Welcome to everyone to another episode of the digital toolbox podcast. am host, Enmanuel Tejada I'm the owner of Landscape Maverick. We are a branding and marketing agency for landscapers and hardscapers in the US and Canada. Pleasure to have you guys watching our episodes. This is actually the first episode we do in person. We've got a special guest, before we get into the intro. Guys, if you find value in this podcast, give us a like, give us a follow, subscribe to the channel, follow me on Instagram, shout us out, help us grow.

I'm the first person I've seen in person so I had to bring in somebody fucking special. I've got the Daniel White of Hard Spirits. Anthony, introduce yourself man, let's into it. Thanks for having me, bro. My name is Anthony Manjur. I've been in the art state business for about 37 years now. It's a passion, I love it. I wouldn't find myself doing anything else.

yes sir. And I'm excited to have you all, man. We're to tell a story of how we met. And let's just get into it. Let me ask you the first question. Who was the end in high school? How would you describe that? What was going through your mind? I was just kid, know, doing what kids do. Playing sports, playing in and out of sides of my father was a work of art. So I just...

I enjoyed working and he had me out there with him on the weekends. I used to mow lawns with the neighborhood. Like lot of the guests here, a lot of podcasts in this industry, we all started, you know, a lot of them started mowing neighbors lawns and started slowly building up from there. And that's basically how we started. Enjoyed doing it and I'll keep you having fun.

Enmanuel Tejada (02:03.891)
My father was a builder. So we had, he was a builder on a third generation Mason. and he building a house and they put, they put pool in and they, the first line of, running pavers came off, in North Jersey. And, they did his pool and the Masons did it. They were building the house. They didn't have hardscapers, didn't have landscaper's did do the stuff. was Mason. I mean, this goes back so far.

that we didn't cut the brick back then. You had three patterns, running bond, basket weave, or herringbone, and you used a chisel to make that cut. There was no compaction equipment. was basically, there was some that was old. Tank compactors, compacted used. Natural fan, Mason fan, fines. It's amazing watching innovation. We needed that a little bit later, but the innovation of...

from 83 to 2024. It's crazy. 30 years, 30 years, 37 years, some high of 50. 36, 37. Parts came in in 34, but in the industry, yeah, like about 36, 37. I started jumping.

I love it and let's get into it because I love making darts and get brainy because you have a name you put that into yourself. You've done a lot of the industry a lot of people you work for a lot of people have a lot of respect for you and rightfully so I mean you've done a lot so let me ask you this at what point of your life were you serious about or when did you become serious about marketing your landscape and your business? When was that? I would say my junior year of school.

I would pull up to school with a truck and a trailer and I would leave school at 12 o 'clock and I'd go to Cup 1's and book Averson. At 12 o 'clock, almost 12, 2 .30 but I was on like the co -op program. So I had that back then. Yeah, I had that back then and unless it was football season then I had to stick around all day. Wow, that's fucking insane. So you would go to, I just think you could go to school.

Enmanuel Tejada (04:25.192)
Get out of 12, and from 12 until night time, you would just go and work for your dad or for yourself? No, no, no, for myself. So my father, he built houses, but that was his side hustle. He was an operating engineer. So he had full -time job. He worked from 5 .30 in morning. He left the house at 5 .30 in morning to get home at 8 o at night. He was a hustler. That's where I get my work ethic from. That's amazing.

So since you were in high school you were serious about making money with handspeaking, barspeaking. At what point did you transition? Because now you're at a point where you guys just come to walk straight, plus your projects, right? So we are 80 % heartsy.

We have a masonry division, we do foundations, we do concrete work, block work. We also have an excavation division, so we do site clearing, block clearing. We did our own foundations, and we ended up completing our first ground -up general contracting project last year. Actually, it was this year, February this year, we opened the doors. And we did that from helping the client procure the property to working with the engineering firm.

getting township approvals, cut the first tree down to, it was Jim putting the weights on the night before he opened, racking all the weights so that they could about open up the work. You guys did that yourselves? We did it all ourselves. We summed down the structure, electrical, plumbing, but we handled all the exclamation, all the concrete work, all the site work, and we GC the project for our client.

