript
00:00
Robert Murray
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the IM Landscape Growth podcast, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs grow faster, better, and stronger in the green industry. From leadership to sales to recruiting and operational excellence, we cover the topics holding entrepreneurs back and share how to get past those bottlenecks with the best in the industry. I’m your host, Rob Murray, co-founder and CEO of Intrigue, a digital marketing company focused on helping landscape companies grow. So sit back and enjoy the show. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth podcast. Today, I have a very cool guest, Ross Peterson. Thank you for joining us today, Ross.
00:43
Ross Peterson
Thanks, Rob.
00:45
Robert Murray
Co-founder, owner of a couple of businesses through the times, but currently with little dumps and Bulk Delivery Pro, which we’re going to get into some context. But I got to say, like, how did you go from running a skate park association to helping the green industry essentially change the way they help people buy and get bulk everything from, like a supply yard.
01:10
Ross Peterson
Yeah, no, it’s funny that I’ve been. I have to. I’m trying to answer that question for my peer group, too. They’re all like, what are you doing? But, yeah, I grew up really being interested in sideways sports. I mean, just spend a lot of time doing those things. And then, as I sort of got older, I guess, I was always interested in web development. I have an art degree. Like, I was always a. Felt like a creative person. And it came. There came a time when, after building freelance websites for 20-some years, including those for skatepark associations or, you know, Fortune 500 companies, I had a big. I got the opportunity to work on a lot of different types of websites, and they were really rewarding.
02:06
Ross Peterson
But I found myself, like, I don’t feel like I’m solving a problem that I really want to, like, hang my hat on. It was a lot of just building websites, you know, it’s a great job. It’s just not like I didn’t know if I could tell my kids, like, I built 2,000 websites in my life that’s what I did, you know, Or. Oh, I guess it’s worse than that. A lot of that work is gone. Right, right. Just disappears after a few years. You change a website, and something that took you 12 months to build is, like, your life is just, poof, gone.
02:42
Robert Murray
It’s gone. Gone forever.
02:43
Ross Peterson
It’s gone forever. So I was, like, hung up on how I was what was going to be my next chapter and looking for something I could really sink my teeth into. That’s when a friend, acquaintance, and you know, a guy that I had done some landscaping work with, I’d hired him for landscaping work. He came to me and said, you know, I, I’ve got this problem where my guys, we’re always being asked to bring more material to an, a job that we did last year or that we finished and we, they just need a little bit more or a friend or something.
03:19
Ross Peterson
Like I’ve got dump trucks, I’ve got a crew, but I, I can’t make it pencil for me to take a guy off a job, go pick up a yard of topsoil, go take it to a customer, figure out the invoicing, figure out when they were going to want it, where did they want it dumped and. But I know there’s a market for it. What do you think? And I was like, God, I’ve had that problem. I’d hired him for that problem, you know.
03:43
Robert Murray
Right.
03:44
Ross Peterson
And I was like, that is, that one actually sounds pretty interesting. You know, as far as a problem to solve it. It checked a couple of boxes for me that it was a unique web-based solution. And then it was also in the real world, you know, it was like a, you’d see the results that day perhaps. And so we talked, and we’re like, let’s just see if we can spin up a little website. And so I did, and we took one of his trucks and put some stickers, you know, like magnets, on the side of it. And it was all Doug’s idea. And so Doug’s co-founder of all this as well. But he’s like, let’s just call it something like little dumps, and so itself is amazing. Googling the name as that name exists. Nobody has that domain.
04:32
Ross Peterson
Like, of course, that’s exactly what we’ll call it. So, we bought the domain. Yeah, like I said, put the stickers on the truck and then just passed out some business cards, you know, to places, nurseries, and people around town just to see if we could get some traction. And, it kind of started to take off right away that people were genuinely interested in, you know, getting small amounts of materials delivered to their house. So we finished out that season, and then, you know, each year we would grow, and we started buying, you know, a truck, and then we bought another truck. And initially, the model was just. We wanted to have just a website and a truck. We didn’t want to stock any materials. We’d buy everything, mark it up, and deliver it. And that model totally works.
05:18
Ross Peterson
It’s it’s in many ways very, you know, like very entrepreneurial. Right. You can park the truck at home, get up in the morning, see what orders came in, go pick up the stuff, and take it. What we were that we started, we would take an order for something and then go to the vendor, and they would be out. They were; they had that material the day before, but they don’t have it today. And so, trying to coordinate those things, there were just logistical challenges. We’d get, we’d see like, oh, that would be a cool product that we could sell, but where would we, you know, we aren’t going to ask this vendor to stock this for us.
05:55
Robert Murray
Right.
