How Caleb Scaled Third Space by Hiring Smarter, Not Buying More Gear

00:00
Robert
Hi, everyone and welcome to the I Am 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. All right, welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landsc Growth podcast. I. I got to say, Caleb, you’re probably one of the. One of my favorite landscapers to come on to the show, minus the color scheme of the hats we’re wearing right now, because I can only wear these on non NFL times from a Bills fan.

00:47
Robert
But today we got Kayla Kangas here from Third Space Design Build. Pumped to have you on the show. Thanks so much for doing this, man.

00:56
Caleb
Yeah, thanks, Rob. Excited to be here.

01:00
Robert
I don’t know if you remember, but we talked about having a beer while were doing the show, so I did that.

01:04
Caleb
Well, I have some water in here. Red and yellow.

01:08
Robert
Yeah, water. You can’t even see what’s inside the cup, so I did that. Okay, cool. Like we do always, though, we need to understand a bit more about where you’re coming from. So can you give the audience bit of like, background how you started the business and then what’s the core focus of your company today?

01:23
Caleb
Yeah, absolutely. So I started the business in 2011, so we’re in our 14th year of business now. When we initially started the company, we actually weren’t Third Space. We were dynamic Earth lawn and landscaping. And were primarily focused on mowing, landscape maintenance and landscape installs. And so we did that for the first seven or eight years. And at about year seven, we started having clients wanting us to get into hardscaping, outdoor living, those types of projects. And my background has always been in construction. And so it was kind of a natural just progression for us as a business to start doing the outdoor living side of things. And so we continued doing that. At the 10 year mark were, we realized were doing less than 10% of our revenue was in maintenance and mowing work.

02:11
Caleb
And so were almost entirely design built at that point. So we decided it was time to rebrand and change the name because the dynamic marathon and landscape just wasn’t. It didn’t capture who were or what type of company we wanted to be moving forward. And so that led to Third Space, the. The start of Third space. It’s a psychology term where first space is your home, second space is work. Third space is. Is a place where people go for community, connection, and relaxation. And so when I was reading that, I just said, oh, gosh, that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re creating these third spaces for people to have community connections with f. With friends, family, and neighbors. So, yeah, 2011 is when we started 2021. We rebranded to third space, and we’ve been running with that ever since. And it’s. It’s been awesome beauty.

03:07
Robert
So core focus is residential design. Build outdoor living.

03:09
Caleb
Yes. Yep.

03:11
Robert
Love it. Sweet, buddy. Also, somehow you have some weird, like, talent in design for apparel, specifically hats. I’m not sure if that’s just something that you love, but you’ve got a couple gooders, and I appreciate you sharing them with us.

03:25
Caleb
Yes.

03:27
Robert
And for those who are listening to this, they are. They’re Kansas City Chiefs colors. And you must be a cheese fan because you’re in Kansas City.

03:37
Caleb
Yes.

03:38
Robert
And so we’ll just bypass that conversation for the sake of keeping it amicable. So let’s just. Let’s get into it, though. Like, the. The whole show is around, what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry today? From your perspective? Like, what’s the number one thing holding entrepreneurs back from growing or doing what they need to do?

04:00
Caleb
Yeah. So I probably would have given you a different answer if you asked me this question a year ago, but as of today, I would say I’m the biggest constricting factor of our growth. I’ve been doing some different peer consulting groups and working with some. Some business coaches. And what I’ve come to realize is I just do way too many things within our business. Some things I do well, Some things I don’t do well at all. And so really, the focus of 2025 and 2026 is building out our team, taking some of the profits and additional revenue that we’re making. And instead of, you know, reinvesting that into the business through, you know, equipment or building things like that, we’re trying to reinvest it, getting some people on our team to help take some of these things off of my plate.

04:48
Caleb
When we did an exercise, Rob, to figure out how many things I was doing within the business, there was 19 different elements of the business that, like, I was either doing or responsible for. And that just as, you know, being a business owner is just not tenable to do that. And so we’re 19. Yeah. Yeah.

05:06
Robert
That’s a lot.

05:07
Caleb
So the word my coach used was, Caleb, you’re running very lean, but you need to be a little less and have a little more bandwidth. So for our business, I have been the constraint of growth. As I’ve added to our team this year, we’re already seeing, like, growth that we haven’t seen since COVID started. And so we’re going to hit probably 20 to 30% growth this year over last year’s revenue. So I’m really excited. We may not grow anymore from a profitability standpoint, but part of that is because we’re reinvesting and adding some team members to build that platform to take us where we are now to the next level over the next two years.

