Taking Calculated Risks for Growth and Success in Landscaping - Khalan Epp - Kalkare Landscaping

In this episode of the Digital Toolbox Podcast, host Enmanuel Tajada interviews Kahlan Epp, the owner of Kalkare Landscaping. Kahlan shares his journey of starting his landscaping business at a young age and growing it over the years. He emphasizes the importance of learning and gaining knowledge in the industry, especially in hardscaping. Kahlan discusses the challenges of finding skilled labor and the need for proper education and training. He also highlights the significance of having an office manager and using tools like Jobber for organization and efficiency. Kahlan’s focus on customer service and professionalism has helped his company stand out in the industry. In this conversation, Kahlan shares his experience and insights on starting and scaling a landscaping business. He discusses the importance of starting small and gradually taking on more complex projects, as well as the value of subcontracting and learning from experienced professionals. Kahlan also highlights the challenges and lessons learned in hiring the right team, taking calculated risks, and managing profitability. He emphasizes the need for systems and processes to scale the business and the importance of never quitting on a bad day. Outside of work, Kahlan enjoys fitness, rock climbing, and pursuing his interest in aviation.


Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Background

03:00
Starting a Landscaping Business at a Young Age

08:07
The Importance of Education and Training in Hardscaping

14:01
Challenges in Finding Skilled Labor

26:41
Emphasizing Customer Service and Professionalism

29:07
Starting Small and Scaling

31:35
Hiring the Right Team and Managing Profitability

34:14
Taking Calculated Risks for Growth

43:08
Building Systems and Processes to Scale

49:48
Never Quitting on a Bad Day

55:43
Balancing Work and Personal Interests



Keywords:

landscaping, hardscaping, starting a business, education, training, skilled labor, customer service, organization, landscaping, business, scaling, subcontracting, team management, profitability, risk-taking, systems, never quitting, fitness, rock climbing, aviation

If you are in need of marketing help for your landscape and hardscaping company, book a 1 on 1 call with me here:

https://calendly.com/landscapemaverick/discovery-call

Transcript

Enmanuel Tejada (00:00.887)
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Digital Toolbox Podcast. My name is Enmanuel Tajada. I'm the host, I'm the owner of Landscape Maverick. We're a digital marketing agency for landscapers, hardscapers, concrete guys. Today I have a very, very special guest for you guys, a youngster from Downing, Georgia. We got Kahlan Epp in the house. Kahlan , introduce yourself, man.

Kahlan (00:26.76)
It's Kahlan but that's okay. I'll let you, let you, no problem, no problem. And thanks for having me on. It's definitely a cool opportunity. So glad to be on and I'm sure we got a lot.

Enmanuel Tejada (00:28.247)
Now that there it is, I'm sorry about that.

Enmanuel Tejada (00:38.743)
Boom, yes sir, yes we do, Kahlan. Right away tell us, how old are you, bro?

Kahlan (00:43.016)
22. Yes, sir.

Enmanuel Tejada (00:44.599)
22 anybody that's looking listening listening in and they're looking at the video this guy does not look 22 this guy looks at least like 25 26 but these guys like these guys are doing amazing things so I'm really happy to have you on telling for real bro cuz Yeah, bro, like you're a youngster. You're killing it. You got you got a good head on your shoulders, bro You're humble. I like that bro. So dude for anybody doesn't know who you are Who is Kahlan who was he in high school?

Kahlan (01:09.256)
So in high school, I was just, you know, not the quietest. I definitely liked to talk to people. I was really diligent with my grades and everything. That was always important to me. I wanted to go on the college path. I had four older sisters that went that way. And so I was gonna follow in their footsteps. And then in high school, I went to a private school. So I would just work, cut grass on the...

days that I wasn't at school and yeah, just worked hard and had fun while I was doing it.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:41.655)
That's awesome, man. And what's your background like? I mean, are you like, were your parents kind of like middle class, upper class, lower class?

Kahlan (01:49.768)
I would say just completely average middle class. We live in a nice quiet neighborhood. You know, pretty average house. You know we we didn't struggle at all, but I would say you know we weren't going on vacation every week either. So but it was a good place to grow up and for sure so.

Enmanuel Tejada (02:05.239)
Haha, gotcha.

Dude, yeah, and what part of Georgia are you from, by the way?

Kahlan (02:12.2)
So I'm in Woodstock, Georgia, right on the edge of Akworth and Woodstock. So that's going to be about 40 minutes north of Atlanta. So it's a great, great area, very like compared to when I started versus now it's grown like crazy and it's just continued to grow. It's a good market for sure.

Enmanuel Tejada (02:25.079)
Really? Yeah, I was in Georgia actually recently with one of my friends. He lives in McDonough, Georgia And same things happening there, but a lot of people going to Georgia, Georgia, Florida. They're crushing it right now

Kahlan (02:37.832)
Yeah, it's a great space to be in right now.

Enmanuel Tejada (02:39.959)
But by the way, Kalan, wasn't there like a famous concert in Woodstock or something like that? Is that where that was in Georgia?

Kahlan (02:46.568)
We we saw in downtown Woodstock. We have like a really nice amphitheater that they installed like probably three or four years ago and We have a ton of concerts. So I'm not sure particularly I don't I'm not a big concert guys. I don't follow it But I know we have you know, there's like a summer series of you know concerts And so we bring people in all the time for Woodstock Yeah, yeah

Enmanuel Tejada (03:00.343)
Yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (03:08.087)
Gotcha. Gotcha. That's awesome, bro. That's awesome. I was thinking more of like, I think there was like something called Woodstock, like a long ass time, like 40 years ago or something, but who knows? I mean, we're like, we're like, I'm 24 years old and we don't know anything about that, but. Same here, same here. But damn, Cal, so tell me man, so you run, you're the owner of Cal Care Landscaping, bro. So tell me a little bit about that. How did you start this company? What was it like coming up for you?

Kahlan (03:20.488)
Little before my time. Yeah.

Kahlan (03:37.384)
I think it's just the age old story kid in the neighborhood cutting lawns. And I started out, the first job I ever remember doing was after my dad would cut the grass, I would go and blow out all the edges, you know, so there's no clippings in them. So everything looked clean and crisp. And then I just learned how to cut grass when I was probably 12, 11 or 12, somewhere around there. Then, you know, classic story, neighbor asked me and then their neighbor asked me and then.

You know, by the time I was 15, 16, I had probably a quarter of the neighborhood, small neighborhoods. So I probably had like 20 or 30 houses. and, we had cut grass. I hired a buddy in high school, best friend, and we would just cut grass for like three days a week. And then we would do mulch jobs occasionally, you know, when I'm on the weekends or whatever. So, and then from there, I was going to just do it for fun. And I decided to make a career out of it.

And when I turned 18, I actually set the business up legally. And we went from there. I graduated, I think that was around COVID time. Yeah, that was COVID time in 2020. So I remember I had like a couple of classes left and I was cutting grass with earbuds in there. Wasn't AirPods back then, or I didn't have them back then. So it was just the regular corded earbuds. And I would have stopped the mower, you know, and peep into the class, you know, and say a comment or whatever. And then, yeah, we'd just be cutting grass all summer.

