I’m with Zane Hill, he is 16 years old. He started his mowing company with $0 he is gonna share. Thank you for coming on the air.  I absolutely love this story. Can you tell us how you got started, Zane?

Chick-Fil-A

In summer 2016 I searched and searched for jobs young kids. I didn't have my driver's licence and stuff, so I was going to work at Chick-Fil-A, but I decided not to because it was so much work to get there and back every day. I actually never mowed before. Never even my yard.  My dad told me to go cut the grass, so I cut the grass and it was kind of fun. I liked what I did and you could see the final result that was where it got all started. So you were 15 when you started cutting grass for the first time? Yes sir. You are 16 now?? Yes, I turned 16 over the summer. And you have your own company called the Young Man and His Mower?? Yes sir. How did you get started? How did you get mower??

Bike Carrier Trailer

Luckily my parents had two mowers.  My dad...

Interviewer: I'm with Matt Dardening and he started cut short landscaping when he was eleven years old he's nineteen years old and he just purchased out East Ridge Landscaping and he's grossing over one point two million dollars a year, we're going to find out how Matt got started, we're going to look at the journey they got into where he's at right now we're going to share some of that, some of the Matt's best, best things that he's learned over these years.   Matt: We up sale everything Edges exoneration, tree fork, landscape fork . Everything you can think of, we know what our clients will pay, we know what our clients will allow us to do, how far we can push them. I was trading all that money I had  saved up into actual equipment. I was going on a spending spree to the point where my parents actually said if you’re going to live in our house...   Interviewer: Matt, how you doing today buddy?   Matt:`Pretty good, how are you. Interviewer:  I'm good...

Take Care of You

As business owners, we go to great lengths to carefully research the investments that we make. Whether it's in our employees, or the equipment that we use, the tools that we use, the materials that we purchase. And I want to tell you one of the smartest investments you can ever make is in investment in yourself. In taking care of yourself, in enjoying life and making sure that there is time set aside every day, every week, month and throughout the year, to give back to just you. I know that we all want to give back to our families, and to the people that work for us, and to our customers, and to our vendors, and that's great. And I'm not discounting any of that, but the number one person you need to fill up is yourself. That way you have the energy, you have the tools, you have the joy to start spreading around other people.

Training

Tonight I'm doing something that's just for me. I'm running a 13.1 half marathon. I kind of did it on a whim; now I'm training for an...

.Starting a Business with No Money

Speaker 1: Alright I’m on with Mike Michalowicz, he is the author of four absolutely amazing books that are going to impact your life. Speaker 2: Well I just want to address one of the most challenging issues that most businesses have; a lack of resources. You lack money, you lack contact, you lack a network, you can’t find the employees. What I found is, actually "lack" is your best tool, your best advantage, but you don't know how to use it. So I explain how that adversity of not having, you can leverage and springboard from your competition. Speaker 1: So you teach contractors and business owners in general how to start with absolutely no money whatsoever and then to grow their business. But what they are learning while they are starting with no money, is how to survive but, then you take it in the very next book, The Pumpkin Plant and you go hey, you know what? You grew, you started. It’s time to stop surviving and it’s...

Q & A Decoding Estimates for Construction, Landscaping and Lawn Care #1

Q & A Decoding Estimates for Construction, Landscaping and Lawn Care #3

Q & A Decoding Estimates for Construction, Landscaping and Lawn Care #2

Q & A Decoding Estimates for Construction, Landscaping and Lawn Care #3

I'm going talk about ways that you can tackle bidding when you're not familiar with the job. You don't want to walk away and you go, "Oh yeah, well you know, I lost money." And you forget about it. You're going to keep repeating the cycle over and over and over again. We have Francisco from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the line today.  He has three questions about bidding. What is the process for cutting down trees? I'm not a tree removal or tree trimming company, but what I'm going to do is talk about ways that you can tackle bidding when you're not familiar with the work. so Before we get into it. I need to know the level of familiarity you guys have with tree trimming and tree removal.  Have you've done it before? I'm just doing. How is he done it in the past?  What formula has he used for getting the tree removal?...

I try to learn from every single person I meet. Every person. Andrew, I can learn from you. I can learn from the neighbor or the milkman because every person in this world has unique experiences that have taught them things that I can benefit from

University of Hard Knocks

I've never taken a single class on any of that, but I did get a Master's degree at the University of Hard Knocks. So, I'm probably the living example of just good old get it DONE. DO IT. DO IT. Learn from everything that you've ever done along the way. I'm constantly talking with people and seeking out experts. Always looking for people that have skill sets that are outside of my skill set. Sometimes it's just crazy. My wife says, "I can't believe how you talk to that person!" Because I literally will go crazy trying to learn everything that they know. It doesn't matter if they're within my profession or outside of my profession.  I'm actually even more aggressive in real life than my podcast. I’m in...

Stan: Very good. Good. So let's talk about the difference between an independent contractor and an employee. Especially within the construction industry, it's real easy to confuse these two things. Especially, if you start to use somebody on a regular basis, you have to be very careful. Now, the IRS is awesome enough to give us a 20 factor checklist. Something that you can look up on your own, on the internet. Here's the form. I'm actually gonna use to go down that Jeff was nice enough to print off before we started this. They also have a second set of forms, which gives you links, which gives you consequences, which gives you a more thorough outline. But today, we're gonna talk about this 20 point checklist. We're gonna go down, what we consider, the most important points of this checklist. What do you find, Jeff, are the things that contractors make the biggest mistake on when they hire a subcontractor?

Jeff: As far as classification?

Stan: Yes.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, I mean a lot of...

This video may sound counterintuitive, but what I'm going to tell you is extremely effective. Especially if you're just getting started in landscaping. You start trying to develop business contacts. Work with your competition. And I'm going to give you some exact examples that I want you to follow. Don't view your competition as competition. They're a source of projects. They're a source of job leave. Let me use my company as an example. We've been established for 30 years. We've been around a long time. We have more work coming in than we can ever handle. I need, and I mean I need good company.  I need to know I can feel comfortable when giving a job to another company. We must know that the customer is in good hands.

Good Companies are Hard to Find

Those are few and far between. There are not a lot of people I can do that with. Why do you think I give away? Because now that person owes me a favor. What happens when somebody owes you a favor? They want to repay it. What kind...