Jake Hatch of Black Sheep Skid has taken the skills he learned as a landscaper and transferred them into a form of entertainment.  Using his skidsteer and no safety equipment, he puts on a show that delights and terrifies audiences (and sometimes his clients, too).  Stan chats with Jake about the progress he has made with this endeavor and where he wants to take it in the future.

Links from this episode:
Black Sheep Skid
Black Sheep Skid on Instagram
Black Sheep Skid on Facebook

Chuck Bowen, editor of Lawn and Landscape Magazine, talks about how to grow your business with fewer growing pains.

Set yourself apart from other companies with excellent customer service.  Customers want someone who is going to call them back and do a good job.

Solve the "labor problem" by creating a culture that makes people want to work for you.

What can people do to take themselves from a small to medium sized company?  "What got you here, won't get you there."  It requires the owner to step back into different rolls.  The owner needs to hire people to do the work he/she was doing and do different work (sales and business building).  What systems do we need to put into place so we can effectively scale it.  Get everything that's in the owner's head on paper so their employees know exactly what to do.  The owner who doesn't eventually step back, becomes the limiting factor in the company.

In the off-season, you should be stepping back and...

As business owners, we find ourselves focusing and devoting A LOT of time to growing.  At the end of the day, many contractors find they have eaten the easiest and fastest thing with little concern for how that will affect our future.  Ross Aubrey, owner of Higher Purpose Fitness, discusses how to stay healthy when running your business.

Common excuses contractors have when it comes to taking the time to exercise:

"I have had an injury in the past, so I can't exercise."  There are plenty of variations of exercises that you can do that won't re-injure or irritate past problems.  There is always a way.

"I work out in the field all day, isn't that enough exercise?"  Focus on intensity instead of duration.  You don't need to spend an hour on a treadmill.  An intense 5-10 minute can be much more effective than a long, drawn out workout.

How do we fuel our bodies when we're on the run all day and don't have a lot of time? Get in tune with if...

Matt Jones of The Site Shed Podcast joins Stan to teach us how to use a website as a way to create a good business database that we can market to over time.

Use your website as a way to create content.  This content can then be used to create leads.  To run seasonal campaigns, it's important to capture customer data.  You want to get people to your website, you want to create a community.

Using free guides and downloads, you can "tag" people so you can create lists so you are marketing the right things to the right people.  When you are marketing, it's important to build trust by giving them information they can use.  Communicate things that are relevant to the customer.

Danny Iny's passion is teaching people how to sell online courses to generate income.  He is the founder of Mirasee, a company dedicated to improving the world by helping people spread their knowledge.  They teach people how to do different components of online marketing.

Links from this episode:
Mirasee.com
TeachAndGrowRichBook.com

Chad has always been a very hands-on and visual learner.  In school, he struggled with bookwork but excelled when it came to building and doing.  No matter how you think and solve problems, you have to adapt that to your business.

Chad has dyslexia and has learned how to use his "disability" to his advantage when it comes to solving and anticipating problems on the job site.