05:52
Robert
Yeah. Cool. So, I mean, in what you just said, there’s a bunch of pieces in there which I want to dig into. So the first one, I gotta take this note though. First of all, you said I am the bottleneck. I’m the thing holding people back or holding the business back. But it was through peer groups, mentorship, and being around others that helped you see that.

06:20
Caleb
Yeah.

06:21
Robert
So, like, what to just try to describe to the audience what it was like to say, okay, I’m going to get involved with something, whatever it might be that you got involved with and then how did it actually, like, shine the light on that bright spot or that blind spot for you?

06:34
Caleb
Yeah. So I’ve had some other business owner friends that have used consultants in the past, and I’ve kind of seen the results of their work with these, within these peer groups and with these different business coaches and consultants. And I’ve seen not only the growth just from their business from a revenue standpoint, but just their growth as leaders, their growth within their teams. And I realized I was like, man, if I don’t do anything different every year, this company is going to be the same at year 14, at year 20, at year 30, if we make it right. And so it really became about how do we create positive change and positive movement within our organization. And so, you know George with Knowledge Tree Consulting came up toronto last winter and met with George for three or four days.

07:24
Caleb
Had a really intensive time with him.

07:26
Robert
He and I drinking from a fire hose. For a couple hours.

07:29
Caleb
Yeah, yeah, for a couple days. Right.

07:32
Robert
It’s like being waterboarded.

07:34
Caleb
Yes, exactly. Exactly. So George has been great with Knowledge Tree and then we’re also in McFarland, Stanford ACE peer group. And that has been really good. So both of those have different focuses, but both have been immensely beneficial for me on George, on the development side, for me as a leader and kind of high level business stuff, the peer group to get to know other business owners, how they’re doing things across the country, and then from kind of a systems and processes perspective, how we can implement changes and new things within our business.

08:11
Robert
That’s badass, man. And it’s crazy. Like, so, I mean, with intrigue, we, over the years we’ve been in all these different niches, but when we hit, we landed on landscape. There was this weird different thing about landscape entrepreneurs and owners that everybody’s essentially willing to help each other.

08:28
Caleb
Right.

08:29
Robert
It’s almost like, well, I mean, from my experience in 20 years of running businesses for all sorts of companies, I think it’s the most openly shared industry. Well, it is the most openly shared industry I’ve ever been a part of. So if anybody’s listening to this and is not part of an association, at the very least a peer group as a next level or with a coach, it’s almost like a massively missed opportunity to hear the winds battle scars and opportunities that are coming from all these other people across the country.

09:00
Caleb
Yeah, 100%, Rob, you’re 100% right. A lot of the really good friends that I have today, I have met through, you know, maybe Hardscape North America, the HN Agie show, or other, you know, industry shows that are offered around the country. There’s even guys I know who I followed on Instagram and message them. And now we become good friends. So you can connect to obviously a variety of ways. And, and one thing I would say to the listener on this, a mind shift that I had over the last year or two was looking at these peer groups and these coaches as another tool that I’m buying for our business. So just like it’s really fun to go out and buy the new truck or the new skid steer excavator with an encon or whatever. Those are fun purchases for the most part.

09:53
Caleb
As a business owner, it’s maybe not so fun to spend 5, 10, 15,000 bucks on a coach or being in a group for a while, but you have to look at it as a tool to help you and to help your company grow.

10:06
Robert
That’s a beautiful way to position that, man. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to the I Am Landscape Growth podcast. If you’re listening to this and you’re under a million dollars in revenue, we have a roadmap just for you. It’s all about going from zero to a million as a landscape business. It’s called the $1 million landscape growth strategy roadmap. You can get it for free, absolutely no strings attached. @intriguemedia.com roadmap we work with hundreds of landscapers. We’ve interviewed thousands, and we’ve compiled all the foundational skills required tactics and strategies to go from zero to a million. It’s broken down into five simple principles that we’ve compiled from all the people that are the best in the industry, as well as sharing, you know, stories from our own journey. Getting to a million dollars at Intrigue.

10:53
Robert
And so if you’re interested, you want to check it out intriguemedia.com roadmap and you’ll get the zero to a million landscape growth strategy that will help get you over a million. At the end of the day, getting to a million is kind of on your shoulders. As an entrepreneur, we work with some people under a million, but for most part, our clients are over a million dollars in revenue. So we’re trying to do whatever we can to help people get there. And then once you get there, if you’re looking for some more help and want to get to five or 10, then that’s kind of where we come in. You generate you a bunch of awesome leads. But until then, if you’re trying to get over that million dollar hump, check out int.com roadmap and you can grab it, download it right now.

11:26
Robert
It’s completely free. Hope it helps. So when you decided to. Okay, so you’re, you’re, you got involved at some level though. So you had some peers in the industry?

