In this episode of the Digital Toolbox podcast, host Enmanuel Tahara interviews Weston from Synked Up, a leading software provider for landscapers and hardscapers. Synked Up helps contractors solve the two main problems that lead to profit loss: inaccurate estimates and incorrect resource allocation. The software provides tools for budgeting, estimating, job costing, and production rates. Weston emphasizes that Synced Up is for contractors in the 250k to 5 million revenue range, serving both owner-operators and companies with multiple crews. He also highlights the importance of qualifying leads and finding the right market to sell services at profitable rates. Synked Up is a software solution that helps contractors track job costs in real time, allowing them to make more accurate estimates and avoid financial problems. The software tracks hours and materials used, compares estimated versus actual costs, and provides insights for future estimates. Contractors can react in real time if they are off track and minimize damage. Syncked Up also allows for easy updating of material prices and offers the ability to import client data. The company's vision is to help hardworking contractors succeed and prevent them from going out of business due to financial challenges.
SynkedUp Website: https://synkedup.com/
SynkedUp Instagram: @synkedup
Takeaways
Sound Bites
Chapters
00:00
Introduction to Synced Up and the Problems it Solves
03:08
Synced Up's Target Market and Focus
07:27
The Importance of Getting Organized and Pricing Jobs Correctly
09:40
Selling to the Right Market and Qualifying Leads
15:29
Finding the Right Market and Charging Profitable Rates
23:48
Real-Time Job Cost Tracking
In this episode of the Digital Toolbox podcast, host Enmanuel Tahara interviews Weston from Synked Up, a leading software provider for landscapers and hardscapers. Synked Up helps contractors solve the two main problems that lead to profit loss: inaccurate estimates and incorrect resource allocation. The software provides tools for budgeting, estimating, job costing, and production rates. Weston emphasizes that Synced Up is for contractors in the 250k to 5 million revenue range, serving both owner-operators and companies with multiple crews. He also highlights the importance of qualifying leads and finding the right market to sell services at profitable rates. Synked Up is a software solution that helps contractors track job costs in real time, allowing them to make more accurate estimates and avoid financial problems. The software tracks hours and materials used, compares estimated versus actual costs, and provides insights for future estimates. Contractors can react in real time if they are off track and minimize damage. Syncked Up also allows for easy updating of material prices and offers the ability to import client data. The company's vision is to help hardworking contractors succeed and prevent them from going out of business due to financial challenges.
SynkedUp Website: https://synkedup.com/
SynkedUp Instagram: @synkedup
Takeaways
Sound Bites
Chapters
00:00
Introduction to Synced Up and the Problems it Solves
03:08
Synced Up's Target Market and Focus
07:27
The Importance of Getting Organized and Pricing Jobs Correctly
09:40
Selling to the Right Market and Qualifying Leads
15:29
Finding the Right Market and Charging Profitable Rates
23:48
Real-Time Job Cost Tracking
Enmanuel Tejada (00:00.792)
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Digital Toolbox podcast. I am your host, Emmanuel Tahara. I'm the owner of Landscape Maverick. We are a digital marketing agency for landscapers and hardscapers throughout the world. And today we have a very, very special guest for you guys. We have one of the leading software providers for landscapers and hardscapers just like you. We have Weston from Synked Up. So Weston, introduce yourself, man.
Weston (00:25.74)
Thanks man, it's good to be on your podcast. I basically am just a contractor from central Pennsylvania. I started off as a foreman at a company called, or I started off as a laborer actually, started at a company called Tussie Landscaping, worked my way up to a foreman, then eventually just helping refine systems and processes in our own business there, Tussie Landscaping, I was just an employee. And in that pursuit of trying to build better systems and processes, really long story short, we ended up building Synked Up.
which is an app to help us solve what I call the two ways that contractors lose profit. One is the math, getting the math wrong on your estimates. The other one is the resources, getting the meaning like labor material and other expenses in your estimates incorrect. And Sync'd Up solves them both. We solve the math problem by building a budget to help us understand exactly what you need to charge per hour to the penny.
and automate that problem. So it's not like something you feel like you have to become a spreadsheet expert to do. You don't have to. And then secondly, we solve the resources problem, meaning have accurate amounts of resources, labor, material, et cetera, in our estimates by building templates and production rates and Jobber costing. And what I mean by Jobber costing is I might estimate a Jobber, and I might estimate that it takes me 100 man hours to build it. Then I go do the Jobber.
and I track my hours, for example, and I find out that it took me 150 hours to build it, that's Jobber costing, comparing the estimated versus actual, so that I now have the power and the knowledge to go back and build a more accurate estimate next time. That's solving the resources problem. So there you go, you solved both problems. The math and the resources, predictable profits.
Enmanuel Tejada (01:50.168)
Mm -hmm.
Enmanuel Tejada (02:06.744)
Boo!
Enmanuel Tejada (02:10.712)
Let's go. That's awesome. What's in a new one? Let's talk about the software first. And then later on, maybe we'll get into some, some, some personal things, building the business and all that. So you guys saw a lot of things, right? And right. Let's just hit on the one topic that I have a question on right away, which is in order for somebody to be able to use your software, do they already have to know their specific numbers? For example, do they have to know how much time?
project will take or do you guys try to help them figure that out?
Weston (02:41.164)
Well, we meet you wherever you're at. So if you're literally shooting from the hip, and we start some people where we ask them, how do you get a Jobber? And they literally tell us, just kind of look at it and pick a number, shoot from the hip. We'll take you from there, man. We'll take you. We'll help you figure it out and take that mad scientist magic and turn it into repeatable systems and processes. So no, you don't have to know everything.