Is that kind of like where you're going now? more of a cheese? No, no, I have a passion for the RTA. We will do a job here or there. We're looking to build a couple of houses, but I've got some. I will always be in the RTA industry. That's my passion. But there's other avenues to be in business, right? And we will take every avenue we can. I'm a serial entrepreneur.

Enmanuel Tejada (06:26.501)
fucking love that. You're always looking to go and get it. So, hey, talk to me, man. I know you're doing 75 program. Talk to me about that. I know it's not your first time doing it. So this is my seventh round of 75 hard and I completed the live hard twice. So this is my third year of the live hard program.

and it's been an instrumental part of me growing my business. Well, I've feeling fit and working out for fitness in your mind. 75 Heart is a mental toughness program and it teaches you discipline, formative grit, it teaches habits. It helps with time management because you have certain things you have to get done. It helps your time management incredibly. People think it's like a diet or a fitness program and it's not, it's a mental

to come from this program and some people call it a challenge. It is not a challenge. This is the program that Andy Purcell created and it has changed many, lives. We use it as a tool to get better every day.

Enmanuel Tejada (07:35.14)
It's your second time, right? No, so my, this is my, I've completed 75 part seven times. is my eighth Seven times? This is my eighth. I've completed the live part program, which adds three phases on top of the 75 days. And it's named so great here. So you've done 75 part. I think 75 part is enough of a challenge. It was the toughest thing. was the toughest thing. I did the first time. The second time it was a little easier.

You get better every time you do it. You learn new things. But the first time, you're running a business, you're doing 7 ,500 which is $1 ,240 per day, one indoor, one outdoor, a gallon of water, a gallon of no alcohol, no cheat meals, pick a diet and stick to it, take a progress picture and read 10 pages of a entrepreneurial, motivational, non -fiction book.

Wow, and you're going down while you're in the business. yeah, what was that? It's a challenge? What would be one of the challenges? When I first did it, yeah, it was a challenge. You were worried about these tasks. Now it's a lifestyle for me. I'm just a customer to it. So on the Live Hard program, you have the first 75 days.

Then you have phase one, which you can start on day 76 if you want. And it adds more things to it. So you have take a cold shower, there's a tendency to visualization. Phase two, you have to hit 30 days off between the phases. So it's to get you to try and slip up. days off. 30 days off, can't do, can't, there's no counting the program. So what I do is I do everything and I hold myself accountable with a hashtag no days off.

It keeps me going, you know, but they want you to follow up and we're see if you can handle keeping those disciplines that you want you in there So you have 30 days in between and then it's the same as 75 part and phase one is that full shower That was the toughest thing for me because I did it in the winter and I have well water. It's cold Yeah, extra cold. Yes. So phase two though is just the regular 75 part but for 30 days

Enmanuel Tejada (09:40.576)
phase three, you can't start that until 30 days before you started phase one the year before. So you end, or you start at 75 heart, you end on the day you started, a year later. That adds something that was the hardest thing to make. You have to have a conversation with a stranger. Every day. For 30 days, you've got to walk up to a stranger and just have conversation with him. About what? Anything.

I found myself at Home Depot at 10 o 'clock at night looking for somebody. Home Depot has got other contractors that they're easy for me to talk to. I had one when I was in a snowstorm. Cloud, I was out all night, I couldn't find...