11:38
Caleb
Yes.

11:39
Robert
So how did you build those relationships? Or was that just from like local you were in like how, how did you start to get to know other entrepreneurs in the space?

11:47
Caleb
Yeah, so I, I got to meet some of the guys in Kansas City. We’re based out of Kansas City. So like Josh Sutton was Sutton outdoors, Craig Sheller, Kyle Deere, the kindred guys, all of those guys were companies that were within Kansas City. So we would meet at, you know, a unilock training event or, you know, a site, one event, different things like that. And so over the years, you just start seeing each other over and over at these different events. And the guys who are serious about their business show up to these things because they want to grow and get better and get educated. And so you start just having conversations and soon you realize, oh, gosh, we have a lot in common.

12:26
Caleb
Like, we have common struggles as small business owners, we have obviously commonality around maybe the sports teams that we’re following. Most of us have families and, you know, children, things like that. So I think that common ground, that common connection, Rob starts to foster those relationships. And then with guys outside of Kansas City, like, we’re big Synced up users and have been for several years. So Weston and the whole team at Synced up is really, they really do a good job just connecting their users at their community builders.

12:59
Robert
Right?

12:59
Caleb
Yeah, they are totally just like you guys. I mean, you guys have been at those events. That’s how we actually first met you guys was at the Synced up user conference. So through Synced Up, I started meeting other business owners like in Des Moines and Omaha and in Denver, different parts of the country. And so that network just continued to grow and grow. And for me, I’m a relational person and a relationship builder. So when I meet somebody or have a connection, it usually doesn’t stop there. I usually am going to pursue that and continue trying to build on that.

13:32
Robert
Yeah, it’s awesome. So I mean, like, but it’s still like there’s a lot of folks that listen to this that are under a million bucks, you know, 200 grand, maybe even just starting they’re listening to it. And so the idea of like the value kind of flywheel that you created by just going to like a Unilock event.

13:49
Caleb
Yeah.

13:50
Robert
This isn’t blow your brains out investment travel overnights or anything. It’s just like, go. No, I’m just going to go learn what’s going on from the manufacturers and suppliers I deal with to then building relationships over time, over repetition. Just showing up like. I think there’s a lot to be said about just showing up being like half the battle, if not more. Yeah, so you did that. You’ve built these relationships. You’ve kind of lived out and embodied the idea of like your net worth is your network and.

14:15
Caleb
Yep.

14:16
Robert
But I want to come back to this idea. Around 19 different responsibilities and accountabilities to a spot that says in my notes, question mark. So like, yeah, so you did this assessment in a peer group and a coach. So now where are you at and what has that done for you?

14:34
Caleb
Yeah, so what where we are at is we had a part time office manager who’s now starting next week, coming on full time. So pretty much all of the HR responsibilities that I was still doing are getting pushed to her. I’m actually training her to do some estimating and some takeoff work for Us to relieve the time. I spent a lot of time estimating. I’m our only estimating estimator and seller right now, Rob. And so I need to get some of that off of my plate. So. So 20 hours a week of her coming online will hopefully equal 20 hours of stuff I’m doing now that I don’t have to do and free me up to be a little more strategic in my thinking and in my operation of the business. We’re also looking to hire a full time landscape designer right now.

15:28
Caleb
And so once that person gets hired and on board, that should alleviate me doing some of the selling. I don’t know that I’ll ever totally stop selling, Rob, because I really love it. I love that connection with our clients. But when you have, you know, eight to 10 appointments a week in the busy season, like, that’s just a lot. Right. So getting that designer on board to start taking over our design work, taking over some of those meetings with clients will be huge. So those are the two big things that we are doing to take some workload and take some of those hats away from me. And then what. Your second part of that question, can you restate that for me?

16:10
Robert
Well, just, I mean, you kind of answered it. Right. So I was just saying you went from 19 hats to like, what? I don’t care how many hats you’re wearing now. But the idea is, I mean, you have a really nice one.

16:19
Caleb
On, but just my chief’s one.

16:22
Robert
But, but like, I just love the way that you framed two core responsibilities that you were taking care of. One around this office management and essentially qualification, maybe a little bit of estimate and takeoff.

16:33
Caleb
Yeah.

16:33
Robert
And then design work. I mean, those are kind of big chunks of time, right?

16:40
Caleb
Yes.

16:41
Robert
So then like, what do you say to an audience that says something like, well, I can’t afford to hire that person?