05:56
Ross Peterson
So we took, you know, so this is a blurry timeline of five or six years here. But we eventually went and rented some land and started stocking our own materials. And so, you know, then another truck, and then we have this fleet of trucks and now a bigger truck. And so yeah, that whole business was growing, and it outpaced what I had built with this crummy little off-the-shelf website. So then Covid hit, and it was like, well if this is a problem that we have, let’s just double down on building out a really robust software solution for this problem. And if no one ever buys it, at least it’ll work really well for us. But maybe somebody else would be interested in using this.
06:47
Robert Murray
Right.
06:48
Ross Peterson
And that’s really the genesis of what we’re selling now or promoting and using daily in bulk. Delivery Pro is a platform that we built for ourselves with little dumps, but then we built it with the idea that others could use the same thing. And so once we’d started doing that or taken that leap, then you know, problems that other people had that we haven’t started getting solved with the software. That turns out to be exactly what I want to be doing professionally with my days. You know, like listening to a real-world problem and then being able to solve it in some cases very quickly in software and then see that solution implemented within a few weeks. And you know, I mean it’s so fun, you know, to like and to.
07:34
Robert Murray
See a physical world impact so quickly.
07:38
Ross Peterson
So quickly. Yeah. So that was, you know, just for my own sake. That’s what I’ve been looking for, and it just kind of fell on my lap. Yeah.
07:45
Robert Murray
So which is amazing and thanks for the summary and for the people that are listening to help them under, orient themselves to like who they’re speaking to. But you’re, you know, now in A position where you’re helping people all across North America, you know, solve very similar problems, essentially, you know, moving dirt efficiently to many places for many people. Dirt and others aggregate, whatever.
08:07
Ross Peterson
Yeah.
08:08
Robert Murray
So if we segue that into theme of the podcast, which is around this idea of like, what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry? What do you take from that experience then to apply to a question like.
08:21
Ross Peterson
That straighter, you know, and to be clear, I’m not, I’m. I feel like still a newcomer to the green industry. Like whenever we’re at these trade shows or whatever. I feel like not an imposter, but I don’t feel like I’ve got the 30-year, you know, everybody in those places is like, oh, they’ve seen it all, you know. And so I feel like I’m still trying to learn a lot about big-picture problems in the green industry. But one that was immediately obvious to me, you know, when Doug first asked about this, was like, it didn’t seem like many businesses were quite as savvy on, like, I’m fumbling with my words because I don’t want to.
09:06
Robert Murray
I don’t want to.
09:08
Ross Peterson
But they just don’t have very. The tech skills are. Haven’t made their way to this industry as much as they have in others and so not as many.
09:18
Robert Murray
That was a very well-said point.
09:20
Ross Peterson
Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s not for lack of interest, I’m sure. It’s just, it’s kind of an industry that tech bros haven’t gotten as involved in, maybe, you know.
09:34
Robert Murray
No, it’s true. Well, even the professionalism of the entire industry has increased dramatically in the last 10 years.
09:39
Ross Peterson
Yeah, yeah. It’s.
09:40
Robert Murray
Let alone the technology that comes along with it because it takes a professional business mind to look at how to create more efficiencies inside the organization that they’re working in or industry they’re a part of. And that’s just increased dramatically in the last, say, let’s say, five, ten years in behind. That’s probably. And we’re starting to see them started to look at tech a lot more seriously.
09:57
Ross Peterson
Yeah, and it’s probably a part of it that tech is expanding more to accommodate some of the problems in the green industry. But 100%, I think it’s more. Part of it is an attraction for me to an industry that wasn’t overrun with this. That was a bit like, this is awesome. This is sort of like we get to rewind A little in time and then maybe do things better than industries that got super saturated with tech early on, and now they’re dealing with legacy stuff. You know, right now, you get to kind of, like, take what’s been learned elsewhere and apply it here without all this baggage. So. But to answer your question, I guess I think entrepreneurs in this space just need help getting them, you know, getting their message out and selling online. That’s ours.
10:47
Ross Peterson
That’s really what we’re bringing to the table is the ability to very quickly start taking a product you either create or stock or have some interest in and selling it online. I mean, I think that’s holding people back from taking the business that’s on the corner. That’s, you know, our potential customers are people with 20 bins of material or that’s one segment of our customer. But they might not even have a website, believe it or not. Like we’re.
11:20
Robert Murray
Oh, no, there’s a place right around the corner from where I live. They don’t have a website. People just drive. They’ve been driving by it for decades. They know to go there. Every spring, it gets busy. Every fall, it’s a little bit busy. And then, in the summertime, they’re doing a lot of stuff for industrial and commercial applications.
11:33
Ross Peterson
And it’s a great business. They probably all do, you know, like, it’s. It’s been around forever. It’s proven; it’s whatever. And imagine that there’s. That. Their customer base is the 20 people who knew about it because they’ve lived here or lived there for 20 years. Right?