You can start wherever you're at. There's no like barrier to entry. It's literally just raise your hand, say I wanna get better at this, we'll help you get better at it.
Enmanuel Tejada (03:16.12)
Gotcha. So it's kind of almost like a consulting approach as well, right? Where you kind of coach them on landscaping and hardscape being, and if they don't know what, how much they should be pricing, then you guys help them figure that out.
Weston (03:22.86)
That's right.
Weston (03:27.02)
That's right. Yep. Yep.
Enmanuel Tejada (03:29.336)
Wow, that's awesome. And so who would you say that, who would you say that synced up is for? Like, cause of course we know there's people that are in the lawn care industry. There's people that are landscaping where they're doing flower beds and landscape lighting. Then we have hardscaping and then we have the premium outdoor living services. So who is synced up for and who is a not for?
Weston (03:51.692)
It's best for contractors in the 250k to 5 million range of revenue. We serve both owner operators that don't really have any intention of building a scalable business with multiple crews. We serve the owner operators where it's... We literally have one man businesses on our platform and they do amazing. And yes, they pay full price and they make every penny of that back and more ROI.
And we have companies all the way up to six, seven, eight million with 20, 30, 40 employees doing systems at scale, many crews out in the field. So everything from either end of that spectrum. We focus mainly on the landscape, outdoor living industries and...
That's mostly because of that's where our background is. But we have electricians or pole barn builders or whatever that come to us and like, hey, can we use it because we think it's what we need? Well, yeah, sure. I mean, if it works for you, absolutely. So we don't turn them away. But we focus our marketing. If you go to our website, you can obviously see it's geared towards the green industry. But the mechanics, the principles are the same for any contractor doing a service business. Who it's not for. So synced up, I would say.
Enmanuel Tejada (04:53.368)
Mm -hmm.
Weston (05:11.532)
Our vision, a lot of contractors in the green industry get started by mowing grass and then they start doing landscapes and then they start doing patios and outdoor living spaces. And I would say Sync'd Up serves the contractors that are doing that construction a little better from an operational standpoint, like the design, build, the one -off projects. Sync'd Up does do both and it is in our vision to serve both, like the companies that do both, design, build and reoccurring maintenance like mowing, fertilization, et cetera.
Enmanuel Tejada (05:19.224)
Right.
Weston (05:41.708)
But if you have 10 crews out there doing recurring services, fertilization with a thousand properties that you maintenance, I mean, that's not who we serve. That's not our core. Like we're more of the design build contractor that also does maintenance in between the 250k to 5 million or even up revenue ranges.
Enmanuel Tejada (06:03.128)
That is awesome and funny enough. I was telling you actually before we started the podcast I was on a call earlier today with this young landscaper and this was one thing that I love by the way Weston because I'm 24 myself and we're seeing a lot of younger youngsters Coming into the game and they're killing it I mean they're making a million plus two million plus and they're hardscape being in their landscaping I love seeing it and I was talking to one of them earlier today. He's actually from Arizona We were on a sales call for digital marketing. He mentioned
Yes, I want to focus on marketing, but first I want to get organized. I want to get my shit together were his words. And he says he was going to use synced up to do that. So somebody in that situation where let's say they're making a million dollars, but they have no systems in place. Everything is so manual. It takes them four or five days to get a quote out. Would you recommend somebody like that to get organized first or start marketing to bring in more leads while figuring it out?
Weston (07:02.924)
Well, you need leads, you need to sell work, you need to do work. But that being said, if you're doing work at a loss, meaning you don't have your stuff together and you are pricing your jobs incorrectly, doing work is just gonna dig you a deeper hole. So for that reason, I would say you're doing more work.
Enmanuel Tejada (07:20.632)
Hmm.
Weston (07:27.212)
needlessly without any gain. In fact, you're going backwards if you don't have your stuff together. So before you even do your first Jobber, figure out what you need to be charging, you know, per hour. And there's free tools on the Sync'd Up website, like syncedup .com forward slash resources. Like we have a free man hour calculator, a free budgeting tool, free estimating tool that it's just freebies. It's like these little online calculators, like picture like these calculate your car payment type things. You know what I mean? And so.
start there if you don't have two nickels drug together. But to answer your question, I would say.
If I get leads and I do work, but I'm not making any money, I may as well stay home or take my kids fishing. You know what I mean? If I'm not making any money. So the first thing you need to do is make sure that you're pricing your jobs at a rate that actually allows you to make money. And so I would say even at a basic rate, figure it out for free. Go to YouTube, go to Synked Up, go to whatever. You can do this for free. You don't have to pay a single penny.
to figure this stuff out if you wanna do it yourself and watch YouTube videos and that kind of thing. But make sure you're being profitable. Marketing is then pouring gas on a fire, meaning once you have a thing that works, marketing is just making that thing that works happen more often.
Enmanuel Tejada (08:45.816)
Exactly right. Cause if you have a repeatable system, then now it doesn't matter the amount of leads that come in and the amount of Jobber that you close. All those leads are going to go through the same system and you're going to ensure that the Jobber is going to get done properly through all the projects, which is the end goal for any landscaper or hardscapers to bring in more jobs and fulfill them. Right. That's business. Bring the money, bring the business in, provide them with the service and the product. Yeah.