Things just happened for a reason. A guy pulled in to a park lot was happening. He was older gentleman. He couldn't get the light in his car to go off. And you have to do a good deed as well. So my good deed was helping him figure out how to his light off. And I struck a five, five, 10 minute conversation up with the gentleman. Found out he was a school teacher. He was a substitute teacher. There was six inches of snow. like, there's not gonna be a school day. He yeah, but I gotta be there. gotta, even if there's no school, I'm gonna be there. Because if they need me, I'll be there. You learn a lot about somebody.

identify a 10 minute conversation with them. 1000%. And it's funny because a lot of what you're doing 75 bucks, that's mercy.

your strategy versus everybody else makes you the best version of yourself. When you're the best version of yourself, you're going to win a business. It helps in every aspect of your business. You've got a fat person who can do all your business. Absolutely. Absolutely. But a fit person is going to work a lot harder, guaranteed. You think so? Well, no, I agree, I was going to challenge you, but I agree. mean, we think we can. If you're going to the gym or doing two workouts a day, you're disciplined.

Enmanuel Tejada (11:33.758)
You have, and listen, least that person can be disciplined. But this program has changed my life. I used to be the fat guy. I weighed over 300 pounds. 300 pounds? I was like 310. I'm too old weight right now. So we lost 100 pounds in a matter of what.

Four or five years. Five years. shit, nobody did it right. I know a lot of guys who was fat, super fat, super they were like flat. Yeah, no, no, this was a, this was, this wasn't something where I was gonna lose it gain it back. This was something I took my time and I worked my ass off to get where I am right now. And I'll never go back. I'm healthier at 49 years old. I'm in the best shape of my life. Unless that I was in high school.

I was down to 201 .9 a month and a half, two months ago. I wanted to see that scale hit 199 for 10 minutes. That's all I did, just one time. I just wanted to see that number. And I didn't make it, no, didn't make it. But you're not too far off. No, I'm too awake, I'm happy at 208 though. I feel the best that I've ever felt. My body, you know, I am much more confident when I do things. You know, I just feel great.

That's amazing, but I love that. And I think it's even harder to do what you did because you lost the weight over four years. Now I'm not saying that losing a hundred let's say you did it in one year, losing a hundred pounds in one year. Yeah, it's good, but I would say that it takes a lot more of the mental, it's not as important to do it over four years. It's like, yeah, that's four years, I'm straight here. Once in a jam, you're working out, you're happy about the four years and I can give up things that I love.

You know, I'm Italian, I love pasta, I love tiramisu, I love camolis, I love it all, man. And I gave up drinking beer. I haven't drank a beer in probably 10 years now. Now.

Enmanuel Tejada (13:27.119)
When I'm not on the program, I'll drink. But I'm not gonna drink beer or to add those carbs and then, you know, some vodka. Wow. But that's amazing because even when you're not on a program, when you're just living life, having a good life, you still are like conscious of the things that you live into your body. Even though you're not on a challenge. When I was younger, I would eat anything that's organic. Now everything that's organic. Like I look at the labels on food now that I'm eating.

It's crazy that when you want to be healthy, what do you start to do to get healthy? And it's all lifestyle change. hopefully I smoked for 30 years, quit two years ago, haven't had a cigarette. I might have had one here and there when I hadn't drank or something, but I'll smoke a cigar so I'm not inhaling it.

I was gonna ask how does the cigar kind of affect that you never feel like, holy shit, I might smoke a cigarette. No, no, I had no desire. I had no desire. People could be sitting here smoking a cigarette next to me and I don't even want to. Wow. Yep. That is amazing.

One last thing on fitness you're working on. So do you think about entrepreneurs like, I know I have not let us put one another, I think, and so on. All these tough guys, I hope they say, you want to say that. It's always best to start with a lot in order to transform your life. But somebody's fucked up, they're addicted to drugs, they're fat, they're overweight, they're undriven. Is the first step the right thing or what is the first step? I don't know what the first step is, to be honest. I was in business for years, I did okay.

The minute I got my fitness and health in line, my brain works better and I was able to scale and grow my business. So there's something there.