Enmanuel Tejada (04:44.791)
Yeah

Kahlan (04:59.048)
And then when I graduated, I just did it full time. And I moved out like a week later after I graduated. And so we just hit it, hit the ground running. I mean, we went crazy. And so we had like three days of mowing and then we would just pick up projects, little side jobs, little mulch jobs, you know, whatever we could, whatever we knew how to do and some things that we didn't know how to do and we figured it out from there. So yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (05:06.615)
Really?

Enmanuel Tejada (05:21.943)
Dude, that's awesome. One thing I want to touch on right now is you said you were taking your Zoom classes while mowing lawns. That's legendary.

Kahlan (05:27.144)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I had an English class and a math class. So I would do the English class and then I would try to sit in the truck for the math class. But yeah, those are the two classes I had left. And I don't think they knew. Maybe they did, but they didn't say anything. So I got away with it.

Enmanuel Tejada (05:46.359)
Bro that's fucking hilarious, but I've never heard of that before. That's awesome. But that's a good way to make use of it because motherfuckers I remember I was in college at the time I think I was doing my second year of college because I only have my associates Just do play video games on the camera like dude at least like turn the camera off or something This motherfucker was just playing video games But damn that's awesome, bro, so you were doing small jobs You know cutting grass edging blowing

Kahlan (05:49.896)
Yeah, yeah.

Kahlan (06:02.504)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (06:14.519)
Couple most jobs, did you ever do any salt at that time?

Kahlan (06:18.184)
I remember doing like our first ever saw job and I started out with the F -150 that I had saved up like 10k from just cutting grass and somebody gave me a trailer which was super cool. It was like a present from a family friend and they like wrapped it for me and everything. It was really cool, really neat. And then obviously had the equipment just, I had like shovels and I had a nice mower and I had a couple other things I'd bought over the years. I remember doing our first saw job.

And I'm ashamed to say that that sod probably didn't live. We put Bermuda in the shade. But the client was super cool about it and they ended up selling the house anyways. But I remember that was our first sod job and we rented a little mini skid steer and we had no idea what we were doing. I mean, I'll be the first to say it. We just, I mean, we did a really nice job, but we had no idea what we were doing. So yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (07:10.967)
Dude, I got you bro, I've got you. I've been there, not in long care, but I've been there my life just figuring the fuck out, figuring it the fuck out as we go, but that's awesome that you guys did that. And so how come the guys didn't live? I mean, did you guys put irrigation down too or what?

Kahlan (07:20.584)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kahlan (07:26.28)
No, it's just like we put Bermuda in the shade and it only got probably like four or five hours sun needs, you know, five to six plus more of the better. So the climate was cool about it though. You know, it lived for like a couple of years, but. Yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (07:33.879)
Whoa!

Enmanuel Tejada (07:39.575)
God, dude, damn, that's an awesome story right there. So that was the first time you guys ever put down sod and the first time you guys ever rented a little skit steer.

Kahlan (07:48.008)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we were just kids. Just kids out there and we tried to act professional and we're definitely a lot more professional now. But back then it was just, you know, just figuring it out, you know, and that's that's kind of one one avenue to go and I guess another avenue would be go work for somebody and learn learn there. I chose to just dive right in. So.

Enmanuel Tejada (07:49.975)
Dude, that's awesome, man!

Enmanuel Tejada (08:07.895)
Hehe.

Enmanuel Tejada (08:12.183)
that right in dude I love it man and and so how did you guys go from taking on those those you know slightly bigger jobs where you got to rent some equipment how did you guys get to where you guys are today because I saw your Instagram and it's what made me reach out to you for you guys are doing some amazing work like amazing bro breathtaking so how do you guys get to that point?

Kahlan (08:32.456)
I think the one thing I would say just is time. You know, just we didn't get there overnight. You know, we didn't go from doing that first side job all the way up to doing beautiful pavers and boulder walls and retaining walls and all that stuff. You know, we didn't go straight to that sexy stuff. You know, it was just a period of time over four years. We've been in business for four years and we just slowly scaled up the size of our projects as our knowledge grew and as our rapport grew and.

Enmanuel Tejada (08:53.271)
Mm -hmm.

Kahlan (09:01.288)
And as a reputation group, it was just, it was just time. And it gave a chance for our team. Cause we're all young guys to, you know, gain the knowledge, gain the fundamentals, because when you get into hardscapes, it's not just, you know, it's not just YouTube videos. There's fundamentals of engineering that goes on with modular block walls and step treads and how to design pavers. And there's a lot that goes into it. And I think that that's important to recognize. And.

You know, there are some jobs that I've been on along the way, 100 % that were just way over my head. And, you know, at the time I was a little bummed that we didn't close those jobs, but it was a blessing because there's a chance where I could have closed a huge job and it would have put us out of business because we didn't have the knowledge, we didn't have the fundamentals and our team couldn't execute upon it, which is important to realize.

Enmanuel Tejada (09:48.535)
and you're a thousand percent right bro because it's it's it's and I would say it's I wouldn't say it's easy but I would say it's doable for somebody that is not as experienced to put up like a retaining wall or boulder wall and make it look good but is the foundation strong or is it gonna fail in five years is they're gonna fall you know like there's a lot of things that can go wrong if it's not done properly and that kind of leads me to my next question so how how did you guys learn how to do all these bigger projects as you guys went up?

Kahlan (10:17.256)
I think it was just connections in the industry. I think that's the most important thing for me was understanding that.

A lot of these guys want to work together. They want to help the young guys coming up. And so reaching out to companies, there's one in particular that we're really good friends now. I called the owner and I said, Hey, look, I'd love to take you a lunch one day. I'd love to get to know what your company is doing that's making you guys successful. And just learning from him, asking questions, asking the people at the vendors, at the landscape supply centers. Hey, a lot of those guys that work at those...

landscape centers have backgrounds in hardscape, you know, they're around it every day. And then the biggest thing, and we can touch on this later, because one of the issues in the industry, I would say is lack of education. And so we've leveraged, there's a program called Hardscape Mentor, and it's pretty new, but it is an amazing online course. And so,

Enmanuel Tejada (11:03.671)
I'm sorry.

Kahlan (11:13.416)
We'll get the guys together on a morning for two, three hours and we'll cover a particular project or topic and watch that video. And then we'll have a discussion like, Hey, you know, why, why is this, why is he doing it that way? You know, how does that apply in our industry in the South versus in the North? And, and that's really helped our guys, you know, it's just huge learning how to do those things.

Enmanuel Tejada (11:34.071)
Yeah And you know what that's somebody that I would love to have on the podcast eventually one as well because I have been watching their content too and you're absolutely right, bro I don't know if it's hard to get mentor and there's another guy like hardscape University. I don't know Yeah, but I think they both preach similar things which is doing things properly like Actually taking time to study because it's not just you're gonna go out in the field and learn it like yeah That's one way of learning it But if you can sit down kind of like you said you said the guys are

Kahlan (11:42.088)
Yeah.