Weston (09:10.028)
You know, to say it simply, I've often told people that are trying to figure this out is like, listen, just build yourself a budget, figure out what you need to be charged, and then go get the leads that you need to sell the work at those prices. What I'm pushing back against with that statement is sometimes people come in and they do figure out what their rates need to be. They do build a budget for the first time ever, and they tell me they've been charging $60 a man hour since who knows when, and the budget tells them they need to be charging $92 an hour, and they tell me like, dude, I'm never gonna be able to sell jobs for that.
amount. I'm like, you got two choices, cut costs or figure out how to do more billable revenue without increasing costs. Those are your two choices. Absolutely. You can cut costs. A lot of people in this industry, they love equipment. They love the fancy new truck. They love, you know, we love to spend money on these things. And what can often happen is you might have a four or $500 ,000 little business with the equipment and the assets.
Enmanuel Tejada (09:48.28)
Are those two things possible?
Weston (10:07.276)
that you really should be doing a million, two million, three million dollars worth of revenue to fund. Meaning you're too heavy on overhead expenses, which is driving your rates way up. But anyway, the point I'm making with the whole thing is like saying, sometimes what happens is when you find out what you really need to be charging, and then you start getting no's back on your proposals that you're sending out, like people are refusing, they're not closing, sometimes what...
what happens is you realize you're trying to sell to the wrong market, meaning you're selling Lamborghinis and you're selling to a Honda Accord market, and you need to go find the Lamborghini market to sell to, or change your model and go deliver Accords. You see what I'm saying? And so what marketing plays a big role in that, as well as qualifying the leads that you get from your marketing. It's like, I'm sure if you're a landscaper and you're listening to this, I can't tell you how many, I'm sure everybody has had the conversation of like, hey, I want to hire you.
you know, let's get it on the books, I'm gonna get on your schedule, I'll send you a down payment, and this is my vision, you get all excited, blah, blah, blah, you come up with a quote, and you give them a quote for 30 grand, and you're like, my goodness, I was thinking five grand. Here you spend all this time on a lead that was never gonna buy from you anyway, and neither of you knew it. So qualifying those leads is key, and what I want you to, I'm rambling a little bit here, but the point I'm trying to make is,
Figure out your rates and then go find the people that can buy the services that you provide at the rates that allow you to be profitable. Don't let yourself get sucked into head trash thinking like, well, I can never charge those rates, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a matter of finding the market that wants it.
Enmanuel Tejada (11:43.768)
I love it. And don't even worry about rambling on, Weston, because what you're seeing is actually a lot of game. And let's go back on that a little bit too. You mentioned that you may be selling Lamborghinis to a Honda Civic market or a Honda market in general. So what would you recommend to get around that? Would it be to target those higher income zip codes or would it be to, how would you get around that?
Weston (12:05.804)
Well, back to the thing I was saying about you have two choices, either cut your expenses or find a different market or do more work without increasing your expenses. I would say either decide what you're gonna do. Either sell cheaper services to an accord market or if you wanna be the best of the best, go find the Lamborghini market. Go find a high -end market. Decide what you're gonna do and then structure your business model accordingly. And what I mean, that's jargon for saying,
Don't go buy a tilt rotator if all you're gonna do is plant shrubs in the ground, $5 ,000 landscape jobs. You know what I'm saying? But if you're gonna go build swimming pools and full outdoor living spaces, that's a Lamborghini market, right? And then your business model can support the cost of that expensive equipment, et cetera. And to answer your question about like going into high -end zip codes and that kind of thing, sure, that's good stuff. Targeting is important.
but something that's just as important as targeting, or maybe even more important, is qualifying your leads. Once you get the lead, ask qualifying questions to make sure that you're a good fit before you waste three, four hours of time only to find out that you're gonna get a no. And there was nothing you could have said or did that would have gotten you a yes. You wanna get that, basically once you have the lead, you wanna get that no as quickly as possible.
Enmanuel Tejada (13:34.648)
Mmm.
Weston (13:35.884)
So what we did at Tussie Landscaping, a lot of people are kind of shy about, well, what's your budget, these qualifying questions. So what we did at Tussie Landscaping is we built a thing called a project planner. And it was basically a picture glorified web form, really, is what it is. But it's a picture like building a truck on a vehicle website, like go build a truck on Ford's website or whatever. And it says visual, like the project planner at Tussie Landscaping is this visual thing of like,
Enmanuel Tejada (13:53.752)
huh.
Weston (14:05.164)
these picture, all these photos of like, you can add to your shopping cart, like, hey, I want lighting, I want a patio, I want a swimming pool and small, medium and large and those photos and descriptions with it and budget ranges. So what we do is when we get a lead, at TUSSE we would say, hey, thank you very much. One of the ways we would vet and qualify is we would charge a consultation fee just to eliminate tire kickers. Some people don't like consultation fees, other people are fans of them. I don't care, it's not about the fee at all, it's about the filtering.
Enmanuel Tejada (14:31.32)
What would you charge for that?
Weston (14:32.652)
We were charging a hundred bucks, but I don't care if you're charging a dollar. I don't care if you're charging a dollar or five grand. I know people that charge as low as 20 bucks. I know people that charge as much as a couple grand. I don't care about the amount. It's the fact that a transaction is taking place is what matters because even five bucks will weed out the tiger kickers. You get the point? Yes. So the, so what, what I'm, what I'm getting at with once you, the consultation fee is just, it's another filtering mechanism.
Enmanuel Tejada (14:34.488)
Okay.
Enmanuel Tejada (14:52.344)
I see what you mean, yeah.
Weston (15:01.868)
project planner was phase two of our filtering mechanism. So what would happen is they'd pay the consultation fee. Cool. We'd schedule the consultation. We'd say, okay, the secretary would say, okay, hey, I'm going to send you this project planner. I need you to fill this out before the consultation. Cool. Awesome. Send the email client clicks on the link, opens it up and basically builds their project kind of like, yeah, I want this. I'm like thinking about this. Yes, I want that. And down at the bottom as they're adding things that says, okay, you're in the...