11:50
Robert Murray
Yeah.
11:51
Ross Peterson
There are the other 80% of people who have no idea that a place exists at all.
11:57
Robert Murray
Absolutely. And what’s, you know, really interesting, something that you said just a second ago. And I want to just see. Get your take on this. We talk about a lot when we do our presentations because, at the end of the day, you know, intrigues are. We’re a digital marketing company completely focused on the landscape industry. But marketing can only go so far. If you don’t close the deal, you’re not growing your revenue. If you’re not growing your revenue, usually don’t keep companies like us around. So we do a lot of training with our clients and content around the idea of sales and like helping people close deals. But one of the things that you said, which was really interesting, is that you’re helping people sell online.
12:33
Robert Murray
And we always talk about the idea that people hate to be Sold to but love to buy stuff. And it seems like you’re almost helping customers buy online because they’re not being sold anything. It’s so easy, it’s frictionless. And you’re bringing it to the corner supply company or garden center, which people might not have thought was possible. I think this whole idea of the online experience is just way more comfortable for someone to purchase than it is to be in a position where they feel like they’re being sold something.
13:02
Ross Peterson
Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think this is an important piece that we talk about a lot is there are a lot of platforms out there, Ubers, you know, a place like tech has found a little niche, and then a company has been created to solve that thing. But you’re promoting that company. We set out to do kind of the opposite. And ask me in 10 years if this is a good idea. But our goal was not to be like, oh, we’re going to own bulk delivery in North America under the banner of Bulk Delivery Pro. Our goal was to build the tools so that somebody could put their mom-and-pop brand, whatever or however big they were. It doesn’t have to be mom-and-pop.
13:51
Ross Peterson
Put their brand on it and sell to their existing customer base and this whole new batch of people that will find them in their areas. I mean, these businesses are hyper-local. You know, they’re like, there’s a gravel pit, and they sell gravel, or there’s a nursery center that’s been around for 60 years, and it’s a third-generation nursery or whatever. We’re not gonna; we had no interest in coming in and saying, hey, now you know what you should do? Send all your business to this platform.
14:19
Robert Murray
Right.
14:19
Ross Peterson
Like, why would they do that? Why would that be? It doesn’t even sound like I wouldn’t. I would never want to be part of something like that want to put these places out of business, or that would be. The only way they could succeed is if those didn’t exist. Let’s build something that makes them more profitable. Right? That’s the goal.
14:40
Robert Murray
Yeah. And it’s going to work seamlessly. I mean, we’re working with a couple of clients who are using the platform or just starting to, and they’re just so pumped about it. And so I think it’s neat how you take a real-world problem that you had to spit up, and you know, a minimum viable product website that solves the problem. It scales to a point where the site doesn’t support it anymore. Now, you build a rocket with a more robust solution that you can use, and then maybe somebody else uses it. Now, here we are, and a lot of people are starting to use it. What I think is really interesting in that whole story, though, is that people understand how powerful the web can be for problem-solving.
15:15
Robert Murray
And you know, you said a little bit earlier, too, like a lot of people online in the green space are using a lot of brochure-style communication on the web. And so, like, what else can people do to solve problems? And one of the things I’d be interested in getting from your brain today is when you encounter a real-world problem. So, in this case, with little dumps, how do you think about it from a web solution point of view?
15:47
Ross Peterson
Yeah, that’s. No, that’s a great question. We’re managing and pushing through a few of those things right now. Like. Well, one example we pushed out recently was an update that was. I mean, this is. I’ll probably; people will probably be annoyed when they hear this. Some people. But we feel like you should probably always sell; you should almost always sell materials by the yard. Right. I mean, or by a volume measurement, I should say.
16:20
Robert Murray
Yeah, it’s cubic something.
16:22
Ross Peterson
Cubic something. Very few customers are like, oh, I’m going to redo my driveway. I really, I’m really excited about getting two tons of it. The weight of it couldn’t matter less, in my opinion, unless you’re in the industry. And you know, there’s a 1.4 conversion factor between tons and yards in that product. I mean, it doesn’t; the weight is so tied to trucking and industry. Right?
16:44
Robert Murray
Yeah, it’s got nothing to do with my use. Like I don’t care how much it weighs on my lawn.
16:47
Ross Peterson
Not at the consumer level at all. And yet, the industry’s kind of hung up on selling by the ton. It’s what they’ve always done. And so we’re trying to. So we built little dumps being like we’re never going to sell by the ton, and we’re always going to, you know, we’re going to do the math for somebody so that what they get is one price, and that includes the delivery. And it’s either worth it for them or it’s not. But they don’t have to do math. They don’t have to figure out, like, oh, you know, it’s this much for the material, and then we have a delivery fee of this plus a $0.20 per mile after this. You know, like there was some crazy stuff out there per kilometer. Kilometer. But Anyway, no, you’re good.