16:46
Caleb
Yeah, well, you can kind of say that. But you can also say you can’t afford not to. Right, I, I get it because I started this business with myself and one other employee. So I’ve been there while I was working in the field 40 to 50 hours a week and then doing 10, 15 hours a week of, you know, admin time at nights and weekends. So I have definitely been there. But I would just say, like, for us, we use a remote administrative company. And so our office manager is Denver. We’re in Kansas City, she’s in Denver. But we have all these different technologies that we use to communicate with me, but also with our team, and it works Great. It’s, it’s pretty much feels like she’s right here in the office with us every day. So that’s really affordable.

17:32
Caleb
Like you could get a remote admin for 20 hours a week for around a thousand bucks, depending on which company you go with. So I would say, hey, can you afford 26,000 a year to get back 20 hours a week of your time?

17:45
Robert
Probably, you know, and then what kind of value can you build? Yes, that time.

17:51
Caleb
Yeah.

17:51
Robert
And you know what’s really interesting in the, in that you say this, we did these sessions close to a month ago about like how to get the most out of your leads. And it, because it’s crazy. I mean you guys are not this. So I checked your account out, your what converts the sales and lead tracking service. Like you guys are on it and it looks really good. But there’s a crazy amount of folks that don’t necessarily call people back or pick up the phone when it rings or email people back the same day or follow up multiple times for lots of reasons which I get. Like, you know, if you’re on the tools, you know, you’re doing 700 grand a year, you’re probably like leading a crew. So it’s difficult.

18:33
Robert
Kind of what you were talking about before, you know, 40, 50 hours of, in the field and then 10, 15 hours of like admin after dinner.

18:40
Caleb
Yeah.

18:42
Robert
But what’s crazy is that like you’re 400 more likely to contact somebody within the first five minutes when they reach out to you. And on average it takes five to seven follow ups to get someone to buy. And 80% of customers work with the first company that they spoke to.

19:00
Caleb
Yeah.

19:01
Robert
So can you help people understand like the advantage of getting somebody into your support system like this and like what it’s been doing for you while you’re busy?

19:10
Caleb
Yeah. So you looked at our account, Rob, and obviously we work with you guys for our marketing and website and that’s been a really breath of fresh air from the last company we worked with. And you know, when we get a lead through our website, our office manager, like probably within 5, 10 minutes is calling, texting and emailing that person. Because typically we have like our form, we get their phone number and their email. So we hit them on all three fronts and then we see which one they respond to and then whatever, you know, whether it’s called text, email, whichever way they respond back to us, we immediately just start the communication channel through that. And some clients are only texting us. So we’re just texting back and forth. Some clients are calling, some just want to email.

19:57
Caleb
So yeah, we’re on that immediately. And we try to get, we try to have a discovery call with them within like one to two days of them contacting us. So Sam gets our office manager gets the initial client form to them and photos from them, and then we send them our calendar and like schedule a call as soon as you can and then they schedule the call.

20:24
Robert
So you’ve got a book call within one to two days. Most people haven’t even responded within one to two.

20:29
Caleb
Right. And we hear this all the time, Rob. Well, like, people are like, I can’t believe you called me back. Or then when we show up for the meeting at their house, like, oh, I was surprised you showed up. A lot of guys haven’t even shown up. You know, like people make an appointment and they just don’t even show up. So if you have that 20 hours a week back because you have an admin now you have time to show up to these appointments, your admins booking everything they’re following up.

20:54
Robert
Like, you could build one job you.

20:59
Caleb
Paid for the year, right? So that’s where I just. It’s like anything, Rob. Like, it’s like, can you afford not to? Right? And I think the problem I see with a lot of guys I talk to in our industry is a lot of guys got into this maybe in high school, maybe, you know, maybe they didn’t go to college or they didn’t like, get any kind of like advanced business training or degrees. And so they’re super awesome working with their hands. They’re really great in the field, but they’re not good working in the office, working on the business, growing the business. And so I was lucky enough to go to college to go get my mba, you know, and be in the corporate america scene for five or, sorry, about 10 years.

21:43
Caleb
And so I ran multimillion dollar projects and I was working for these large construction firms. So I learned a lot of stuff that has helped us scale and grow. But a lot of guys don’t have that. And so don’t be afraid to use something you’re uncomfortable with. Don’t be afraid to grow and to learn and to change because that we’ve all had to do it. And to make it in this industry or in any industry, you have to be willing to grow, learn and change.

22:09
Robert
I feel like, yeah, that’s cool, man. So then went back to this idea of 19 responsibilities down to less and Then you delegated out. So office management inquiry, a little bit of estimation, and then you’re getting into landscape design. So what did you decide in going through that exercise as your core focus? One of the things we hear all the time is as an entrepreneur, where should I spend my time?