Enmanuel Tejada (15:15.065)
It's more the tools that I've learned from this program that helped me in my business can be able to and then I went hired business coaches. So, Andy for selling in my back there both my business coaches. Yes. And I have another business coach Brian Hess. He's an amazing, amazing, amazing coach. He runs top contractor school. He's out of Pittsburgh. He's in the paving business.

He has helped me build culture in our company. He's helped me scale my company. Leadership. There's so many things I learned from these coaches. The first year I joined RIT Sydney and I grew my business 700%. Over 700%. 700%. What is that? It was a lot. So where were you at before I did that 730?

Like what does that mean? Like 700 % what is that amount of It was over a million dollars a week we grew in one year. Where you doing that money in the year before? Under. Wow. So there was a time in my life I had an accident and lost my eye.

Enmanuel Tejada (16:32.363)
And we ended up, I was doing just enough to get by. So my business went from here, way down to here. And we lost the eye, paid killers, doing up just to get by, paid the mortgage, paid the bills, paid two guys to just walk. They had no of those bills.

I joined RTA and I just... same day? Straight on. That same day? no, I would be probably a couple weeks later. Wow, about 30, so many times. Holy shit. I applied for RTA, then you didn't for six months. You can't just join. It's an application driven pro coaching group. So you have to be accepted in there. So you don't just pay in No, no, no, no, No, you have to be accepted.

You fill out a rigorous application. They have a team of people and you let them vote for themselves. So who do they let in who do they not? How does that work? They let in people that want to get better. They don't let in people that just want to do the same thing. They want to live by the core values. They want to be a better person. They look through these traits. They're two of the most intelligent men that I've ever met.

So a guy that's, know, has a million dollars of maybe it's a cocaine or something. But he doesn't want to get better. He's not willing to leave the work. don't know their exact processes. But I know that they don't accept everybody. They don't accept everybody.

guy, which is cool because it shows that you know the air bottle that they put into their soda. It's a very tight and some of my best friends ordered that too. So people I was trying to grow enough, I don't have any of those friends, not to. People I used to sit in the garage and drink beer with and about other people, those aren't my friends anymore.

Enmanuel Tejada (18:27.476)
People that are my friends now, we are all high -driven, non -concordial people who want to get better every day. So when we sit around, we're talking about business. We're talking about how can we get better. We're talking about our last round with 75 Bar. We're talking about hyping each other up. We don't talk shit about people. We don't do that. I love that. I love that.

Wow, RIT is sitting here. Great investment at work for me. One the best investments I ever made. That's fucking awesome. And you know what, let's just get little bit into RIT. RIT is here on a path. And out of everybody that's in the industry, I, not only because I've seen your personal flag and on gardens, but your work speaks to me. Like it's not.

You can tell that it looks good, but it also looks bad.

So we can talk a little bit about that. Is it possible? I don't want tie guys to the luxurious work, but does it last 10 years? Does it last five years? On average, what do you think your project is? I've gone to projects we did 25 years ago and they still need to be cleaned and you might have a paver, well, here, there needs some sand, but structurally, they're good shape. Everything is in the base. Everything is how you prepare to put the pavers down. Anybody can put pavers down. It's how much you're digging out. It's what material you're using.

In the 80s they used core process, modified whatever you want to call it, and they used masonry.

Enmanuel Tejada (20:01.456)
Now, then they switched to concrete. A lot of guys are using stone dust and use stone dust. You don't want to use stone dust on your property. You're going to have a failed project that holds moisture. About eight years ago, we switched over to what's called an open -grain base. It's a hybrid technology. Basically, think about railroad tracks. Railroad tracks are built on two -foot clean stone. They don't move. Two -foot what? Clean stone. So you see railroad tracks and you see all that stone.

around it right there's usually about two foot of it doesn't hold any water you don't get any freeze thaw so we build all of ours on open grade day so three quarter clean six to twelve inches dry wood we might go a little bit bigger filter fabric underneath that to separate the soil and then we're using a quarter inch chick stone

and we're screening that as our bedding layer and then we're installing our pavers. There's no moisture, we get no settlement. We've had one callback in seven years for a low paver. We'll be swissed over that hybrid system.