Kahlan (11:47.816)
Yeah, there's a couple out there.

Enmanuel Tejada (12:03.703)
Classroom style kind of setting how you are right now with a little whiteboard in the back You can get a lot further as far as like seeing the visual Seeing you know learning it that way instead of just touching it and trying to figure it out as you go because that there is more room for error that way

Kahlan (12:18.536)
It's huge and and when you're on site, it's just chaotic. You don't have time and it's unprofessional. Frankly, I mean you're out there and you're trying to teach guys how to do stuff. You're not a lot of times these clients are watching whether they're out there, you know, peering over your shoulder or looking out the window. It's just not a very professional setting to to be teaching your guys to you know your whole team. Maybe it's OK to teach one guy, but teach your whole team how to do something and it's not scalable either. So you know if I know everything.

Enmanuel Tejada (12:26.231)
That's very true.

Kahlan (12:48.04)
about this project and that means I had to be on site, which is that's not how you build and scale a company. Which is important to recognize. And so taking that time, you know, in the classroom has been great and it saves you money because frankly, if you don't, if you have a team that's going into the field blind that doesn't understand the fundamentals of pavers and how to install them correctly and what the industry standard is for aggregates and base materials.

Enmanuel Tejada (12:54.743)
That's very true.

Kahlan (13:15.976)
then you're gonna go in the field and you're gonna make a bunch of mistakes and then your clients are gonna call you back, you're gonna get a bad reputation, which is gonna cost you money. There's no telling how much money that's gonna cost you. And you're gonna have to go fix a mistake, which is gonna be time and money, not well spent. So.

Enmanuel Tejada (13:31.639)
5000 % bro and and I love the fact that you specifically can and you're talking about this because you're 22 and you're already doing the right thing You know most people would expect for the 22 year old to be the one that's fucking up the most Because all he's young he's reckless He doesn't know what he's doing But instead is the the opposite a lot of the guys in the industry are older especially like twice the age as you are and they're They're fucking things up and therefore their teams are fucking things up. So so why do you think that there is that knowledge gap in landscaping hards keeping? I?

And what other things are you doing about it aside from sitting the guys down to talk about it?

Kahlan (14:07.112)
So I think in terms of the industry problem, it's just, I think a lot of people treat landscaping or hardscaping, less hardscaping, because hardscaping is a little more professional. But I think people don't really take landscaping serious enough and treat it as a legitimate professional trade. And I think that that is often an issue. The other thing is just time and money. It takes time and money to invest in your teams to get them educated.

And you can hire people that already have the experience and that does work. But there is benefits to hiring younger guys and train them. You just have to be a little more patient. But in terms of industry, I would just say lack of learning for these young guys.

Enmanuel Tejada (14:54.135)
In what way? Like, do you think that it's that somebody can go on Instagram and watch an influencer and then say, I can go and plant that flower. I can go and plant, you know, put down a boulder like that. Is that why?

Kahlan (15:05.736)
Well, I'm really glad you said that because that's huge. That's a huge reason why. I mean, Instagram and Facebook is covered with these beautiful hardscapes. Okay. Personally, the thing that attracted me to the hardscapes was T .E .R. and Gertz. Okay. He was doing just stunning work out in California. And a lot of those influencers will make it seem way easier than it is. And I think that people get excited, which is great. I love getting more excitement and attention to the hardscape and landscape industry.

Enmanuel Tejada (15:21.015)
100%.

Kahlan (15:35.56)
and they think that they can go do it. And a lot of times they just don't understand that there's a lot more that goes in from engineering and design standpoint. And then they go out and do it and then inevitably, you know, things happen and they don't, they're not as successful as they wanted to be. So.

Enmanuel Tejada (15:52.439)
Dude yeah I can see that you know I can see a youngster I can see a youngster taking on a project that's way over their head and they say okay I'll figure it out and then they're not prepared for it they don't know how to prepare for it and no matter how much somebody can help them if it's just too much it's too much so do you think that is something that the influencers are doing wrong because they're

Do you think it's the influencer's fault or is it the landscaper themselves, the young business owners' fault for not being educated enough?

Kahlan (16:30.504)
I wouldn't say that it's anybody's fault particularly, especially not the influencer. I would just say that with anything on the internet, you have to take responsibility for looking at what's on the internet and then trying to apply that in real life. I would say there's a lack of initiative on the owner's part or people that are going out. And I think that the way it's sold is like, hey, you can just hire people to do the work for you.

which is great, but if you don't understand the fundamentals, then you can't tell if they're doing it correctly. And so there's just a bottleneck of lack of information there. And so a lot of people are, the labor industry in general right now is just not very skilled. Like we have a lot of, and I'm not gonna get political in any way, shape or form, but I think that immigration is a problem because there's a lot of immigrants coming over right now.

Enmanuel Tejada (17:00.279)
Yeah.

Kahlan (17:28.936)
that don't know what they're doing in terms of landscaping and.

And I think that they are just pretending like they know what they're doing and they're not. And so the labor market's flooded with a lot of unskilled labor. There's not a lot of craftsmen available, you know, masons, people that know how to do pavers correctly, people that know how to build walls correctly. They all say they can, but I haven't seen a lot of people that really know. And I interview a lot of people to come work for us and everybody says that they know how to build a retaining wall, but when you throw them in the field, they have no clue.

Enmanuel Tejada (18:03.159)
Wow, man, that's interesting right there too. And you know what, on that same topic, dude, I mean, I know you said that a lot of you guys are young, right? How old are they and what do they're training? Like, did they come in with experience or did you have to train them from scratch?

Kahlan (18:17.928)
Almost all my guys came in with zero experience and that you have to be very, very patient as a leader and as the owner of a company. and you have to be willing to kind of nurture and build them up. And honestly, a lot of my guys started, you know, when I started it. And so we've grown together, which is cool because we've been able to see, I have three or four guys that have been with me since I've basically started a year after or so. And so we've been able to grow together because I didn't come into this business knowing everything at all, you know,

By any means, you know, I put, you know, I just talked about earlier, I put Bermuda sod in the shade. So, so we've learned together. And, and so usually when we bring a new guy in now, we usually start them on, on our maintenance team, get them comfortable around equipment, get them used to the long days. And then inevitably they want to come and learn and do different things. And we switched them over into the hardscape install team.

Enmanuel Tejada (18:53.655)
Hahaha.

Kahlan (19:13.672)
And then we start them out doing little stuff. You know, they're not going to go straight to cutting pavers and installing pavers. But again, we throw them in the field. You know, we teach them how to use the equipment. We teach them how to, you know, properly do small stuff, how to install plants correctly, how to position plants, you know, to where they look good from multiple views as you're walking up to the house, how to install step treads. And then, and then.

Compounding on that, we take them out of the field and into a classroom setting and teach them the fundamentals of pavers, particularly modular block walls is another one we like to really pound on a lot because there's a lot of liability with that one. And then boulder walls. And once they know those fundamentals, they can start applying them in the field and then they can just grow up from there.