22:34
Caleb
Yeah, part of what I think makes us entrepreneurs, Rob, is we don’t like to focus one thing. So I’m just going to throw that out there, number one. But what I am trying to focus and grow in as a leader is looking at that 30,000 foot view. One of the questions George asked me is, hey, where’s third space in five years? I was like, not sure. And he was like, dude, you should be able to tell me right now where you are in five years. Where are you going to be in 10 years? And. And he goes, it doesn’t mean you end up there, but you have a plan and you’re working towards it. And if that plan changes, you adjust the one year, the three year, the five years, and subsequently down the road.

23:16
Caleb
And so building out our team now over the next one to two years will allow me to have time to now say, okay, what does third space look like at our 20 year anniversary? What does third space look like at 25 and 30 years? And then, you know, I’m 43, I don’t want to work forever. So it’s like, well, at some point Caleb either has to sell the business or transfer the business to someone else. I don’t know that any of my kids necessarily are going to have an interest in being in this line of work. So then it’s like, well, do we have some employees come in as owners and do we sell to somebody else? So all of those things that doesn’t just happen overnight, those are things that have to be planned and built out.

23:56
Caleb
So for me, Rob, I’m trying to put on the CEO hat I operate a lot in kind of a CFO CEO mindset. So the CEO is more strategic, more long term, less in the day to day. So I’m trying to slowly draw myself out of the day to day, at least to some capacity and say, hey, where are we at over the next couple years?

24:20
Robert
Awesome. So the idea of giving yourself the space to be able to think about what’s going to happen, you know, even in a three year window, like I find a lot of people when I talk to them 10 years, they’re like, I don’t know man, 10 years a lot. Especially with like a lot of uncertainty and like, there’s always uncertainty in markets and economies. But like right now it’s, let’s call it spade. It’s a bit more weird than most times, for sure. And so if that’s the case, it’s like, okay, a three year plan is great place to start and I love how you frame that. So then you mentioned this idea of investing in the future.

24:53
Robert
So you know, hey, I’m taking cash that we’re building and I’m investing in a team to build a platform to get us to the next level where the company needs to be. You just articulate that a little bit better so that people understand like what you mean by that and where you’re going.

25:09
Caleb
Yeah. So I feel like in our business and in kind of the landscape hardscape industry, you kind of have three things. You have tools and equipment, you have your people and you have your buildings. So those are kind of your three main things that you would invest in as a business. So for us, we don’t own a building, we rent. We have money set aside to buy a building. That may happen in the next year, may not. We’re looking, but we are spending a lot more money in 2025’s budget on people versus equipment. We have good equipment, we have what we need. But rather than say, hey, let’s buy this next thing, it’s like, let’s buy this next person. What if I buy this designer for a year and pay them X amount of money?

25:55
Caleb
How much more top end revenue can that tool, that person bring us? And so right now, physical assets of tools and equipment is kind of on pause beyond, you know, the necessary things we have to buy people is on spend. We’re spending a lot on people. Building is kind of out there. Like, yes. If we had a building, is it a generating piece of equipment? Yes and no. Like, can we operate more efficiently if we have a better building and a better yard? Yes, marginal increases can happen. Could we rent part of that building or space to someone else to generate some revenue? Again, yes, we could. But is that our primary form of income generation? No. Like building really cool stuff is where we make our money. And so the focus needs to be on that.

26:47
Caleb
So that team Rob is gonna, you know, last year I shared, like, we hit 1.3. This year the budget’s 1.7. That’s what we’re on target for right now. I think 2026, if we have this team in place by the end of this year, I think we can hit 2 to 2.3. Like we’ll see, kind of in Q4, when we’re building out our budget for 20, 26, we’ll see where, what that looks like. But I think if we get, you know, the office manager full time, the designer full time, those two people, high expense on overhead, but I think it can exponentially have a return on the revenue for the business.

27:26
Robert
Yeah, that’s badass. And then so when you’re talking about the idea of investing in, well, building people, tools, equipment, whatever, I’m going to come back to the building thing because I think there’s something that you need to share. But when you say investing spending on people outside of like hiring folks, but it’s spending more money on people, what, where do you put the money and like, what does it do for your team?

27:49
Caleb
Like, like benefits and things like that? Is that kind of what you’re talking about or whatever?

27:52
Robert
It is like the idea of like when you say spending money on people. Yeah, it sounds like it’s hiring good people that are going to fill roles are going to have like exponential impact on the business. But it also sounds like there’s more to it.

28:04
Caleb
Yeah. So we have an HR consultant who works with our company and last year she did a wage study for all of the positions within our company and found that basically we’re in the top 80% in our market for our hourly pay and our benefits. So that makes me really happy to know that like my employees, there’s very few places that they could go in Kansas City and make more money than they’re making here. So we’re doing our best to pay our people as much as we can and create a good quality of life for them and for their families. We also do, you know, 401k. We do health insurance, we do paid. They get five weeks of PTO. You know, after a couple years, they get up to five weeks of PTO every year. We give them all their clothes every year.