Jason, you know, they're probably 25 years old and they still look good. it's, mean, know, they're meant to be clean, they need be strong. Yeah, every table is there, the dirt hasn't pushed it over. It's soft. That's fucking amazing. So you said, give us some more tips on time. So, let me assume there's 23 best materials.

But the foundation is very same. It's like that house. have to a strong foundation. If you don't have a strong foundation, your house is going to crumble. Build a strong foundation, put your favors in the right way, and you're not going to a mission. We're selling longevity to our clients. We're selling that details matter. So I look at a lot of projects. They step up on the wall, and you'll see just a factory block.

Enmanuel Tejada (22:04.311)
They ended with that and there's a factory cap. It's not finished. Every one of our caps at the end, was split. Now, the split face with a maximum texture, we're using a corner block, we were splitting a block to return it to make it look finished.

biggest thing is details matter. We explain that to our customers and we show them all our 45s are mitered cups. We never just bump papers up against each other on a 45. It's always a mitered You you have the hardscape industry, they're sustained about four corners. You should never have four corners. To me, it's not that big of a deal. Whatever you have four corners about, let's mention it. It doesn't make a difference.

I don't think Four Corners is going to give you a structural mission because a lot of newer style favors are these bigger slabs and they're running 24 by 24s right next to each other. Every one of them is Four Corners and they don't fail at stuff like that.

Our edging we do so we're on open graded base. We don't use the plastic edging with those brown tight spikes frost bushes them out of the ground We've created our own blend. Yeah, we do a comp our own blend that we don't use any of manufactured stuff, but it does have its own polymers we put in it. We have PSI concrete we use We have fiber to it and we also lay geo -grid underneath two foot of our edging pavers and bring that out and wrap that into our concrete

So

Enmanuel Tejada (24:05.63)
So we can add a little bit more Portland to our concrete mix to get a higher PSI concrete. We can add modifiers and binders to it. We can add fiber to it, right? And we can make that stuff very, very strong. Wow.

I'm very impressed. I actually have not heard of anybody doing that. I I've seen content of guys doing creative things, but you're talking about creating your own brand, creating your own stand. Dude, you buy this, are you going to make some fucking, you know, manufacturer on there for some dollars or what? No, no, no, So I don't like being factored.

Enmanuel Tejada (25:16.433)
We take a smooth block without, so all retaining walls you said that brought dates on. Well now we have these smooth base retaining walls. So we ended up taking a smooth base retaining wall, but to give it an accent we took a smooth block, split it, flipped it with a solid block and now we have that rough texture in there. Now we inset it in an inch to give it the intent. It's just doing things that other people aren't doing.

And there's a couple of these guys out there that are doing that I mean a couple of really talented, talented arts gamers. But I ask the question, these guys, they're much any lesser age. How old are these young guys? I came up with that because he was in 30s. Okay, that's not too young. it's not like a 90s. But he's been in business 15 years. He came to me, he was like a little gangster. Hands were down around his knees. boy, what's up? And I was like, boy, he came out to be one of our best employees. Wow.

is there? We just retired a couple months ago. Wow, okay. Wow, that's amazing. And so my goal around asking that question, like how old the guy was, is because, do you think it's possible for 21, 22, let's say somebody comes and works for you for five years, and you teach them the inside and out, can that guy...

can that 45 years old. Wow. So we don't have have 30 days of experience in an amazing way. No, not. Absolutely not. In five years you can teach somebody how to do it right. You can teach them the details and be able to do 90 % of the aspects. The experience comes into innovation.

how quick you're gonna get a job done, because you failed, I failed so many times, I know what not to do. So we're able to eliminate failures, we're able to figure out the quickest way to get it done, but get it done the way. A lot of young guys wanted to skip quarters, you cannot skip quarters. You have to.