17:24
Robert Murray
Where is it?
17:26
Ross Peterson
My point, I guess, is that there are cases where it makes sense to sell by the time, and we just didn’t build the platform for it. So. But we didn’t initially build. We thought about it, and we built the structure behind it to support it, but we never exposed it. Three weeks ago, we were like, we need to do this. We need to let people sell by the ton if they want. Largely because some people are selling a bag of material and sell a one-and-a-half cubic foot bag or they sell a 50-pound bag. When you get into those smaller units, consumers do kind of know what it is. So anyway, my whole point here is we had lots of discussions, and then we built that piece out. We don’t use it at little dumps.
18:11
Ross Peterson
We never would have built that if it was just solving our problem. So, you know, like we, then it led to, like, well, what do they use in Australia? What are Canadians? How. What’s the difference between a metric ton and an imperial ton? And so those types of problems I genuinely enjoy because it’s like, again, something that’s in the real world that we get to solve. And now one of our customers has built everything out. They’re really interested in selling by the ton. That’s just how they do it. They’ve got a scale; that’s what they want to do. But now the software fully supports it, and that’s cool.
18:43
Robert Murray
So.
18:44
Ross Peterson
So I don’t know if I.
18:45
Robert Murray
Well, I think. Well, there was one interesting part that I wanted to grab onto for a quick second, which is around the idea of widening your perspective. So you have this problem, and you’re like, well, what do they do in Australia? You know, that isn’t necessarily someone’s intuitive thought process, right? Should we do tons or not? What do they do in Australia? That’s just an interesting thought perspective. And so I’m curious: people are listening right now; how many of them would go look at landscape websites in Australia to see if they’re doing anything differently?
19:13
Ross Peterson
Yeah, just like, is it the same, and why do you? Yeah.
19:16
Robert Murray
Was it the same, or was it different? Like, do you remember researching?
19:20
Ross Peterson
Yeah, it’s largely the same in Australia, but there is like the metric ton is used. What I find interesting, I think, is that Canadians often do so, probably just because nature is so close to us, but there’s lots of mixing and matching of units of measure across the board. So.
19:36
Robert Murray
Oh dude, we’re in pounds and feet in our weight and our height. And everything we measure is in centimeters and meters. And then we’ve got 17 inch rims or 19 inch rims on bikes and 23 inch. Like I don’t get it.
19:49
Ross Peterson
It’s all over the place. So we. So, the system now fully supports that. And that was a big push. And we also recognize that a lot of these businesses, probably the ones you talked about on the corner, sell to a lot of contractors. And that hasn’t been the business model we created with little dumps we wanted to sell directly to most consumers. And so we never really considered what contractor customers might need. And so that’s the next big thing that we’re deep into now, which is building out tools so that contractors can make it. We can reduce the friction for contractors who want to place orders with the people who are using Bulk Delivery Pro.
20:33
Ross Peterson
So contractors can log in, assign an order to a job that they would pre-enter, and then they can prepay for it or add it to their account or whatever and then send one of their employees in to pick up the material. And there’s no concern about whether the right material was purchased for that job or who paid for it or whatever. We interviewed a dozen of our customers around the country last year and throughout the spring of this year in an effort to make sure we didn’t miss a piece here. We heard over and over that there’s lots of confusion when customers who are contractors come in or send their guys in or deal with billing, and they would welcome a better way to do it. And so I guess that might be a better answer to your question. Like how?
21:24
Robert Murray
Well, one of the cool things I think you said there that a lot of people don’t necessarily understand and would be great to just expand on was the idea of taking the friction out of the process. So you look at it, you look at a contractor trying to get stuff to a customer’s house. That customer is essentially a shared customer between the person selling said stuff and the contractor working with said stuff. And there’s no way for me to coordinate either getting it delivered there or picked up there from the customer with me doing it on their behalf. That sounds even just with a description kind of complicated and convoluted, let alone in the actual practical execution of said IDs without having to call people and like take pictures of IDs to show people who’s what and addresses.
22:04
Robert Murray
So it sounds like just that experience has friction in it. And so I’m Just curious from your perspective, like when you look for a friction point in a, you know, a purchase process or in a business, what do you consider friction? And then if you’re sharing with the audience, like what kind of things should they be looking for? When to find friction, then not only to find it, but to get rid of it.
22:27
Ross Peterson
Yeah, no, that’s great question. The. I would say for me, and I imagine others would, I mean there’s lots of places for friction, but the biggest one for me is just time. Like where do you just stumble and like it ends up taking more time than it feels like it should to accomplish the task, you know, so contractor needs 2 yards of topsoil back to this job.