Enmanuel Tejada (20:00.439)
Dude, that's awesome, bro. And I love the fact that you provide that kind of those stepping stones for them to grow into those bigger roles. And how does that look like, by the way? Like, can you give us, I know you mentioned that you have a kind of like a classroom style setting, but how does it look like when you put the guys together? Like, is it something you guys do every day? What do the guys think of it? Or are they like, fuck another meeting or what's that like?

Kahlan (20:23.144)
No, we try to, I mean, we don't do it crazy often. We try to do it like once a month. or especially if we have new people joining the team and I just phrase it as like, Hey, we're going to go sit AC. Okay. I get the guy's breakfast, you know, if it's breakfast time, have some muffins there, have some drinks. and you know, we provide notebooks and all the materials they need. We usually watch the, you know, whatever lesson we're going to.

Enmanuel Tejada (20:27.959)
Thanks.

Kahlan (20:46.44)
watch and we'll have a discussion. inevitably they'll have questions. So we'll talk about those. and I have them take notes. And when we went through our paver, section of the course, I had them, you know, for their homework, I had them say, Hey, over the next week, you know, when we meet back here again, I want you to bring in a couple of pictures of, some pavers that you saw that were failed. And I want you to explain why they failed.

And that way they can start really applying that knowledge instead of just taking notes and kind of death by PowerPoint style. But they get to take it outside right away and say, wow, these papers look terrible. Why did they fail? And how can we make sure we don't do that? So.

Enmanuel Tejada (21:28.599)
Dude, I think that's beautiful. Like both the fact that you're sending them down to train them like that and also giving them the homework assignment. Dude, I think that's freaking awesome, bro. Cause like you said, they don't just, you know, they don't just read why something would fail. They actually go and see, okay, okay, so this is in real life. Okay, wow, that failed because of this or, I, they probably put the wrong, you know, type of material down this and that that's awesome, bro. That's out of the box.

Kahlan (21:38.536)
Yeah.

Kahlan (21:53.992)
Yeah, I think because they are young, they are more willing to sit in a classroom setting because a lot of guys that are mature in the field and they've been in the industry for 10 or 20 years, it's going to be really tough to get them to come inside and sit down for an hour or two hours in a classroom and take notes. That's going to be really hard. So that's something. So we have a pretty seasoned guy.

Enmanuel Tejada (22:07.511)
Dude, yeah!

Enmanuel Tejada (22:12.855)
That is true. How old is your oldest guy on the team?

Kahlan (22:21.128)
Our maintenance team and he is 55. Well other than that all the guys are no older than 25 So a lot a lot of young guys

Enmanuel Tejada (22:22.903)
Yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (22:28.375)
25, well what does that older guy think of that training? Does he attend or no? Cause that's a long kick.

Kahlan (22:33.448)
He does not I mean he's strictly he strictly only wants to do maintenance And and take care of the properties. That's what he wants to do. That's what we hired him for That's the role we brought him in and he's really just interested in doing that So we you know, he doesn't really attend that And then if you're on the maintenance team, we tend to kind of just separate that out and say hey if you're interested in joining the install team Then we'll we'll plan that out. We'll get you a mentor to teach

Enmanuel Tejada (22:37.879)
Mm.

Kahlan (23:01.832)
you know, managing the install team. And then once they're competent, we can move you out into the install team and, and then move you up. And so right now, this year we're getting an enhancement team off the, off the ground right now as well. So, enhancements being just light jobs. So mulch, pine straw, small sod jobs, small plant jobs, nothing hardscape related. And so they'll move from maintenance to light enhancement jobs, just like, you know, just, just mulch and stuff.

And then from there, when they're ready to move on, they can go to the hardscape team and start working with pavers, concrete, all that stuff. So that's kind of the way we've modeled it.

Enmanuel Tejada (23:42.231)
Dude, that's awesome. That's awesome. So you got that three -step process where you could bring anybody of any age and train them at each and every step, having become the ultimate. Wow, man, that's awesome. And you know what? Let's stay on that same topic then, Cal. So how many, you have three departments now, right? Three departments like Belong Care, Enhancements, and Heartscaping. How do you run those? How do you keep everything organized by department? How do you...

Find leads, how does that work to manage those three departments day to day?

Kahlan (24:15.464)
Well, I don't mean to plug job or I'm not sponsored by them, but job or is, I mean, I couldn't live without job or, and it's very popular in the industry. And we had it after year one, we use QuickBooks the first year and then we just switch right over to job or. So I think that's the biggest thing in terms of just a database, but all, all the data from clients, information to quotes, to invoicing, to billing. and of course we still leverage QuickBooks on the bookkeeping side. but I think one thing that my mentor originally taught me.

was you need to have somebody handling admin work. And I had a office manager from day one. And it's extremely helpful because my role right now is project manager, logistics, managing the team, teaching the team, sales is a huge one, and sometimes mechanic too. We always have trucks break or something like that. That's just part of the game. And so,

Enmanuel Tejada (25:00.599)
sales.

Kahlan (25:12.584)
Adding admin on top of that and trying to answer the phone out in the field is just, it's not realistic. And there's been times, there's been spans of times where we're in between office managers or there was a time where I thought, well, I don't need an office manager. I'll just do it myself. Bad idea. And so I think people are hesitant to hire an office manager because it's added overhead. They're not directly, you know, adding to the revenue. so it's kind of a big step, but I think it's a vital step and.

Enmanuel Tejada (25:28.599)
Yeah.

Kahlan (25:42.696)
Most, I mean, you call five landscapers right now in your local area, none of them will answer your phone. So having that reliable, dependable person answering the phone, handling communication is huge. So that's one way we stay organized. Another way, you know, we have a bookkeeper, you know, full time, she takes care of our finances. And this might make us not as profitable, but I think it'll allow us to scale a lot easier and stay a lot more organized and not run into trouble. Cause in business you're going to have just, you know,

Enmanuel Tejada (25:48.727)
Very true.

Kahlan (26:10.888)
We just found a form the other day, a new form the government's requiring. And, you know, my bookkeeper took care of that and you don't have to worry about it. And so that's important because I need to be focused on sales. My guys need to be focused on working and my admin needs to be focused on dealing with the customers. So I think, and then also we've just put a, and I, I'm sure other people have touched on this, but we've taken the attitude of putting our people first. And so we've understood that if we put our people first,

then they're going to take care of our customers no matter what. And I'll say this, I've said it a thousand times, but I'll say it again to everybody I talk to. Not a week goes by where I don't have a customer call me and say, you know what, your crew is just the most polite, respectful crew I've ever dealt with. And so that's important. And we've kind of gotten away from organization, but from a people perspective, we've really harped on that. We've tried to be the Chick -fil -A of the landscaping industry.

Enmanuel Tejada (26:55.747)
I'm gonna go.

Kahlan (27:08.072)
And so our teams are taught when you're dealing with a client, it's yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma 'am, no, ma 'am. My pleasure when they say thank you. And I think that goes a long, long way. And then making sure that you guys speak English or at least you have one guy speaking English on site. I hear that all the time. Yeah. You know, our last lawn care provider, our last landscaper, there was just the communication was really tough and they said they were going to do something and they didn't because there was a misunderstanding. And so I think that's important. And that's just the reality.