Enmanuel Tejada (27:27.652)
have integrity when you build these projects because they're meant to last 20, 30, 35 years. I've been on jobs that failed after one year. And we're there replacing it.

And it's usually the guy that we lost the job to because he went half of our price. can't get cheaper. went, my gosh. And you know what? Let's stay on that topic. That's why we're in business for 37 years. imagine being in a customer situation where you pay somebody, you know, they gave him a little price, you go with them, and then they end up fucking out. And now a guy like you has a company, he's got to you twice. And it's lost twice as much because you got to break it apart.

and then rebuild it. So it cost them four times the amount of our original quote. They thought they were going to save half. Now they're paying four times more. A lot of times you've to buy more material. You've got to pay to take that project apart, re -dig it all out, and then put it back. And now if you're using policy, you've to clean all those papers, got to be cleaned. That's time. Time is money.

fucking I was I I it's usually and I feel for that author because we're probably marketing ready and see some guys say listen the reason why they're going with those cheaper contractors because they don't trust you I mean like yes the price is cheaper but

The customer is going to see a price. You have to be able to sell that at some of the value. So the quality of the product is now last. You're not going have to feed twice. So how do you deal with that in the company? I I'm not sure we can deal with it because we have 30 years of experience in the company. But do you still get arguments on price? How do you compute what the value is to the operating industry? Because I'm not bidding against that. The jobs that bidding are not the jobs we're bidding.

Enmanuel Tejada (29:14.857)
So all of my work, we don't do any marketing, we don't do any advertising. I might post here, there on Facebook or Instagram. I post on my stories every day. But I don't have new people driven there to look at that work. That's my clients, my friends, and other contractors are looking at that stuff. all of our work is referral and return customers. Referral. That is the best way to build your brand.

in the hardscape industry. Can I challenge you on one thing? Yeah. Well does that apply for a 1920, 21, 22 year old that can't be as known but it is in the industry? As long as they do right by the customer, they're going to get a referral. They have to do right. have to, you you asked me a question a couple weeks ago when we met. Give me three things. When you're that young, answer your phone.

Show up when you say you're gonna show up and do the right thing. If you do the right thing, if you do the job right, you're gonna have successful business. We're booked out, in September now, we're already booked out through next.

May with work. Next May. Yeah, anybody who calls me right now is getting a scheduled manager and they'll wait. They didn't even speak. How does that work? You take a deposit and we take 10 % holding deposit, but now we're also working on designs for them. So we're still working with this customer in contact with this client. We're not just, give us your 10 % and we'll see you then.

Our job, 90 % of our jobs, we're doing design go for it. They're intricate projects. They're full backyard makeovers. They're full outdoor living. They're not just a sidewalk. They're not just a little patio. They're full -blown pool, outdoor kitchen, caravulas, lighting.

Enmanuel Tejada (31:15.71)
Now we will do landscaping for our hardscape clients. you are, Mrs. Jones had called me up and said, we put 10, our providing center. We will not do that. If you are our client that we're doing your whole backyard, we will put the plants in. I went to school for landscape design and construction management. We are not landscapers. We don't want to be landscapers. We don't want to compete with landscapers. We are hardscape and outdoor living contractors.

You say this in different ways when those two words, say it. Outdoor living contractors are giving you everything. They're giving you destination. They're giving you a backyard that you can go out and feel like you're in a resort. A hardscape contractor is going to put your 20 by 20 patio in, put your four -foot retaining wall in, or put your 30 -foot retaining wall. Outdoor living is when you bring it all together.

fire pits, ovens, seating walls, making a place for your family to come together, for your friends to come together and enjoy yourselves.

Wow. I love that because that's a really intricate description of what it is. Because I had James Jitsweet from, I know James very well, amazing, shout out to James if he's watching. Love you brother. Yes sir. He mentions that.