22:51
Robert Murray
Simple.
22:52
Ross Peterson
He or she, it seems simple.
22:54
Robert Murray
Right.
22:54
Ross Peterson
She needs to get, if they don’t go do it themselves, which is unlikely, that they’re going to, you know, and ask an employee to go get it. The two yards of topsoil. And now, it still seems like it should be simple, but you might end up with a language barrier. You might end up with three different kinds of topsoil. When they got there, all the customers and all the employees knew was topsoil. And then when they got, there’s a 50, 50 mix and a three-way and a garden. What did you know? And then now he’s trying to call back to his contractor boss or his. Or her contractor.
23:30
Robert Murray
And he’s talking to a customer, but.
23:33
Ross Peterson
He’S talking to a customer so she misses the call, whatever. But then they’re holding up the line at the landscape supply yard because they don’t know what to look for. But the loader is waiting. You know, like, all of a sudden, three people lost 15 to 20 minutes over a transaction that, best case, netted somebody, you know, just it didn’t deserve an hour and a half of human time.
24:00
Robert Murray
Yeah.
24:00
Ross Peterson
You know, when it was all said and done. And so how, like what, where’s that, where did that fall apart? Well, it fell apart because that contractor didn’t really know what was available. If they did, and then once they knew what they wanted, they could have purchased it and had it waiting. Then, the employee just has to show up, pick it up, and bring it back. Right. And there’s no transaction that even needs to happen because it’s already paid for. So that employee just has to drive in, show that they’ve who they are, get loaded, and they’re back. I mean, you just say, I don’t know how much.
24:38
Ross Peterson
Literally multiply that by, I mean these Places are have trucks coming in and out all day long and the guys and gals get out and then they stand in line and then they stand by the water cooler and then whatever. Like it’s just a lot of time gets lost paying for that time.
24:55
Robert Murray
That’s a cool perspective, right? So it’s like being an owner or entrepreneur of an organization; it actually doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. If there are things taking too much time than you think, that’s a good opportunity for a friction point. And you know, I think one of the things in our world anyway is that you listen to these folks with marketing leads and sales, and it’s like somebody submits a form at like 8 pm on a Tuesday. Someone gets back to them at 10 am on Thursday because they missed the day, they were busy on Wednesday, and they emailed them back. And then they email them back. Oh no, I can’t talk until Friday or Saturday. Oh well, we don’t work on Saturday. How about the next two? Oh my God. That’s. That’s friction. That’s friction if there isn’t friction.
25:49
Ross Peterson
Yeah, like I, I think the biggest one there is, like somebody was motivated enough to fill out that form. They’re like excited and then that excitement likely wanes over time if it’s.
26:03
Robert Murray
Not by about 85% in 48 hours.
26:06
Ross Peterson
Yeah, perfect. The same is true when we’re ready to buy something, right? Like you’re ready to work on your yard. For example, I want to work on my garden; I’m going to build a container garden. And then now, I mean, I don’t want to bore everyone with what usually happens, but it’s multi-steps, and four different people touch it, and it’s painful and like to the point where, like, when it finally gets to your house, I mean the part of the fun is gone. Like. And we regularly get complimented by people being like, I had, I wanted decided I want to build a garden. I hopped on your website, and I ordered it. It just so happened you still had a delivery slot that day. And I was filling up my garden box that night.
26:47
Ross Peterson
Like, yeah, you know, like that doesn’t always happen, but it has happened.
26:52
Robert Murray
Lots and, but it can happen as the kid happens.
26:55
Ross Peterson
The only people involved in the system we built were the customers who wanted the soil. They placed the order, went through the system, and the next person touched that was the person loading the material into the truck to bring it to them. Right. Like there didn’t. I Didn’t need an admin person in the middle to say, hey, an order came in, write it down, which is what most people still do, and then put it on a piece of paper and then hand it to somebody else who then has to read the hand. Or, you know, we can go on and on. But my point is, like, there’s a lot of. You can capitalize on momentum in lots of industries, and that’s one of the things we’ve tried to do.
27:33
Ross Peterson
And it sounds like one of the things maybe you guys are noting a value in. You know, how quickly can you get back to them the moment after somebody fills out that form? How can you reduce that friction?
27:45
Robert Murray
Yeah, even. And at the very least, have them book a call. You know, just pick a slot where they could pick a call that they want to have.
27:52
Ross Peterson
Yeah, precisely.
27:53
Robert Murray
Yeah. And how do we take the friction out? And then, I mean, there are so many points of friction when it comes to the buying and selling process for folks in the green industry. And I mean, I think one of the ones that you’ve talked about, because there’s logistics and delivery too, and that’s never simple, right? To make sure you’re not losing money as you deliver stuff. But now, as you see people adopting the platform and more leaders are using it, like when you’re talking to customers, do you see their eyes starting to light up a little bit in terms of, like, how technology can actually impact their business?