Enmanuel Tejada (27:37.623)
That's very true that I agree with that. Yeah, doing it. And you said a lot there, man. And that's like speaking for a lot of facts and real quick shout out to Benita. That's Benita. Is that her name of your assistant? Yeah, she actually hit me up before the yesterday before the podcast. She was like, hey, listen, you know, what else do we need? What else do we need to be prepared? And a lot of the times it's quite rare actually the number of times that.

Kahlan (27:48.104)
Yeah, yep, yep, she's great.

Enmanuel Tejada (28:02.839)
an assistant emails me about the podcast asking if we should be ready because that shows initiative. So I've had like four or five guys and funny enough, those five guys are probably the most successful ones out of all the landscapers that I've had on. So it makes a lot of sense that you have somebody in that role. And like you said, it is tough for like a smaller landscaper to say, you know, I don't need that. I want to cut costs. But if you want to scale, you know, even though that person is not making you money, but they are saving you time.

and they're preventing you from losing money because they keep you organized. So I think it's a good investment at one point too. And dude, one thing I want to ask you, Cal, is what's the right way for a young landscaper, you know, they have their own business, they're maybe making, you know, maybe they made their first 200K, 300K. What's the right way to transition from lawn care into enhancement, into hardscape, like what type, like as far as projects. So you said, you know, cutting lawns, edging, blowing.

Then you throw moj, what else are the stepping stones as far as that they should follow with projects?

Kahlan (29:07.752)
Yeah, you know, not everybody's situation is different. So I, what worked for us was, you know, obviously we started with one crew, you know, with maintenance and then we took on, mulch jobs and cleanup jobs or like putting down gravel. And then we transitioned into side jobs. I remember that transition. I remember the first time we, you know, we rented a full size skid steer and it was like an eight pallet job. And we thought we were like, we thought we were, you know, we thought we were the crap and,

Enmanuel Tejada (29:12.183)
Right.

Enmanuel Tejada (29:33.367)
Yeah

Kahlan (29:37.)
And so we started doing more SAW jobs. We started taking on more grading jobs now that we knew how to comfortably operate equipment. And I think from there.

I remember we did Steptrends. Steptrends is a good project to get good at. It's very easy, very low liability. Just installing big 18 by 36 stone slabs. I remember the first time we did those, we did like probably six of them. It was like, again, we thought we were so cool. It's cool to look back and see how far we've come. And then from there...

Enmanuel Tejada (30:02.679)
Hahaha

Kahlan (30:10.376)
Another good way, and I didn't touch on this before, another good way is to subcontract things and you can learn from your subs. You just have to make sure you hire good subs. Because that is one thing, that's how we learned how to do concrete, is we subcontracted out all our concrete and I would oversee it. I knew the fundamentals of concrete.

And I would just make sure the project runs smoothly, interact with the customer, handle all the communication. But that's how my guys learn how to do concrete, because I would throw my guys in there with them, say, hey, watch what they're doing. This is how they form. This is how they set grade. So hiring subs can be helpful as well. But again, that owner or your project manager or your foreman needs to have the fundamentals of what's being in the project.

done so that way you know if something's being done correctly because at the end of the day if you're the contractor it's your responsibility to make sure that that project is done up to your standards up to the company's standards.

Enmanuel Tejada (31:04.759)
1000 % 1000 % and what's your process like when you pick out a? Sub subcontractor is it for you to just go on Google and type in you know concrete near me Or how does that work?

Kahlan (31:16.264)
So I think the biggest thing is just word of mouth. Okay, so I have a thousand connections in this industry. And so I just have to make a phone call and say, Hey, who do you use? Who do you like? And then from there and making sure that they're about their values of the company match up with our values.

and make sure, you know, I usually vet them in some sort of fashion. If they have social media, I'll vet them in that way. And then we'll go from there. And if they're a good fit, we'll try them out for a small job. And if they're a good fit, then we'll continue working with them. And normally, once we find somebody good, we're locked in with them. You know, I'll never forget the first job we subcontracted. I did, I did call this one on Google, because at the time it had no connections. And I just searched stump grinding.

Enmanuel Tejada (31:53.815)
Thank you.

Kahlan (32:01.928)
And Bubba Stump came up and I was like, shout out Bubba Stump. But Bubba Stump came out and was like, all right, well, this doesn't sound the most professional, but he came out, he was super professional. He had been doing it for like probably 10 or 15 years at the time. And we have never used different stump grinding companies since. And him and I have such a good relationship that when I bid these projects and I need some grinding done, we don't exchange pricing. I know his pricing.

He's fine, I give him whatever he wants and he's the most professional subcontractor we've ever worked with. My guys now handle mostly interaction with him and yeah, he's one of our best subs. And so picking out subs that you can have a long relationship with is super, super important.

Enmanuel Tejada (32:43.831)
Dude, that's awesome, bro. Nowadays, you probably don't, like you said, you have so many connections, you don't even take the risk of going on Google and finding somebody that's not gonna do quality work. You just pick up the phone, hey, so and so, do you know somebody that does this? And then you figure it out from there.

Kahlan (32:53.448)
Hmm.

Kahlan (33:00.2)
Yeah, and we have a list. We have a categorized list of everything from photography. We have a whole list of everybody. And so we have a list for us and we have a list for our clients because at the end of the day, if we trust them, then our clients can trust them. And so it's been helpful to refer.

those subs if we don't want to subcontract through them straight to our clients and we can trust that our clients are going to have a good experience like they would with us. And that's important because that is a valuable service and that's something we're going to build into our company in the future as a referral program because it is just so important to have good word of mouth and what these homeowners are doing is they're going on Google. They're spending hours and hours and hours vetting these companies, looking at reviews.

Enmanuel Tejada (33:25.975)
That's awesome.

Kahlan (33:46.472)
They're meeting, they're getting three or four estimates. They go, they pick a company. It seems great. You know, the sales person is really good. And then the day comes for the install to happen or the service to happen. And the team gets there and they don't back up with the salesman says, and the customer ends up having a bad experience, you know, no follow up from the company. And so if we can help prevent that by using our contacts and sharing them with our current customers, you know, that's a win win for everybody. So.

Enmanuel Tejada (34:14.071)
That's a win -win, yeah. The client's gonna be happy, the sub is gonna be happy, and you're gonna be happy, because you don't have to deal with any headaches later on. Imagine you're fucking, they're calling in for some concrete or for plumbing or whatever, and they break some shit, and then now you have to deal with it too. But dude, yeah, 100%, and I love that, that you're sharing the game on that, man. And on that same topic, I mean, we talked a lot about a lot of the successes that you guys have had coming up with, you know, taking on big projects as time goes on and having a solid system of guys.

Kahlan (34:20.392)
Yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (34:43.799)
What are some of the bad moments, some of those scary, ugly moments that you guys have had, like some of the rolling pains?