He's got his niche. He's got his niche. Yeah, he's got his niche. He's the McDonald's of parts people, right? Which I freaking love because he's got a big target market. He says, not everybody's going to have money for a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but you still have one Honda, but you still have one. So, I guess you got his target market. We have our target market. Right. So is there a middle ground that you would recognize as the truth? I would be saying to just take whatever comes.

Enmanuel Tejada (33:13.21)
Listen, when I was young, I took whatever came. When you're building, right, you've got to take whatever comes. But you figure out what you like, what you have a passion for. I have a passion and a vision, so I can walk in the backyard and I know exactly what I'm going to build. A lot of guys can't do that. A lot of guys just want, you they can't find the help that they experience these days, so doing the smaller...

20 by 20 square, you can mass produce those. I need craftsmen on my jobs. I need guys that have integrity and that have a want to be there, because if not, it's not gonna get good. Does that make sense? It does, no, it definitely does. If it was something basic, then you don't need talent.

Or as much as having. Like you guys do occasionally shit like it's different. Do you ever, do you ever take a 3D design that was super complex and therefore client? People sell that same design to somebody else and that. No. No, every job is different. Like is that because you don't wanna, cause that probably gets you into that client or are you just, every backyard is different.

Every day, we don't work in an area where you have track holes, where they're all 30 by 40 backyards. Right. Where do we work? We have property. The backyards could have some terrain, so they might need a retaining wall here. They might need some drainage over here. The first thing we look at when we walk into a project is the drainage. Where's the water coming from? Where's it going? Neither drains. My father taught me something when I was a young kid. Control the water, you control the project.

Talk to you

Enmanuel Tejada (34:56.312)
You don't control the water, your pavers are going to pay. So drainage is the most important thing on any project.

Enmanuel Tejada (35:07.895)
That's first thing we look at. Doesn't the design get in the way of that? Like for example, if you have, if you go in and say, okay, the water's coming from here and here, but then we have your tank load, can the pool get in the way of the drainage? Well, you've got to know what you're doing. So for instance, we just did a small project for a friend and put the hop tub in and they needed a pad.

Okay, what does that mean? I'm talking for the hot tub. Okay. They already had a page on somebody else's footage, a small 20 by 10. It was set too low. It was getting more up top. Came in, we set this, set the pattern. Well then they decided, wait, we want to add this. And two weeks later, they called me back and said, I want to add this. They went big. When I told them the first day we were out there, this is what we should do. And we could have made it perfect.

Well, because we went back and added that on, we didn't know we were gonna do that. There were some drainage issues then. Then we had to go back and fill a French drain and collect all that water and get it out of there. The previous contractor had put some plastic drains in the middle of the pavers and they dug a hole two foot deep and filled it with gravel.

That's gonna fail. I got pictures of him that sent me the water was up out of the drains coming. We took that, we took that out, put the fresh drain in, piped that to daylight. Let that water get out and go to daylight. If you can't get to daylight, you get a concrete tank. They're up there on the ground. Daylight means it's coming out of the ground to daylight so it can drain freely out of the ground. Okay. Yes. Okay.

So at a low point, you've got a pitch on that pipe. If you can't get the daylight, then you're going to dig a hole, put a concrete tank with holes in it. It's concrete structure. See pitch pits, can fill up with water and then drain through slowly. Fill them with water, run your pipes through. It's almost an accepted tank, but it's got holes in it to let the water dissipate out and get down.

Enmanuel Tejada (37:19.222)
Some counties in New Jersey, for every amount of square footage, you have to have a certain amount of storage. Luckily, I don't use any jobs in those areas. Does that mean that you can't? Can you incorporate both? No, absolutely. Every job is unique to the project. And everyone is different. A French grain is the same on every job.

We're digging a trench, we're putting filter fabric in, we're putting a piece of piping, we're stuffing it. But how do we design it, how do we pitch it, where do run it to? Is it going to go to a catch base, is it going to go to data? Every job is unique. Every job needs its own drainage design. Wow.