$80 ,000 to $120 ,000 range for the project that you're building or I don't know, pick the number. Three to 8 ,000. The point is, is now the customer not only told you what they want, you subtly informed them, educated them as to what things cost. And you know what happens? Sometimes you get a return phone call after they book that consultation and saying, hey, I had no idea. I actually want to cancel the consultation.
Enmanuel Tejada (15:33.4)
Mm -hmm.
Weston (15:57.516)
Thank you very much. I might call you in next year or three years from now or whatever. And you just saved one, you educated the client in a respectful way that didn't take you a bunch of your time or any salesman magic, so to speak. And now the client has the ability to gracefully bow out without making, without you standing in their kitchen table, sliding a proposal across the table. And they're like, my goodness, we had no idea. Now they feel all awkward and embarrassed. No customer likes that experience.
They hate it as bad as you do as the contractor. So the sooner you can help them or the sooner you can get the no from them or realize, get to the source of those potential deal breakers, the better off and the happier everyone is.
Enmanuel Tejada (16:27.544)
Yeah.
Enmanuel Tejada (16:40.888)
Wow, I love that strategy right there. I really do because that filters out the tire kickers right away, like you said, I love that. One thing that I would say though, and I wanna get your opinion on this too, it's something that we deal with, because when we build websites, we build websites for the most premium landscaping and hardscape companies. A lot of the times, a lot of people use Jobber, which is a platform, CRM, and they want to slap on a nice big form right away. That's the way that they get contacted.
But I think that that's kind of productive. I think that at first a form with just four basic questions, right? Name, email, phone number, and maybe a message is just perfect, right? You get that lead in because if you have a form and it's 20 questions long and it's okay, what do you want? And what's your budget and this and that? Nobody's gonna fill that out, right? Well, I say what's better is you have a short form for four questions, you get on the phone with them, you have that.
Weston (17:16.94)
Yes.
Weston (17:24.204)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. So.
Enmanuel Tejada (17:37.816)
personal touch for a couple minutes and then you send over that long reform once you've spoken to them. What do you think about that?
Weston (17:41.228)
Yes.
1000 % agree. Your whole website, like everything on the skin of the front end of the website should just be name, phone number, email. That's it. Once, or maybe add one question of what are you interested in? Just that, you know, that's it. After you have their contact information, then you can either redirect them to phase two form or call them or whatever your process is. And only once you know who they are and what they want, then you give them the 20 questions theoretically to fill out.
Enmanuel Tejada (17:56.184)
Right. Right.
Weston (18:13.9)
because you don't want those deep questions to kind of kill the opportunity to get their name and phone number and email before you enter. You don't want to build a form. It's like pushing them down the funnel. Get their contact information first, then push them down the funnel and ask the qualifying questions. Don't ask the qualifying questions right up front because you'll lose so many opportunities to get leads or contacts that you can continue to nurture and provide value for even if they don't become your customer right away.
Enmanuel Tejada (18:20.696)
in the first place.
Enmanuel Tejada (18:41.592)
Dude 1000 % I agree with that a thousand percent and that's something that I see all the time because people think that just because I have Jobber or just Because that's the default settings for Jobber or or whatever serum they're using They tried they just slapped that on there, but I'm like, that's not that's kind of productive You want to shorten that up a bit more? And on that same topic was and I mean you're making big splashes, right? You're one of jobbers number one competitors So I wanted to ask you how do your features the things the problems that you guys solve the features that you guys have?
and the way in which you solve the problem. How does that compare to other platforms like maybe like Housecall Pro, like Jobber, some of these other platforms?
Weston (19:19.116)
Well, I actually use Jobber. I loved it. I mean, Jobber's a great product. They're easy to use. They're a great company. And they solve the problem that they solve. The problem that we solve that they don't, or a lot of those products, is the, this is the simplest way I think there is to explain it. When you bid, when you build an estimate inside of Jobber, Housecall Pro, pick your platform. When you,
build an estimate inside one of those platforms, it's like, imagine yourself clicking new line item, type in the description of what you're gonna provide, and then there's a blank field there where you type in what you're gonna charge to do that service, okay? The blank field, you type in the number, nobody's telling you what that number is. The difference between Jobber and say Synked Up is, Synked Up tells you what that number should be, and it's accurate to the penny to not only cover your costs, your overhead costs, and make sure you're gonna make the profit you're gonna make.
Enmanuel Tejada (19:59.096)
Mm -hmm.
Weston (20:15.948)
So instead of you just saying new line item description and then type in a number that I just made up or came up with on my own pen and paper or whatever, all I do in SyncUp is say new line item and I'm gonna need this many hours, I'm gonna need this product, I'm gonna need this and this and this. SyncUp does all the math for you automatically and says, hey, you're going to charge $12 ,137 .23 to do this Jobber. you need a few more plants? Now it's a few hundred dollars more.
Enmanuel Tejada (20:39.864)
Wow.
Weston (20:44.524)
Like it's telling you what the number is instead of jobber or house call pro or whatever other platform you want to pick, asking you what you want to charge and asking you what you want to charge could be at you're not making any money at that price.
Enmanuel Tejada (20:57.368)
Gotcha. And that's a great point that you're entering the number based on your own volition, your own best judgment. But sometimes we may not have that best judgment or it might not be as profitable as we should be at that point in time. So let me ask you then, Weston, how does Sync, how does Sync pull in the details? Like I'm imagining that you enter how much you, how much specific material costs, how much time it takes. So is that how it works? Like you take some time to set it up.