28:27
Ross Peterson
Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, forward-thinking folks, for sure. You know, like one of our, we’ve at trade shows discussed a lot about like, what’s the, what could, what should be our hook? Like, how do you get somebody’s attention without being off-putting? Because they’re at a trade show to get sold to, but still, nobody really wants to be approached. You know, even though they’re walking by your booth. It’s like you kind of have to find a way to engage with somebody. So we started saying like, hey, do you have a dump truck? Hey, do you have a dump truck? And, and they many times would be like, well, yeah, you know, and then like, well, how much time does it sit?
29:09
Ross Peterson
Like, is it sitting around a lot or is it being driven all, you know, and they’re like, well, you know. Yeah, I mean, a lot of times, dump trucks are sitting around.
29:18
Robert Murray
Yeah.
29:18
Ross Peterson
What if you could make it not sit around and make money when it’s driving? Like, what do you think? That started to resonate with people. Like, well, Actually, you’re right. I got this $50,000, $80,000 dump truck that’s just sitting there. Yeah, what if you could put a guy in it and start moving more material more often? Like, what if, you know, like, stuff like that starts to, you know, like, those are the conversations I love. Once you can kind of see somebody’s like, oh, well, yeah, actually, what if.
29:51
Robert Murray
You know, give it a shot. And so, as you mentioned before, you have a couple of different customer segments. So, like, who is it that this is really designed for?
29:59
Ross Peterson
Yeah, well, thanks. We’ve identified four or five and keep trying to find more because it seems like there are some smaller ones that we haven’t really liked fully fleshed out. But nursery centers, you know, obviously anybody that has a nursery that sells nursery things, trees, bushes, and plants, typically have some bulk materials in the back that they sell, and they typically do some deliveries. They’re a great fit. Quarries people who are regularly moving big, high volumes of rock and gravel and sand products. You know, they’re a great fit as well. We love the entrepreneurs, even though, you know, they’re not. They don’t. They’re building their businesses so they’re not bigger customers.
30:50
Ross Peterson
But we love trying to support them and working to support them where it’s a guy that has an or gal that has a truck, and they’re just like, you know what? I’m going to spin this up on the side. I’m not going to stock any materials. I’m just going to be in my town. I’m going to be the person people can rely on to take this, and I’m going to use the platform to do so. And those ones are.
31:15
Robert Murray
That’s super cool.
31:16
Ross Peterson
It’s super cool. Yeah, it’s awesome. That’s. That’s one of my. I mean, we love them all, of course, but those are the ones that have the brightest eyes when we start, when they realize it, you know, they’re home.
31:28
Robert Murray
That’s super cool.
31:29
Ross Peterson
Yeah. You know, and then manufacturers, compost manufacturers, people that previously, they’ve got a great product and they’ve got a. But they’re trying to figure out how to move more of it. You know, maybe they.
31:42
Robert Murray
So for the. So for the sake of today, because there ain’t any contractors listening to us, as much as I wish there were. Yeah, the nurseries and the garden center are probably the most prevalent audience listening to this. So what. What would you say to them? I would think it’s a very similar business model. The nursery and the garden center are pretty much like a brother-sister relationship. And the way that their model works. Yeah. So what is the biggest problem they’re having with all this stuff when they start using you, and they’re just like, oh my God, thank goodness? And why didn’t we start using it a year ago?
32:15
Ross Peterson
Well, I think everybody working in one of those places wears a lot of hats. You know, it’s pretty tricky to get. They could be troubleshooting a barcode scanning issue in one second and then explaining why this tree didn’t make it through the winter in the next second. You know, like everybody that we’ve met in those places wears a lot of hats. Right. And the concept is like,e when somebody shows up, they wait in line. They checked out with their four plants, and they’d like to have some topsoil delivered.
32:49
Ross Peterson
Like that process of then scheduling that delivery and coordinating all those details is really tricky, especially when you’ve got a line of people behind you because it’s a retail setting, you know, so we’ve got folks that have set up like a tablet kiosk, you know, and they’re like, okay, perfect. You know, pop over here. You can schedule, you can get, go ahead, and schedule a delivery.
33:11
Robert Murray
Do all that anytime you want. Just do it by yourself.
33:14
Ross Peterson
Yeah, right here. And teaching them that, you know, one, like, we’re going to take care of you right now. It’s going to get, it’s going to get on the books. But also, in the future, you can just hop on and do this stuff from your phone or your computer at home. You know, you don’t have to drive to the nursery to schedule this, which seems like what a lot of people are consumers have been that are older, that don’t know, not necessarily that age, but like who have done it before. That’s been the only way to do it.