28:51
Caleb
So all their uniforms, like shirts, hoodies, jackets, gloves, hats, boots, like all that is employed or is company paid. Every year we do meals, like company meals together. So it’s kind of this culture of like, hey, we’re only as good as our people and our people are client facing. I am on the job, like when I sell the job and at the end of the job when I’m like, hey, Mr. Or Mrs. Customer, thanks a lot for using Third Space. Was it a good experience in between? Like I’ll pop in and say hi or check on things but I’m not there every day the guys are There every day, eight, nine, ten hours a day. Day. If they’re not happy and they’re not doing a good job and they’re not carrying the culture of third space, then we have nothing.

29:37
Caleb
So they are, our people, are our biggest assets and honestly our biggest selling point because most of our business now it’s more coming from leads with you guys. But before that it was all referral based. We’ve never done paid advertising until we worked with you guys because the other companies we tried it with, it didn’t work so well.

29:59
Robert
Sure. And I mean, and thank you for saying that and I appreciate you forever. But the idea of doing good work with good people creates a word of mouth that keeps a business growing and is somewhat sustainable. And like that the idea of your people being your biggest asset and being what drives the entire company, I mean, like, it’d be really difficult to debate otherwise. Right. Like, and the fact that you focus on it though, is a big deal. Now I’ve heard a lot of stories from a lot of different people doing meals with team and like I, I think it is the most underrated and most valuable and never really talked about idea about just breaking bread with your, with your folks.

30:35
Caleb
Yeah.

30:36
Robert
So like what do you guys do with like team meals? And this is just a random aside, but I’d love to hear what you guys do because I feel like there might be something.

30:41
Caleb
Yeah. I, so I will say I wish I did it more, but what I do, it’s not on a regular schedule, probably needs to be, but what I’ll do, I mean, like a couple weeks ago I had three guys at a job site and I was going by to check on things. I was like, you know what, I’m gonna go buy the local taco truck. And I got like 24 tacos and beans and rice and some drinks. And I like showed up and I’m like, hey guys, here’s lunch today. Like, let’s sit down and eat some chow. So it can look like that it could be a rain day where everybody comes into the shop and we’re doing some training, some maintenance, like, hey guys, let’s bring in lunch today. What do you guys want?

31:18
Caleb
You know, so it’s more simple, but it’s simple, very simple. Yeah. And it maybe it costs you 50 bucks or 75 bucks or 100 bucks, you know, depending how many guys you’re buying for that day. But you know what, that’s the day they didn’t have to buy a meal. It’s A good meal, they enjoyed it, you’re hanging out, and it just, it. They feel cared for. At the end of the day, when you do that.

31:43
Robert
Just so underrated, man.

31:45
Caleb
Yeah.

31:47
Robert
Okay. So when it comes to you being the bottleneck and uncovering your blind spots as an entrepreneur, you’ve done some stuff this year. You’ve focused your time a bit better, you’ve got some people onboarding. What. What do you see as like, the. The next thing that you need to really like, either finish so that you can move on to another thing, or the next thing you want to go attack. Because I find that people, once they handle one growth phase, they have a really hard time figuring out what to do with the next growth phase because it’s got different problems.

32:28
Caleb
Yep. So I think right now we just finished reading the book Winning with Accountability and that it’s a really short, easy read. Highly recommend it. But the premise of that book is basically like, you cannot get your team to execute unless you clearly communicate exactly what you want, when you want it and how you want it, and then you can’t hold them accountable to a result unless you’ve done those three things. And so in reading that book, I realized I’m not a great communicator at telling my team clearly what we want. I’m really not good at following through on that. And, and I haven’t taught them a good culture, so I am learning this as well, Rob. But like, for example, with our foreman, we’re pushing our foremans to lead all client communication when a job starts.

33:19
Caleb
So what that looks like is every week, our foreman at the end of the week on Friday sends a client an email, says, hey, Mr. Mrs. Client, this is what we got done this week. Kind of a bullet point email, typically 6 to 10 points. Here’s what we got done this week, and here’s what’s on the agenda for next week. Here’s anything we ran into that maybe was unexpected or a change or different. Do you have any questions for me? So that goes out to the client every single week. I get cc’d on that. So I know what the foreman is saying. We had a foreman who was sending that out. I’d said, hey, send the client a weekly review email. That’s all I said. He puts the email together and it was really bad.