Weston (21:23.18)
Yeah.
Well, yeah, in our onboarding process, we like back to the thing of like how experienced do you have to be or whatever. And then we have a white glove onboarding experience that helps you set, figure this stuff out. Even if you have no idea or just getting started or never have even been a Jobber properly before. But to answer your question, how we know what you should charge is first we build a budget. And what I mean about building a budget is we ask who works for you? What do you pay for that? What do you pay them? How many hours do they work?
We ask you questions that you know off the top of your head, okay? Then we ask you, who do you buy your materials from and how much do you project spending with them this year for all the jobs you're gonna do? What are all your overhead expenses? Your insurance, your website, your marketing, your payroll fees, your phone bill, everything. What are all your overhead expenses? And then finally, what equipment do you have and what's the payments on them or?
Enmanuel Tejada (22:06.84)
Yeah.
Weston (22:21.708)
or how much life do you expect to get out of them if you own them outright, et cetera. And then we take all of those inputs that you kind of know off the top of your head. That's all information you have ready access to. And we just plug that all in and then SyncUp does the math to figure out, okay, for you to cover all of those costs and to hit your profit goals, this is what you have to charge. These are the markups that you have to add to your cost to actually achieve your profit goals. Then, so that gets the math.
Then we also import all of your products from your vendors that you buy from. If you're a hardscape or you can import all of Teco or Uniloc's products that you bring in and what you pay for them from the suppliers you buy from. So Sync'd Up has a whole item catalog of all of the materials you buy from your vendors. So then when you're bidding an estimate, you're just searching for this paver and dragging and dropping in products that you need to build the estimate. And you're just telling Sync'd Up about how many hours you anticipate this Jobber to take. So picture.
it's going to take me about three days. I'm going to have three guys on the Jobber site. We work about three or 10 hours a day. So 10 hours a day times three guys, that's 30 man hours a day times three days. That's 90 man hours. Okay, cool. I put in 90 man hours. But, and then we can calculate that, okay, with the 90 man hours and all the products that you need, and we add all the overhead recovery markups and the profit markups that you need, that's how we get to us telling you, synced up telling you what you need to charge for this work to be profitable.
but we're not done yet. Now when you go do the Jobber, we're going to track those hours and we're going to track those materials that you had in the estimate. We're going to track how much you actually used, and then we're going to show estimated versus actual in real time. So you might be half done doing the Jobber in reality, but you realize you've already consumed three quarters of your man hours and you know you're in trouble before you're even done doing the Jobber. So that you can have the data and the power,
to learn from it and make a more accurate estimate next time based on your historical track record. And what that does is most contractors...
Weston (24:28.652)
They get to, they grow, they do a ton of work, and they get more work than they've ever done before. The clients are happy. Everything feels like it should be good, but they open up their bank account at the end of the year, and they're like, how on earth, where's the money? How am I gonna make it through the winter? And by that time, unfortunately, you're months downstream from the source of that problem. Job costing gives you the answers to the source of those problems in real time.
you know before you're even done on the Jobber, whether you're on track or off track. And if you're off track, you do everything you can to minimize the damage as quickly as possible. Maybe you can figure out how to do an upsell on some lighting and make a little more revenue on the Jobber without investing a ton more time or whatever. And it allows you to react in real time so that the very next estimate that you're sending out to Mrs. Jones tomorrow is already adjusted.
based on what you have learned from your past track record, instead of getting to the end of the year and being like, where in the world is the money?
Enmanuel Tejada (25:30.616)
I see what you mean, man, that is awesome. And that definitely brings awareness to Jobber costs. And like you said, like it's one thing to accept the Jobber and then you're, you know, you put all the equipment, put out all the other materials just to find out after you finished that, shit, you know, we actually didn't make, we lost money on this. We gave too much material. We weren't as efficient. So, so I definitely see the value when having a software that, that handles that. And I wanted to ask you, so,
Weston (25:31.436)
Thank you.
Weston (25:49.196)
Yeah, exactly.
Enmanuel Tejada (25:56.408)
As we know, I mean, prices are constantly changing. So how does that work with Sync'd Up? Do the contractors have to edit their own materials over time if prices are changing just to remain accurate with the numbers?
Weston (26:10.188)
So you can, let's say your vendor sends you an email, hey, these products have changed in price. Well, you can just take that, say they send you a spreadsheet with the new prices, you can just import that into your Sync'd Up account and it'll find the matches and update it automatically.
Enmanuel Tejada (26:26.552)
That's awesome. So you don't have to go into like one by one and manually update the whole catalog. Dude, that's sick. That's sick. That's awesome.
Weston (26:29.196)
No. Yeah. Yeah.
Weston (26:35.244)
Dude, we've lived this life, we know what it's like, we know what sucks, you know what I mean? It's like, I hate this, let's figure out a way to solve it and make it better, you know?
Enmanuel Tejada (26:39.608)
Hahaha.
Enmanuel Tejada (26:44.696)
That's awesome, man. And on that same question about importing data, let's say that somebody's coming over from something like Jobber or something like House Call Pro or some other third party software and they have their data. Is there a way to import that into synced up or is there, is that a difficult process?
