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...

All right I’m with Greg Wittstock. Some of you may recognize him from the Tv Show "Pond Stars." Greg is the number one manufacturer in North America of pond products. We just got done doing a podcast, and Greg literally told us how he went from having absolutely nothing to owning a $60 million a year corporation with 95 employees. He has been in the Fortune 500 top fastest growing companies four years in a row.

Greg Wittsock

Thank you for coming on. Today we talked about something that I think is a critical element. We talked about manufacturing, distribution, leadership management, and your new academy.  You touched base on were how you grow from nothing to something and gave us four strong points in leadership and management. Can you go over that with us?

Different Stages of the Business

Greg: When I started off, I was in the field working directly with the guys. Then I developed the 20 step way of building water features and that was our system. Stan: So you...

I'm meeting with Brian right now. We are going to be re-landscaping, and so I make sure we are on the same page.  What we’re going to be doing is we will be getting rid of these trees and bushes. I’m going to cut all of the bushes down.  We’re going to haul that out.

Think Outside the Box

If you guys cut grass, I want you to start thinking a little bit outside the box and expanding your services.  I’m going to take you step by step through this $2,400 dollar job. It took us two days to complete with two guys and a minimal amount of materials.  Now you see me running a skid loader right here. You don’t need a skid loader to pop trees on the ground. Keith Kalfas has an amazing video where he shows doing the exact same work with a pickup truck. But I want you to understand that this project was done in two days.

2 days = 60 Lawns

It would be equal to cutting 60 lawns over the course of a summer. The profits are immense because of the...

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

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

And once you start to learn how to do it over and over again you will always get better and you gotta realize this Francisco somebody is being you learn I love this.This is best part of it somebody is paying you to learn.

Three, two , one

Your last question was about grading how do you get grading the right ?

Franciso; yeah

you know is that what you want to find out perfect I know now you are in my neck of the woods this is what I grew up doing and I can tell you that there are not going to be any two grading jobs are like heart skipping just like everything else there's never going to be two projects alike and we really got to focus on learning how to bid not necessarily just by going by the numbers but how to interpret those numbers.

How to interpret those sites and use your past experience you're going to build up a wealth of...

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...

Commercial Bidding Blueprint

If you're looking to break into commercial work, I'm going to give you the blueprint right now so check this out. The very first thing you're going to do is going to put together a nice letter. I'm going to give you a copy of that here in the video. What you're going to do is going to be very simple straight to the point. This is going to introduce your company to the property managers in the area. You're going to Google "Property Managers." Google is going to give you a list of different management companies. What you want to do is email a copy of your letter out to the various companies. You're going to spend a few days doing nothing but this is. It’s going to get you on their list for an RFP. RFP means Request For Proposal.

Townhome Associations

I’m going to break in here. We're talking about commercial properties. I want to give you the inside scoop on how to get your name in front of townhome associations and things like that. What you...

Get your free sample contracts today!

Stan: You spoke, I listened. A lot of you guys are emailing me, texting me "Hey can I get a copy of your contracts?" "Can I get a copy of your proposals?"

Stan: Absolutely. They're now all free at Dirk Monkey University. I've got a spot where you can go and you can get a free copy of my snow plowing hourly contract, an actual landscaping proposal that I turned into a customer, a copy of a lawn maintenance contract that you guys can use. You're gonna have to modify all of these for your own needs, and I also put in a sample of the reference sheet that I give out to new customers, those that haven't worked with me before, just to establish my credibility and authority in the market. You guys can use this to do the exact same thing.

Stan: When you get to Dirk Monkey University, what you're going to find is a donate button. Don't feel like you have to use that.

Stan: Everything okay, cat?

Stan: I know when you're first getting started, times are...