33:43
Robert Murray
Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s cool. I mean, at the place where I’m at, it’s definitively the case. Like I am, I definitely have to call. They’re never picking up the phone. So I have to go there.
33:52
Ross Peterson
You drive down.
33:53
Robert Murray
Yeah. Yeah. With my trailer. Hopefully, they can put some stuff in my trailer.
33:58
Ross Peterson
Yeah.
33:58
Robert Murray
But they can deliver it if they’re not busy.
34:00
Ross Peterson
They’re pulling a guy gal out of an office to go get in the loader, in some cases to go get it loaded, you know, because there’s not enough demand for that material to leave somebody in the loader. All day.
34:12
Robert Murray
Right. But then you get it online, make it easy again.
34:15
Ross Peterson
Kind of lost time, you know. But if that stuff comes in, we added a feature where you can prepay for pickup orders. So now, in places that have implemented it, the customer on their way to the nursery says, like, I’m going to buy 3 yards of topsoil, it’s prepaid, whatever. They just show up at the gate. Some people have gone so far as to put a phone number and a QR code on that part of the business. They steer traffic into the business and say like, if you’ve got a prepaid pickup order for bulk, go here. And then somebody’s just kind of watching that spot, and then they see somebody pull in, and they just run out and get the loader. What do they need? Fill them up, go.
34:51
Ross Peterson
Or they have a cell phone number post or a phone number and just like, hey, if you’re sitting here and you don’t see the loader, call this number. And then the personal run out and get you loaded. And they didn’t ever have to get out of their car and come in and go through the whole thing you’re describing.
35:03
Robert Murray
So epic.
35:05
Ross Peterson
Yeah. That’s the stuff like that has been so fun. Especially when you go visit and on site of like somebody that’s implemented it and just watch it happening. Like we’re part of like this problem getting solved. This is so fun. Yeah.
35:18
Robert Murray
And then change the way humans interact with these companies. Like in.
35:21
Ross Peterson
Yeah, yeah. And their reviews, you know, people like are like, this was awesome. We had a really good experience with their new website. They don’t talk about us. They’re talking about that nursery center’s website being so good and they get all the credits. So it’s like awesome. They should get the credit for that. Yeah.
35:40
Robert Murray
Which is super cool too. So like, have you guys decided to. Are you gonna do like a community thing? Bring people together for an event once a year? Has that started to come across the table at all?
35:50
Ross Peterson
Yeah, we really found that, like this bulk part, this little sub-niche of the green industry doesn’t really have a place for people to gather. So we’re kind of, I mean, we have lots of ideas. Everything from just like a monthly Zoom call to like an actual get-together. So everything’s starting to gel, and we’re. Anybody who’s listening, who wants to chime in on what they’d prefer, we’re all ears. But if nothing else. Yeah. Just like maybe a standing time where we get together once a month, once Every.
36:26
Robert Murray
Well, and just even to just. I mean, as much as it’s insignificant in those random examples about somebody using a QR code versus a phone number and a pickup and prepaid, there’s just. And then, like, getting them to think together about what could be possible in terms of feature requests, like, what are you guys working on right now for this group for something for 2025?
36:44
Ross Peterson
Yeah, the contractor piece is huge. That’s the, all of the.
36:49
Robert Murray
That’s the main focus there.
36:51
Ross Peterson
That’s the big focus right now. Yeah, Just making sure that people who’ve invested in Bulk Delivery Pro can have that their contractors, who are oftentimes a big part of their business, are more. You’re better supported by the software. So, it was really initially built more to support their direct-to-consumer sales. Yeah. So it’s a little. It’s just a different beast when it comes to the contractor.
37:20
Robert Murray
And. Well, I’m going back to what you said at the very beginning, too, which is going to help them be more profitable, more significantly if you’re doing it for the contractor versus the homeowner in most regards.
37:27
Ross Peterson
Yeah. And get those contractors. I mean, a lot of times, contractors will say, well, I’m maybe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but contractors are listening. Like, you know, I need topsoil. Like, who’s the closest one? I don’t care. I’m just gonna go get topsoil. But like, if they’ve had a really good experience with this one place and they’ve. And they now have all the reporting for all their jobs there. It’s a pretty good chance they’re going to pick that spot to keep going back.
37:52
Robert Murray
Well, especially if it’s going to get delivered.
37:54
Ross Peterson
Yeah, well, certainly, if it’s going to get delivered. But even if it’s not, even if they’re mixing and matching. Right. Like, sometimes they send an employee to pick it up, and sometimes they would rather have that delivered. They’re going to be able to keep all that aggregated so that they know, like the Johnson job, we brought them 42 and a half yards of topsoil, and it’s all right here. I don’t have all these scraps of handwritten notes in my truck.