33:58
Caleb
And I was like, bro, that is not going to cut it, you know, And I. Fortunately, he hadn’t sent it to the client. And I said, let me give you an example of the type of email I’m looking For. And so I typed it out, sent it to him. The next day, he does his update. And it was amazing. And he’s continued to do that every single week. And they’ve been amazing emails. Internally, he’s doing the same thing with our team. So I realized, like, it’s not that he wasn’t capable to do it. I just said, hey, send an email to the client of what you did this week, you know, And I didn’t say what needs to be in that email, how it needs to be formatted.

34:37
Caleb
I didn’t communicate the goals to him of what or the objective of what it needed to be. So in his mind, he was doing it.

34:46
Robert
He did it.

34:47
Caleb
He did it. It just wasn’t what was in my mind. So I had to transfer what was in my mind and show him. And so those are the things, Rob, our focus this year, form and development and developing our systems and processes for client communication, for communication internally as our team. Next year’s goal, as that gets better, next year’s goal will be really focusing on our sales process. And hopefully with that landscape design person on board, that person working with me, hopefully we will get a really good, smooth, concise sales process going. Because I think. I think if we could get from initial meeting with client to design and proposal, if we could get that down to seven days, I think we would sell so many more jobs.

35:37
Robert
Well, they got everything ready to go, and they’re just waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse. I love that, man.

35:45
Caleb
Yeah.

35:45
Robert
There’s also something you said there that I just want to make sure I capture for the audience, because this is something that’s been popping up in a lot of themes. I think the last, like, three episodes, everybody’s answered the question the same way. Like, it’s. I’m not sure if it’s just like a coincidence that we’re just hitting people that are all kind of in the know, or if it’s just like everybody’s getting more in the know, but everybody’s understanding that the leader is the growth constraint, the entrepreneur is the growth constraint. And I gotta tell you that. I mean, we’ve done a lot of episodes too many before having you on. And there’s a. There’s a couple of themes of answers.

36:16
Robert
So some people say staff, some people say sales, some people say marketing, some people say economy, Some people say, like, they really start to, like, you know, blame other things. But the. The most successful people always say the leader, the entrepreneur, is the growth Constraint. But there’s something in the last couple days that’s been really similar with this idea of, like, clarity, giving people clear ideas of what good looks like, what winning looks like. This idea that you referenced, too, about winning with accountability, the idea of, like, an email, as simple as it might seem in quotes. But I hear so many people frustrated. Like, I can’t believe somebody didn’t know how to send an email. Cool. When you trained them, did you show what it. What it looked like? Why would I have to train somebody how to send an email?

37:06
Caleb
Yeah.

37:06
Robert
So can you just share a little bit about, like, the. The aha you had with the importance of getting clear and simple? Like, it’s not like you’re. You’re holding the guy, you know, to a fire because he doesn’t know how to write an email. You’re like, no, no, that’s my bad. I didn’t give you the tools.

37:23
Caleb
Yep.

37:25
Robert
So, like, just what was that transition look for you to like, oh, yeah, that’s. I can do this all day. I’m gonna help these guys get better.

37:32
Caleb
I. I’ve always felt like that, like, system and process and how to get things done. It has felt kind of easy and natural to me. It maybe isn’t maybe. I just absorbed a lot from people I’ve been around and just haven’t realized it, but it has felt easy. What I. What I have realized over 14 years of doing business is, like, nobody thinks like me. Nobody does stuff exactly like me, and I shouldn’t expect that. And so what I have come to maybe grow in Rob is to say, hey, there’s more than one way to do something. There are some things that are important to be done a certain way for me. And so those things I will communicate to my team. Like, for instance, that email. I will say, hey, Foreman, this is how I want the email to look.

38:23
Caleb
This is the information that needs to be contained in that email. So that is something that I’ll stick to my guns on. But if I say, hey, do you want to go route A or route B to the job? Both get you there in 18 to 19 minutes. It doesn’t matter to me if they go route A or B. That’s their decision. So I think it’s learning to. It’s learning what. What is important to me and what is important to. To make them do a certain way and what is important to give them autonomy as a person and as a leader in your organization. Because for us to grow, eventually, I’m not. I shouldn’t be Seeing those emails. Right. Every week that go to the client.

39:05
Caleb
Eventually I do not need to see those, but I need to see them for a while until I get confident and trust the people that are sending them that this is a good email and this is good communication. So I think for me it’s trust.

39:18
Robert
Well, and it seems like communication is a priority for you. Yeah, like when we’re communicating with clients, needs to be done a certain way because that’s a really important part of third space, our culture, our brand, the way we deliver our service. And so that’s like you’re going to focus your attention on that stuff, which is awesome. Okay, so we’re kind of coming up to time. We got to do another one because I got a couple other questions I wanted to ask you, but I can’t. But I do want to ask you one thing. How’s AI hitting your business right now? What are you guys doing with it? And you can say nothing. You could say nothing. It’s fine. I’m just curious.