Kahlan (34:51.656)
Yeah, there's been many. I remember a couple different categories, but one was just we hired the wrong people and I hired two guys that just at the time I was, I'll plead that I was young and ignorant, but really I just made a bad decision as a leader and as an owner and they just weren't the best guys. You know, they're lazy. They didn't show up and I, and I put up with it for way too long. And I found that it made.

about two months of my life, very, very not pleasant. And once we got rid of those people, life went back to being good. So that's one mistake we've made. We grow in pains wise, it's hiring the wrong people. It's never fun. Another mistake, I got a couple written down here actually. I would say one is just not taking risks soon enough. And I want to preface this by saying, cause a lot of influencers will push going to deck, get that piece of equipment, you know, just, just go for it.

And I think that that can be very dangerous. And I think at the end of the day, as a leader and as somebody that's, you know, you have people relying on you for paychecks, you have to be very careful about the risk you're taking on. but that being said for us, I wish we would have taken on a little bit more of a risk, particular in the equipment, area, because we just bought a nice little mini skid this year. And I wish I would have done that, you know, two years ago, maybe not right after we started, but it's a mini skid. So here's a Bobcat MT 100.

Enmanuel Tejada (36:15.735)
What equipment was that?

Good night, sir.

Kahlan (36:20.776)
It's, you know, it's industry standard. and I wish we would have bought that, you know, two years ago, we use it every single day and it's, it's just great. And so we would have been closer to getting that, you know, paid off and onto our next piece of equipment. So I would have taken a little bit more risks, in the beginning. and then I have one story. We, did a new property, new development property. There was two houses right next to each other.

Enmanuel Tejada (36:26.871)
FAN

Kahlan (36:48.2)
And we took on this big project and we just didn't have the labor to fulfill it. And there was a lot of, a lot of late days I spent out there. You know, we were doing things we'd never done before in amounts that we'd never done before. I mean, we were doing the most amount of solid we'd ever done at the time was 10 pallets. And we had to fill like 30 or 40 pallets between the two houses, you know, drainage, plant material, you know, and working around new construction too was.

was different and we executed on it great, but just, I think, you know, that was just a rough job for us. and there's been many more like it, but I think the important thing is, it's just not quitting. You got to push through. you, you gotta continue. You gotta execute, you know, you signed a contract that said you're going to do this work. And so you got to execute upon it. and I think that applies to just the service industry in general, because I have something that.

Enmanuel Tejada (37:24.279)
Man.

Kahlan (37:44.136)
I was told and I always tell people now is like never quit on a bad day. There was a couple moments in business where I was like, this is just not going to work. And I never, I wanted to quit and I had people around me that supported that decision. But I also had people around me that pushed me to continue going and it worked out, you know, and I think that you just have to keep pushing. And if you know, your interest change and you want to get out of business or you want to get out of the service industry, I think that you got to quit on a good day when things are going.

good, not on a bad day.

Enmanuel Tejada (38:15.927)
I love that bro, never quit on a bad day. That's awesome, yeah. Because most people would never quit on a good day, so it's probably because just the day is bad, that's why they wanna quit. So dude, yeah, that's a great point.

Kahlan (38:26.024)
Exactly. Exactly. I looked, yeah, I look back on those moments where I wanted to quit when cash flow was bad. We had trucks breaking down. We had, you know, HR issues. And those are the moments I wanted to quit. But it was never like when we got a new piece of equipment or we're doing good jobs or our cash flow is good. I never wanted to quit then. So that kind of was a big awakening moment for me. It's like everything's, you know, we have challenges every day, but everything is going pretty good now.

Enmanuel Tejada (38:32.887)
Eh.

Kahlan (38:56.104)
I don't want to quit now, so I just make sure I remember that when things are not going good. Because there's going to be times when business is good and there's going to be times when business is really bad.

Enmanuel Tejada (39:07.351)
is very true. Never quit on a good day, dude. On a bad day, dude. I love that, man. I love that. And going back real quick on that project where you guys kind of overstretched yourselves as far as human resources go with the team, what did you do? Did the guys just have to stay a lot longer? Was it a lot more hours than you quoted out? Or how did you guys figure that part out?

Kahlan (39:32.072)
It was a lot more hours and you're dealing with sods. So there's timeframes. You got to get that stuff down right away. This was in the dead of summer. And, and this was like a year after we started and I hired a neighborhood kid and he was probably 17 or 18, 16 or 17. And he called all his friends and I paid them all to work for me for like three days straight. And we got done.

And they were really, they were not the best workers, but we got it done. So, yeah, yeah. So.

Enmanuel Tejada (40:04.407)
Dude, that's awesome bro. You got it done. And so how was it? Like you had him and his friends, it was you and who else? Did you have other guys on the squad too on the team?

Kahlan (40:14.984)
I had a couple of my guys, and this was back in 2021 when labor was really in the service industry was really, really tight. Like I could not find people to come work for me. It was actually crazy. And now the economy has changed and people want to come work. But back then, I think I had a couple of my guys out there, but I couldn't let my maintenance team responsibilities not be fulfilled. So we had to get those yards done.

And yeah, I think I couldn't get my guys to work on the weekends. I had things to do. And the other thing was it was an hour and a half. Yeah, it was an hour and a half away. It was really far away. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, but we learned a lot and we got it done. And it was good when we got it done. So yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (40:54.807)
wow, so was a fog project too.

Enmanuel Tejada (41:04.151)
100 % dude, I love it. I love it. And how did you guys land that job by the way?

Kahlan (41:08.552)
It was actually through Connection in the business. He subbed to us and he knew a lot of builders and he said, hey, are you interested in this job? Is this how much it pays? I said, heck yeah, I'm interested. I went out there and looked at it and I was like, this is a lot. But I said, all right, let's do it. And we did it. And maybe we weren't as profitable as we needed to be, but we gained that experience and that's invaluable to be honest.

Enmanuel Tejada (41:22.039)
Hehehehe

Enmanuel Tejada (41:37.527)
That's awesome bro and have you ever had a time where you didn't turn a profit like you underbid a job or you didn't you had to come out of pocket with equipment or anything like that has that ever happened to you?

Kahlan (41:52.872)
I don't think that we've ever had a job where I had to actually pay, you know, to get the job done. But there's been times where we broke even or came very close to breaking even. And I'll tell you exactly when that happened. It's just jobs that you're not used to doing. And they're on our bigger scale. Like at the time of bidding that job, those are usually the jobs that are the biggest you've ever done. And so you just don't have the foresight to see, okay, well,

this part of the job is also going to require a new water line or, or drainage, or there's just things and variables that you don't see. And there's just problems that arise that you cannot predict because you don't have that experience. And so, when you're building those bigger jobs, there's always some sort of unknowns. And so every, you know, our biggest job we've done, you know, is X amount. And so when we bid, you know, let's say 50 grand. So when we bid a $75 ,000 job, there's going to be.

We can take the experience from a $15 ,000 job, but we've never done a $75 ,000 job before, so there's just gonna be a learning curve there. So obviously, we never plan on losing money, and we wanna make a good profit, a healthy profit, but sometimes you gotta learn those lessons the hard way.