Weston (27:02.7)
Well, you can import all of your clients, obviously. So you can export the clients into a CSV file and import. We can do that for you too. So don't be scared if you don't, if importing, exporting sounds overwhelming, we can help you. But yes, you can import all of your clients. You can also import, in some cases, you can export all of the materials that you've used in your current system and bring them into your new Sync Dev system. But...
for jobs and scheduled events and time sheets, like that stuff you cannot import. You have to rebuild that. And so sometimes what happens, like a real life scenario is maybe you have 10 or 20 jobs that are already sold and on the schedule in your old system, but now you're starting to use Synked Up. I mean, it literally takes minutes to create a Jobber in Synked Up. So, I mean, sit down for an hour or two and you got it all rebuilt. Plus, as you're rebuilding often, you find out that, wow, I sold these jobs at...
these prices, man, this is not good. Like I'm going to have to figure out how to overcome this. Maybe add some upsells or whatever. So, but it's kind of cool because as you're rebuilding those jobs, you get to see exactly what Sync up thinks you should have been charging for this Jobber and what you actually charged for it. So it gives you that almost before you even start, you know, kind of what your projected net profits going to be on this Jobber.
Enmanuel Tejada (28:19.032)
Man that's awesome man. So yeah, I mean anybody that's listening in and and synced up sounds like a solution that you guys want to use I mean definitely reach out to Weston, you know or head over to sync up comm and definitely check it out I believe you guys offer a free demo as well. Right when you guys go over everything
Weston (28:34.44)
Yeah, yep, we do. And even on that demo, our goal is to provide value. Like we have zero desire to have you book a call to get sold to. We want you to book a call and actually walk away with real value, whether you buy from us or not. And, you know, I'm not a fan of twisting arms. We solve a problem. Either you have the problem and you want it solved or you don't, you know? And so the goal of the call is just to, A, give you value. What we do on the call is we give you a quick and dirty...
assessment of where your man hour rate should be, just on our free man hour calculator. And we also show you how you can cut your estimating time by 90 % just by using templates and production rates. A lot of people think, well, I don't even know how to build a template and production rate, I don't understand the concept. We show that to you on the call. And then we show you the operational aspects of how SyncDev runs and you ultimately tell us if you think this is going to solve your problem or not. And our average customer spends five grand a year with us at SyncDev.
but they turn that into 10, 50, even 100, 100 plus thousand dollars in that profit in their first years.
Enmanuel Tejada (29:41.464)
And I can see how because there's definitely a lot of value in that software and bringing awareness to things that contractors just don't think of or don't have time to think of. Sometimes they know about it or they know they should be mindful of it, but they just say, you know, it can't be that bad until you see the numbers and it looks you dead in the face. Like, shit, we're fucking up. So yeah, anybody that first hears it, yeah.
Weston (29:58.476)
Yeah. Well, what happens is when life is getting hard, the default response is, well, I'll just work harder. I'll just do another Jobber. I'll start working Saturdays. I'll start working evenings, whatever. I'll just do my estimates at night. Like the default response is we just work harder. But after a while, I mean, we're all human beings. We have 24 hours in a day. And after a while, working harder doesn't work. And so the goal is to fix the broken systems, plug the leaks, save the time.
Enmanuel Tejada (30:19.992)
Yeah, there's only so much we can do. Yeah.
Weston (30:28.14)
Instead of taking an hour to build an estimate every single time, let's figure out how to make it take five minutes. Two minutes. We have customers doing quarter million dollar outdoor living space estimates in our system in less than two minutes.
Enmanuel Tejada (30:45.208)
Dude, that's awesome, man. That's awesome. So seriously, anybody that's thinking of making the jump over to Synked Up, definitely check it out. It's worth a shot, right? And even if, let's say that you're a hardcore fan of a different software, different tool, it can't hurt, you know, if you go and get educated on a different platform and then maybe come back with to your existing software provider and just ask them, hey, do you guys have this feature? Or is there anything I can do to cover this hole, cover this leak, right? You're just getting educated. Nobody's going to twist your arm. Nobody's going to sell you.
wasn't going to leave you better than he found you. And I resonate with him, which is why he's on this podcast, because I'm the same way too. When people come to me for marketing services, I give away the form on the first call or the second call. I'm just helping them out, getting to know them. And if they work with me, they'll work with me, right? But the information is free. You're paying me for the implementation of that for you. And that's kind of the same thing that you guys seem like you're doing. And you guys are adding value, helping people out. And I love that. So yeah.
Weston (31:41.928)
Yep, yep, I love that. I said the same thing. Our knowledge is free. We'll give it to you all day, every day. You can take our free tools and run and use them for the rest of your life. We don't care. I mean, of course we want what's best for you. So we know that there's so much more fruit on the vine, so to speak. And we want to help you achieve that provided that you have the shoe fits the foot, that you have the problem that we solve. That comes with that.
Enmanuel Tejada (31:54.84)
Right.
Enmanuel Tejada (32:04.952)
100%, 100%. And what's the, now let's talk a little bit because I find it interesting, right? As a fellow entrepreneur myself, you went from an entrepreneur, right? Like you were kind of leading things when you were building the software at the current company you were working at. And then once you found out that it worked, you mentioned that you kind of wanted to let the whole world know about it, let other landscapers know about it so they can also solve that same problem. So when you were first starting your company, Sync'd Up,
What was the vision? What were you guys looking to accomplish at first and how big did you envision yourselves getting?
Weston (32:39.052)
Well, we just realized that all of this work, all these problems we were trying to solve for ourselves were not unique to us. And it was more of an industry problem than it was a problem unique to our business. And so, I don't know, I've always loved identifying a problem, like seeing a manual process that just took forever or a mistake that kind of kept on happening repeatedly.
and figuring out how do you get to the source of that problem? How do we set this up into a process that's repeatable in a way that saves time? That's just the way my brain works. I just view life through that lens. And so...