39:48
Caleb
Chat GPT. I mean, we use that for generating kind of a first draft on blogs we’re doing. I know Sam, our office manager, she’s using some AI generated workflow stuff kind of on the back end with our CRM to push workflow through and to create some forms and things. Me, I do not use it very much, Rob. And I, I’m kind of embarrassed to say that because I grew up like in tech. My dad worked for Hewlett Packard. He was in computers most of my life. I had a PC in my house at six years old. Right. And so I want to use it, I want to get better at it, but I just, I honestly, I don’t have the time to figure out, like, how can AI help us grow our business and better? So that’s, again, that’s one of those CEO things.

40:38
Caleb
I need time to say, hey, what’s out there for AI right now? And how could this help our business?

40:43
Robert
So, yeah, that’s a cool perspective to, to your point about trying to find time to focus on how you bring the external world into your business. Yeah, yeah, it’s. It’s bananas, dude. I feel like maybe I should put out a thing for all landscape owners about like, hey, here’s like five practical ways that you can bring AI into your. Just send it to us landscape business. Yeah. Okay, well, yeah, well, let me just show you. So let me just show you quickly. I’m not going to go through all the different use cases that I’VE done because it’s, it’s unbelievable how much we’ve learned to use this thing. But I do want to show you a very quick sample. So for those of just listening, then say la vie. But there’s a picture of my house.

41:32
Caleb
Yep.

41:33
Robert
You know, whatever. Boring spring bungalow. And then I asked for specific zoning plants and that kind of stuff with a, you know, modernized, you know, natural stonewood. So it gave me that.

41:48
Caleb
Wow, that’s amazing.

41:50
Robert
Yeah. With a. And I gave it a budget and it costed stuff out for me. And it’s probably not, it’s not accurate to 100 degree. There’s no way. It’s probably like 80 and some of it’s probably way off. But man, like I did that in like three minutes.

42:05
Caleb
Yeah.

42:06
Robert
And I asked it what to what, what questions should I ask to be able to make sure I get the right costing, budget, all that kind of stuff. So you don’t create something that’s just like a Pinterest style. Yeah. Anyway, it was cool and now we’re talking to an architect and so it’s just like, I don’t know, the use cases are obviously not going to go away.

42:27
Caleb
Yeah.

42:28
Robert
And there’s more to come, obviously.

42:30
Caleb
I think that ties back into the tool and the investment conversation. Rob. Right. Like we, there’s so many ways within a business you can invest and so AI will be continue to grow and grow. So we can’t ignore it. I think we need to embrace it. And as we have time and capacity, we need to learn about it and how it can make us better. But again, in our peer group, some of the people in our peer group are using AI a ton and they’re integrating it in different ways in their business. I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s amazing. You know, so it’s something that we need to be more aware of and I need to figure out how we use it. I just need some time to figure that out.

43:08
Robert
Yeah, that’s cool. Well, I mean, maybe this is like the third conversation in a row where it’s inspiring me and maybe I gotta put together like a 45 minute AI.

43:15
Caleb
I would love that. I would love that.

43:18
Robert
All right, cool, buddy. Well, I appreciate you. Before you go, though, you already referenced one book, Winning with Accountability, but is there another speaker or author or just person or people or resource of inspiration that you think the audience should check out? Yeah.

43:35
Caleb
So these aren’t necessarily hardscape specific or even our industry, but I Love the Huberman Labs podcast.

43:42
Robert
Oh yeah, so good.

43:44
Caleb
That’s just great. On a variety of levels and topics, kind of about human health. And then Adam Young has a really good podcast called the Place We Find Ourselves. And just a tidbit to close things out. I’ve. I’ve worked a lot just on my own personal self and kind of my story over the last two to three years. And so that has also taken time away from the business that I’ve just tried to like, heal and grow as an individual. And so those two podcasts have been for different reasons, but have been really beneficial for me. And so if I could just encourage somebody like, hey, check those out, maybe some of those episodes will resonate with your story. Because I think we’re only as good of a leader as we are a person.

44:28
Caleb
And so if we’re not a good healthy person emotionally and intellectually, we won’t be a good healthy person for our team. So hopefully my team is feeling the results of that. I know my family is, but yeah, those are kind of non business. You probably get a lot of really good business podcast wrecks, but those would be mine.

44:46
Robert
Beautiful, man. Love that. Well, thank you for doing this and everybody for listening to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth podcast.

44:52
Caleb
Thanks, Rob.

44:59
Robert
Sam.