Enmanuel Tejada (43:08.887)
100 % bro and there's nothing like it. I mean there's a lot of things that I go through as well in my agency and it's like fuck bro. I wish I wasn't going through this right now, but it's like life you know. It's like if you don't go through those tough moments you'll never know when you were happy. You'll never know how success feels. You'll never know how any of these other things feel. Plus you would never learn the lesson and that's probably the most important part you know. Like you got burned on those couple jobs and you were like fuck I'm never letting that shit happen again and I bet you haven't.

Kahlan (43:37.)
No, no, no, no, no, you definitely, once you learn those mistakes and you lose money on those mistakes, you never, you almost never make those mistakes again. So, and your team never makes those mistakes again, cause they've learned. so yeah, yeah, it's important to try to not lose money. That's the idea. We're in business to make money, which I think a lot of times people forget. So.

Enmanuel Tejada (43:44.119)
Heheheheh

Enmanuel Tejada (43:58.583)
That's very true. That's what it's about. Yeah, that's why every business starts with that same objective. People try to, you know, some people try to. What's up?

Kahlan (44:03.816)
And I would touch on that a little bit is like, that's one of my weaknesses as a leader is in the past, I've been a little too soft on change requests. I never want to come back to a customer after I send the quote and say, hey, we need more of this, we need more of that. And a lot of times it's not even that we didn't quote it right. It's just.

Enmanuel Tejada (44:13.047)
Hmm.

Kahlan (44:28.872)
I think $500 worth of plants is going to make the job look perfect. And I'm a perfectionist. So I'll just be like, whatever it takes to get the job done, whatever we have to spend, whatever we have to do, whatever amount of time we have to spend here, we're getting it done perfect. And I think that having the humility to go to customers and say, hey, now that we've done this, we think that this would look really good here. This is the cost. If not, that's OK. And then.

going from there instead of just eating the costs all the time. And that's something that I've had to learn as a leader is being a little bit harder with the customer and saying, hey, this costs a lot more money, but it would get the job done perfect. So yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (45:08.119)
Love it dude, love it, love it bro. Damn bro, that was really really insightful dude, I'm loving this so far. And I'd actually, if you were open to it, but I wanna ask you a couple more questions, more on the personal side. So like outside of landscaping, what do you do as far as, cause you're a sharp young man, you look well dressed, you look fit. What do you do when you're not landscaping?

Kahlan (45:30.088)
We're not working. I'm usually at the gym. That's a classic hobby of mine. I'm really strong Christian, so I'm going to church Wednesdays, Sundays, I clock work. That's really important to me. And bringing it back into business, we usually start almost every morning with a prayer with the team.

Enmanuel Tejada (45:31.223)
We're not working yet.

Kahlan (45:50.952)
And I think that's just really important to keep God first at the center of the organization and at the center of my life. And I'm definitely not perfect at that by any means, but I definitely try. And so if I'm not in church and I'm not at the gym, I like to go, I like to do outdoor stuff. So I like to go rock climbing. Well, I like to do indoor rock climbing, but I like to run. I'm really big into fitness. And so I got a couple of good friends. So if I'm not hanging out with them, I'm usually.

doing something fitness related. So yeah, Laura I'm at the beach, love going to the beach.

Enmanuel Tejada (46:21.975)
Yeah

Enmanuel Tejada (46:25.335)
At the beach, bro. Is there a beach close to where you are in Georgia?

Kahlan (46:30.088)
the beach I usually go to is probably six hours away. So I popped down there a couple of times. Yeah. Yeah. I popped down there, you know, a couple of times a year and then I'm not doing it right now, but, I'd say about a year ago, I was working on getting my pilot's license as well. That's kind of on hold right now, just cause I need a lot more time commitment to that, to be successful at that. So that's on hold, but that's another interest of mine is aviation and a definitely big goal to get that done.

Enmanuel Tejada (46:35.287)
Six hours! Are you serious?

Kahlan (46:59.24)
at some point.

Enmanuel Tejada (46:59.479)
Dude, like a hundred percent. I was going to ask that too, cause that's a very big thing. I don't know if there's a statistic, but what state has the most people that also fly planes, whether it's commercial or for personal. But I know in Georgia, there was a lot of homes with a hangar right next to the house or like a runway right through a main town.

Kahlan (47:16.392)
Yeah, we have one local here in Woodstock. It's right off the main road and there's probably seven or eight homes on it. And then there's a grass strip and everybody has a hanger. It's pretty cool. Although I've never seen, I've literally never seen an airplane fly out from there. So I'm not sure if it's active or not, but it's there. It's pretty cool. There's airports everywhere around here. So.

Enmanuel Tejada (47:27.159)
Hahaha

Enmanuel Tejada (47:37.303)
That's awesome. And what's your interest with that? Is it to fly your own personal plane or do you want to do commercial or?

Kahlan (47:42.792)
Actually, that was kind of, I don't really like plant beads, but that was like one of those low times in business. I was like, man, I could just sell everything I have now and go be an airline pilot. Cause I do love aviation. I've always loved it. But I don't think I could work for somebody. I've never worked for somebody in my entire life. I've only ever done landscaping and only ever run my own business, even when I was a little kid. So, you know, I think it'd just be more for personal, personal use. When I have a family one day, I'll be able to, you know, take them around.

you know, the country and there's different places. And I think it's just really neat to be able to fly an airplane. Like I was going to say, like everything is just, I'm kind of an extremist. So I want to do everything like to the highest level, but you know, I'll get my private license and then, you know, I'll probably get my instrument rating because you can't have, you can't not have an instrument rating, you know, instrument rating just allows you to fly in the clouds and fly off of vectors and stuff.

Enmanuel Tejada (48:17.239)
I think so too, bro. I think so too.

Kahlan (48:37.832)
And then from there, you know, I can't stop there. So I'll probably have to get my multi -engine rating. That's the goal. That's the dream. It's a very expensive hobby. So I'm saving up and obviously I'll need to free up a little more of my time. Because at the time when I was doing that, I was only able to fly every other week. And the reality is you cannot learn how to fly every other week. You're just very, the cockpit's always foreign when you get in because there's two weeks of time in between each time you fly. You need to be flying at least twice a week.

week I'd say. And I have a lot of friends that are getting their pilot's license and they're going, both of the people I know, they're going to be airline pilots but it's cool to watch them do it and be able to talk about it and stuff so that's a big hobby of mine.

Enmanuel Tejada (49:08.279)
for the first week, wow.

Enmanuel Tejada (49:19.383)
That's awesome, bro. I can definitely see you up in a plane, bro. I can see it happening. And dude, I mean, let's get into this. Let's end it this way because I want to be respectful over time as well. But, you know, let's say there's a young landscaper out there. He's, you know, he's trying to get a foot on his business. Maybe he's only doing lawn care. He wants to be doing big things like you're doing one day. What's one piece of advice you would give to yourself if you were to go back in time or give to that young landscaper to guide him down the right path?

Kahlan (49:25.64)
Yeah.