We just felt like, and we were connected to the industry. We really loved going to events and networking. So we had a lot of friends in the industry and we're like, dude, let's solve this not just for us, but for everybody. You know, it was kind of like, hey, let's solve this problem and let's share it to the world. But I would say that I would probably label myself more of an accidental founder. I never started this to start a tech company. I never started this to grow a business and flip it or anything like that. I started this to solve a problem and to help, you know, solder the earth, hardworking craftsmen.
people that are employing a huge portion of the workforce, providing jobs, actually being contributors to society instead of takers. And just like, I wanna enable those people. I want those people to be successful. And today, obviously as you evolve in your own journey and your own life and career, your own vision evolves. And today my vision's evolved to like, I wanna help every one of those hardworking entrepreneurs actually make it. I want no one to go out of business because they didn't know. And -
They were working hard, they were providing a great service, but they just didn't understand how to charge profitably for it. They were making no money, so finally they hang up their hat and go home. I want to prevent that from happening and enable and get more contractors to own a business instead of having a business that owns them. Like the whole thrive, not survive thing that we have on our tagline.
Enmanuel Tejada (34:47.8)
awesome that's awesome and are you guys today well what's the end vision like how many do you have like a number of landscapers or do you have a revenue number or like a vision like that that you guys are looking to hit over time?
Weston (35:01.324)
Well, kind of the next milestone is 10 million in revenue or 2 ,000 customers. Currently we're about 30 % of the way there. So yeah, that's the next milestone. It's funny because back in the day when we first started this, it was about getting our first customer and then it was like, well, let's get to 10 grand a month. And then...
Then it's like, well, yeah, let's get to enough to where we can pay some engineers in cash flow this thing. And now that we're a breakeven and cash flow positive, it's like, cool. Now let's get to the point where we can actually scale this out to as many people as possible. And even 2000 contractors, in the grand scheme of things, that's not even scratching the surface, but that's the next, you know, we'll get to 2000 and then recalibrate and onward and upward from there.
Enmanuel Tejada (35:24.888)
Hehehe.
Enmanuel Tejada (35:50.616)
Yeah, man, and I see it happening. I mean, seriously, like you guys already have a lot of eyes on you guys. Like I was saying earlier, when I looked you guys up, I was doing my research preparing for the podcast and I'm like, all right, let me type in synced up on YouTube on Google. First thing I see, I see an app competitor, a competitor ad on you guys by Jobber or by all these other software. So you guys are doing something right for sure.
Weston (36:12.332)
Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But hey, there's enough room for everybody. Jobber solves a slightly different problem than what we solve. And if Jobber solves your problem, awesome. Go use them. I just know that we solve a problem they don't.
Enmanuel Tejada (36:13.976)
They're trying to take that market share from you guys.
Enmanuel Tejada (36:30.104)
Boom.
Boom, yeah, I love that. I love the fact that yeah, there's definitely money for everybody out there, right? It's just, you know, depending on the problem you have, not everybody that goes to a different software aside from saying that was going to get that white love experience. We're not going to get the consulting aspect of it. They're just going to get a tool and they have to make that tool work for them instead of having somebody to consult them on. Okay, here's a tool. Well, first of all, here's a problem you're having. Here's a tool to solve it. And this is the best way to go about it. So I think that that's awesome, right? You know, the fact that.
Weston (36:46.828)
That's right.
Weston (36:50.38)
That's right.
Enmanuel Tejada (37:02.168)
You know, you guys go about it that way.
One more question for you wasn't because I definitely want to be respectful of your time as well. It's What's your day to day like as the CEO of a tech company like synced up? What do your days look like?
Weston (37:19.564)
Well, have you ever followed or heard of Dan Martell?
Enmanuel Tejada (37:24.376)
he's a legend man, he's a legend. Yeah, I know that he actually he gets mentored by Ed Mylett, I believe. Yeah, so I definitely have heard of him.
Weston (37:26.028)
Yeah.
Weston (37:32.044)
Yes, yes, yes. So I follow his perfect week, which is a framework that he uses to manage his time, manage his week, manage his day. And so one of the things that is definitely true when you get sucked into a startup is like, dude, there's always work to be done. You're never like done. And so, you know, if you're like me, you just kind of get, you know, obsessed with.
Progress and getting getting stuff done and making progress and what can happen is or at least what my experience has been is like suddenly you might look up and be like dude You know, I'm married with a couple kids and like man they're growing up and like so I don't want to miss out on life on the way on the path to Executing this vision in this mission. So I start by creating a One pager calendar for the whole year and it keeps track of all my travel days all my nights away from home all my
If you know what happened this year is like I'm like there's zero downtime on this entire year So I forced myself to go create some downtime and that way it happens if you put it out there where it's far enough away Where it's not interfering with the next meeting or the next project or the next whatever? It's on your calendar. My assistant has to work around it And then that way life doesn't take a hold of me I take like I take a hold of life and and design my life around
my priorities around not just work, but family and everything else. So it starts by, for me, that one pager year calendar was extremely helpful in just making sure that I'm living life by design. Then I come down to the daily and weekly level. I use Dan Martel's Perfect We Framework, which is basically just, again, designing your days and weeks, theming those days and weeks, managing your energy, determining what are the things that should not be.
on my calendar and be delegated off to someone else? What are the things that should be on my calendar? What's the magic that I bring to the company and to the vision versus what's things that's just sucking energy that somebody else could do? But most of my days these days are pertaining to our internal operations, like their internal team meetings, product, like managing the product, designing the roadmap.