38:15
Robert Murray
Yeah, those work really well in the glove compartment.
38:17
Ross Peterson
Or then they’re like; we want to do a skit that’s like the contractors, you know, every contractor truck you open up with all the invoices that fall out, you know, like, oh, yeah, that’s definitively standard every day, you know, with. For every contractor? Pretty much, yeah.
38:36
Robert Murray
So in your journey over the years in terms of learning how to like, you know, solve problems in the real world using web solutions, you know, founding a business, being the owner of two companies, has there been a resource like a speaker or an author or somebody that you followed that kind of like hit you over the head was like, aha. Moments.
39:00
Ross Peterson
Oh boy, I should have. I wish I had one that I could be like, this is these. This is my person or my people. No, I don’t really think I. I mean, I certainly got mentored by people that I respect, and I look forward to that coffee three times a year or something.
39:22
Robert Murray
That even that though a mentor. I mean, a lot of people, like, I think a lot of people don’t think about an author as a mentor. And, like, you know, as much as I’ve never met John C. Maxwell, I would consider him a leadership mentor for me because I’ve read all of his resources, followed his stuff a little bit, and it’s helped me understand myself a lot better. But if there’s a real-world mentor that somebody, then the experience they’ve had and then share the impact it’s had on you because real-world mentorship is massively impactful, and I think a lot of people underestimate how impactful it can be. Who’s that for you?
39:54
Ross Peterson
Yeah, there’s a fellow in town here. His name is Glenn Kreisel. He’s built and exited from a number of businesses. Not that exiting is the goal, but he just has gone through, or that is not always the goal. He’s just gone through that process of building up a tech company and selling it and then building one. I mean, I can’t believe the resiliency that it takes for somebody to do that three times in his life or more than three times that I know of. You know, to like, it’s just take. Requires so much energy, you know, that you. It’s fun for me to get together with him anyway and just chat. He’ll be. He’ll just say, well, where are you? What, What’s. What are you running up against? You know, and just even if it’s.
40:42
Ross Peterson
Even if he doesn’t have an answer necessarily, it’s just like, you know, you. There are few people that you rub, you know, rub shoulders with or cross paths with that have experienced some of those challenges, you know, so like, and a.
40:54
Robert Murray
A lot of times, it’s hard to think through problems. Well, you talk through problems. You know, I think especially for external processors and most entrepreneurs, they are not, say, to, you know, generalized. But. And it can be lonely at the top. I mean, mentorship is often overlooked and like massively significant for myself included, but anybody I know who’s had a mentorship relationship, even if it’s informal, is massively impactful.
41:20
Ross Peterson
Yeah. And. And I guess not, too. This is cheesy, but when it first came out, and even still, I’ve always loved how I built this, the podcast, you know, just like listening to.
41:31
Robert Murray
Oh, so good.
41:32
Ross Peterson
You know, just like what did. How. What was somebody’s story? What was the biggest? You know, just you get it. All of it is bundled up into an hour, and I love that stuff.
41:42
Robert Murray
So especially stuff that you’re so familiar with. You’re like, how the heck did that come to be? And then you hear the craziness story and you know what the common theme and all this and all the entrepreneurs listening to it. It’s never easy.
41:51
Ross Peterson
Yeah.
41:52
Robert Murray
You know, there’s a common thread.
41:54
Ross Peterson
Yeah. Or a moment like it almost didn’t work at all. Yeah.
42:00
Robert Murray
Like the loans are going to be called or the shareholders are going to sue me or something, you know.
42:05
Ross Peterson
Yeah, yeah. No, they’re. Those are. I feel like I used to have more time to listen to that stuff. I need to make more. Make more time. Yeah.
42:15
Robert Murray
Yeah. What is it? If you don’t take more time, you can’t have more time. Yeah.
42:19
Ross Peterson
Right.
42:20
Robert Murray
If someone wants to get a hold of you, what’s the best way to do it?
42:23
Ross Peterson
Oh, thanks. You know, our website, Bulk Delivery Pro, and then the contact form there would certainly make its way to me. Yeah, we. We really do want to hear from people when they are even considering it. But, like, this would be cool, except it doesn’t have this, or it doesn’t do that. Like, no promises. We’re going to add it, obviously, but we always make it. Trying to do our best to make sure that we don’t accidentally leave out something that somebody else brings to our attention. You know, like we. We built it for us, so it really solves all of our problems really well. And now, you know, the guy that sells firewood has a different problem than we do. A little bit different. So. Right. We’re all ears. Yeah. Yeah.
43:15
Robert Murray
That’s cool. Well, thanks for doing this, Ross. Really appreciate you.
43:17
Ross Peterson
Oh, Rob, we really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for including us. Yeah.
43:20
Robert Murray
Well, thanks, everybody, for listening to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth podcast.