Kahlan (49:48.36)
I'd say a practical piece of information would be try to train your team and organize your company in a way that has systems that allow you to pull yourself out of the field the fastest.

And understand that when you pull yourself out of the field, you're going to get a lot of judgment from your team at times because you're not getting as dirty all the time or, you know, out there sweating all the time. But if you want to scale a company, you have got to build it in a way that has systems. You can leverage software like jobber, but start creating a handbook that like, okay, this is the procedure. This is what the teams do every morning. This is, you know, create those systems that way you can try to pull yourself out of the business.

as fast as possible or the business can, you know, there's something called the fishing test and they say your business is successful if you can go fishing for a week and it operates smoothly without you gone. And so I would say just systemize your business if you want to scale. Now, if you just want to run two crews and you want to like be more hands -on, I think that's a really cool way of doing it as well.

And you can set yourself up really well that way as well. But personally, I want to scale a very big organization with a lot of different teams. And so systems and getting yourself out of the field. It took me two and a half to three years to get myself out of the field. And I think knowing what I know now, I would have been able to do that within the first year. So, yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (51:19.479)
Love it bro, systemizing, systemizing, systemizing.

Kahlan (51:23.528)
And I do think I want to touch on being in the field. I think it was important for me to be in the field. just because now I know what my teams are going through in the field. And I think as a leader, it's very important that you don't forget that. And you make sure you respect your teams because without them, your company is non -existent and you can't execute. You can sell as much projects as you want, but if you can't execute them and you don't have that team, then yeah, you're not.

Enmanuel Tejada (51:47.927)
1000 % and what about this cow? What if there's somebody that buys into a landscaping company? Maybe they have home services experience. Maybe they don't. What would you recommend for somebody like that? That's never been getting down and dirty in landscaping or hardscape, but they just bought, you know, they're the cars lined up. They were able to buy a company. What would you say to that person that doesn't know how to get down and dirty?

Kahlan (52:14.568)
I don't have much experience in that area, but I will say I think that it's important that when you do due diligence in that company that you make sure that they have really, really good leadership because you're going to be relying on their leadership. And I think that if you are buying into a company and you want to go that route, you better be really, really good at running a business from a business fundamental standpoint.

And then as long as you listen to, if you have good leadership, listen to them and don't just try to cut costs everywhere you can because that's going to affect them and your people will probably leave. So that's the only thing I can say on that.

Enmanuel Tejada (52:51.031)
100 % Yeah, I mean winning over the team not just of course paying them well too but all the small things small gestures, you know behind them lunch having conversations knowing your name Those things could probably go a long way as well

Kahlan (53:05.544)
Yeah, of course.

Enmanuel Tejada (53:07.127)
Awesome. Well Kyle, dude, I really appreciate having you on, but you're a legend, bro. You're like I said, you're a clean cut dude, bro. Professional looking. By the way, are you a watch guy? Is that a, what is that a Rolex?

Kahlan (53:10.792)
Yeah, this was great.

Kahlan (53:16.36)
I know this is a this is a Seiko Pepsi they call them Pepsi's after Rolex after Rolex says yeah I've got I've got like I've got like six of these so I have all different colors I got one laying on the table over here.

Enmanuel Tejada (53:20.887)
The Pepsi, okay, yeah, I was gonna say it looked like it's not mariner.

Enmanuel Tejada (53:28.567)
Really? Yeah, I like it man. It looks like a a Rolex Submariner.

Kahlan (53:32.856)
This is it. Yeah, that's what it's modeled after. This is a Seiko turtle. It's got a little waves on the on the on the face. Yeah, I love them. They're super fun. They're cheap watches. Yeah, I have tons of them. Yeah, we got into me and my buddy got into them a couple couple years ago and we like them and it's a you know, they people my family likes to make fun of me because I got to waste some money, but they hold their value so you can sell them and yeah, you can have fun with them. Yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (53:41.687)
nice, those are like an Omega almost.

Are you helping what, man?

Dude, that's awesome, bro.

Enmanuel Tejada (53:59.895)
That is true, yeah. That is true, they do hold their value. What's your dream watch? Or one of them?

Kahlan (54:03.496)
Yeah.

Kahlan (54:07.624)
I would say, I mean, classic Rolex. Yeah, I have to go there. I haven't really done a lot of research on the different types of Rolexes, to be honest, but.

Enmanuel Tejada (54:10.839)
Do you know what type of Rolex overall in general?

Kahlan (54:20.008)
Yeah, I don't know what the name is called, but there's one that has a, it's an oyster band and the outside is gold. The inside is silver and then it's got a Navy face. And I think the bezel is gold as well. It's really nice. My barber has one and I'm jealous. Every time I walk in, I'm so jealous of it.

Enmanuel Tejada (54:36.343)
Dude, yeah bro!

Enmanuel Tejada (54:41.335)
Yeah, bro. I'm a big watch guy too bro. In fact crazy small little story. That was my first Entrepreneur of venture actually it was during kovat and in fact this guy actually looks like you a little bit too bro like from a physical and like a Personality his name is Anthony Anthony fur he's like a watch trader But I got into I was like dude. I kind of like watches So when cool we started I started flipping watches on eBay like I would buy for 500 tell her for 600

And it was pretty cool. So I'm a watch guy too, bro. One of my dream watches is the Rolex. They're called the Smurf. It has both silver and gold and it's a sub mariner. So dude, it's beautiful, bro. Blue dial, fucking beautiful.

Kahlan (55:25.704)
Yeah, yeah. What was I gonna say? That I've watched that there's a guy on TikTok that does watch negotiations and it seems like a ruthless, ruthless business. And the margins, I mean, they're arguing over a couple hundred dollars on like a $40 ,000 watch. And it's just crazy to watch them go back and forth for 20 minutes on this watch, over a hundred dollars. And they're talking about, you know, a $40 ,000 watch, but I guess the margins are so tight on them. You know, you gotta be ruthless, but it's pretty fun to watch.

Enmanuel Tejada (55:43.287)
Yeah.

Enmanuel Tejada (55:51.447)
That's true. Yeah, that is you gotta squeeze everything. Got to squeeze everything out of it, bro. But dude, cow, I really appreciate having you on bro. How can the audience get in contact with you? Whether it's somebody that lives in Georgia and they need your services or a small landscape, but that might need some advice or somebody that's looking for work. How can they reach you?

Kahlan (56:07.752)
So they can follow us on Instagram and message us there or Facebook. Instagram is gonna be CalCare, underscore landscape, and then Facebook is just CalCare landscaping. And then you can also send us an email at calcarelandscape at gmail .com and we can help you out in any way we can.

Enmanuel Tejada (56:25.367)
awesome guys definitely give Cal a follow go support him he's doing amazing things and these kids only 22 years old I can see a lot a lot of things in this dad's future is gonna be an influencer in the space not an influencer that's a wrong title but somebody that holds a lot of authority because he's been through everything and he's doing it right so give him a follow get in contact with him hope you guys enjoyed this episode peace

Kahlan (56:47.304)
Thank you.