Weston (39:58.124)
working with the team to design the future, things that we're bringing to the table. Marketing, I spend a lot of my week is still spent on marketing, which we're actually hiring a position for that right now to start buying back from a time in that bucket. And sales and customer success, I'm pretty well handed off. I have leaders in each of those departments in the company. Marketing is the next department that I need to hand off a leader to. But...
Enmanuel Tejada (40:14.232)
Mm -hmm.
Weston (40:26.7)
I've been, you know, there's been times in this whole synced up journey where, dude, I was working 50 plus hour weeks at Tussie Landscaping when I was still doing my day Jobber there before synced up was doing any revenue. And I would literally get up at three or four in the morning, work till six, head out, do my 10 hour work day at Tussie Landscaping, come back, work till midnight. You know, I was, there was tons in my life when I was doing a hundred hour work weeks plus and...
It was brutal. And we're finally at the point where we have enough of a team that you can start living life by design a little bit more and start managing these things as opposed to just straight grit and hustle, right? And overcoming challenges by brute force. But at the same time, as a startup, dude, you can't get your foot off the pedal. You can't let that innovation slow down. You can't start getting lazy, man. Like...
And so I feel that urgency and that obsession to keep on innovating, keep on driving forward. You know, early bird gets the worm. There's the I don't know. Was it Elon Musk that said nobody changes the world in 40 hours a week? I think that was a quote he said one time. I'm like, yeah, I resonate with that. But at the same time, in the same way that I want our customers to own a business that doesn't own them, I want them to own the business.
Enmanuel Tejada (41:42.296)
Hahaha
Weston (41:55.436)
In the same way that I want that for our customers, I also want to practice what I preach and live that myself.
Enmanuel Tejada (42:01.848)
I love it and and the fact that you were intentional about putting on your calendar those vacation days those off days those family days I think that's awesome, you know being intentional about that and then also knowing that yes Even though you're gonna take these breaks you can't let your foot off the gas Especially as a startup like you said and this story is lining up already I can already envision it, you know when when a company goes public or or they get bought out by private equity or anything like that?
You know, the founder has an amazing story and you have that. So it's like, it's only a matter of time. Things are going to keep multiplying and multiplying and I can see it, man. So keep doing your thing, Weston. You're killing it, bro. By the way, are you going to be going to Equipment Expo this year?
Weston (42:41.452)
Appreciate it.
You better believe it. Yes, sir. We're coming in bigger, better, better than ever before. We're also gonna do, every year we do what we call the Bro Life Breakfast. It's kind of a social media inside joke. It's a hashtag, whatever. But we call it the Bro Life Breakfast. Ladies are welcome to. It's just, like I said, it's a social media inside joke. But we do that out in the park a lot. I think it's gonna be Thursday. Is it Thursday or Friday morning? I forget. It's...
Enmanuel Tejada (42:47.128)
Let's go. I will see you there.
Enmanuel Tejada (43:11.576)
parking lot of the Equipment Expo.
Weston (43:12.46)
Yeah, exactly. Out there in the RV camping section. And we basically just put out an invite, you know, hey, 6 a here's the parking spot area where we're doing it. And we just set up Blackstone grills and bacon and eggs and have a good time. And we're also doing a networking event, which watch our social media. You'll see the details once the RSVP links are live. But we're doing a networking event collaborating with other brands in the industry like Chris from Perm Edge.
Enmanuel Tejada (43:29.816)
That's awesome.
Weston (43:42.06)
Dan Preston from Hardscape Mentor, John and Chase from Green Foundry. So we do this big kind of like networking event in the evening, having a good food and have everything activities lined up. So just a place to socialize after the event's over. And the other thing, I wish it wasn't quite so close to HNA or Equip Expo, but this year we're doing our Contractor Summit. We do an annual summit. We call it the Contractor Summit. We're doing it October 3rd and 4th.
in Dayton, Ohio. And the Contractor Summit is basically a mix of motivational inspirational speakers, educational speakers, business spotlight. We do a tour of a business and we're going to be doing spotlighting Jeremy Swihart from J Squared Outdoor and his incredible outdoor living construction company. You're going to get to see his new operation. He's building a new shop. It's fantastic.
And then of course the synced up team does their talks like myself and Fred, our CXO and Etienne, our CTO. And then we kind of have our little awards ceremony. You know, we don't really talk a lot about that until it's a bit of a surprise until we do it. But definitely, man, if you want to get in a room with other people in the grinded business, just like you, trying to get ahead, trying to figure out how to run a better business, become a better business owner, structure your business better operationally.
this is the room to be in, I'm telling you. Just go to Google Synked Up Contractor Summit and you'll see the recap video from last year. And if that doesn't convince you to come, I don't know what will.
Enmanuel Tejada (45:20.608)
Well guys, there you guys have it. Definitely sign up for all of these events as well and give it a shot. Synked Up is an amazing platform. You guys check it out. If you guys have any questions for Weston, Weston, where can they reach you?
Weston (45:38.444)
The easiest place is just DM me on Instagram. The handle is synced up. It's just S -Y -N -K -E -D -U -P. I am the one behind that account. So if you're DMing that account, you're DMing me. And so you can follow my real -time kind of life on the stories on that account. A bunch of content and reels and short form stuff is on that account as well. You can reach me directly in the DMs.
Or you can email me if you have a specific question, just Weston, W -E -S -T -O -N, at syncedup .com, S -Y -N -K -E -D -U -P .com.
Enmanuel Tejada (46:16.632)
Boom, there you guys have it. Reach out to Westin, reach out to Synked Up, and show up to these events, guys. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Digital Toolbox. Take care, guys. Peace.