So you want to get that design done at the beginning. Know when everything is going to be done on that project. Now we have clinics that do jobs over 10 years. They do a section here, a section here. But we get that information, we ask the right questions on the initial consultation. And we're able to plan for the future. Now there's jobs that we go to, the people bought the house, it's a new project. We got to get...

We gotta get crafty and come up with some funky design for drainage. What we doing?

When you say that design is that a flat design like a 2d or is it a 3d fully cinematic? Drainage is just a 2d But are our forkscapes? Yeah, so we I draw them out to the I went to school for landscape design. Wow. So I and when I was there I'm old, I'm aging myself again. We had the option to do AutoCAD because the computers were this big or to do hand drawings. I selected hand drawings. I wasn't a technology.

Enmanuel Tejada (39:07.653)
So they're paying for the advantage of June 4th. They're like, let us choose because it was so new. Now you go in, it's all compute. Right.

And I draw them out. I actually work with another company. I send my hand drawings to him. He creates the 3D renderings for me. So we get a video, we get regular pictures, and then we get a 2D design with MetaSherman Sonic. Nice. That was going be my next question. So those 3 cinematic videos where the client can really get a... They know what they're getting before we stick a bucket in the frame. Why does that guy...

incorporate the drainage in there too if I ask him to but I usually just do that on my own sketches and we handle that in house. So you can't see the drainage right? No it's all underground. You don't see it. On the plane you might see the top of the track space or something like that but you know we're no we do all that in house with the drainage.

He's doing the hardscape design for us. I do the design and I send it to him. He just animates it for me.

We're a design build company. We'll take a design and we'll be happy to do it. The project doesn't look anything like the design because we come up with something that flows better, we talk to the client and we change it. Sometimes we got to do it exactly the way the design wants. Is that like biting the ass? No, sometimes it bites the ass when we follow the design. Really? Yeah. And that's why we're making the changes. My one rule is every designer, architect and engineer should have five to ten years field experience before they're about to put a damn lot on a piece of paper.

Enmanuel Tejada (41:10.129)
That's true. Anything about them, that's true. Because we get out there, they want this wall, seven foot six inches. Well, a full block runs out at seven foot eight. Why am gonna cut two inches off? Or the papers, they want it 12 four. Where if I made full papers, it's 12 six or 12 two. Why am I making a cut and not keeping everything symmetrical? So we do a lot of

is basically to guide us and give the customer a visual in the field.

A we're making changes to that. I think that's the case. I don't know you mentioned about, know, a designer shouldn't have five weeks of training experience. Because you don't work exactly any of them. Because if you just draw and say, it looks good, it may not work. It may look good, but it may not work. It never works. And then the contractor would be a fool to follow a beautiful design that they can't draw because it looks good on paper, but then it doesn't actually work. And we tell our clients.

We're very clear. You have to communicate with your client and tell them we're making this change because of this. And we tell them upfront, listen, this isn't a conceptual drawing. We might make changes here. It's not going to be exactly two of this. We're going to make it better in the field as we're building. And a lot of times we hit obstacles, you hit things and you didn't see. You know, they're, but they found a gas line. We got to the retaining wall five foot.

There's a hundred things that

Enmanuel Tejada (42:43.587)
very interesting and the way of speaking about it so I can spot on you know your shit bro I think I know that you know your shit but like you're making me think about some shit so that's amazing so let me ask you this man what are some of your favorite projects you do like of course you know you guys put up a table there's a slope there you know you guys put papers down is there specific like you know is it like an outdoor kitchen or a enjoy -boon like is there specific

He's the one that you're building into. Or you're going to the entire thing. It's what I'm doing, the full outdoor living project. It's got all the features incorporated into it. The best part, my favorite part, is when you get a picture six months after you've gone, you've left the job, and it's your client out there with their children.

We'd have a party and people enjoying that space. That's my favorite project. Wow. So it's a long one to your god when you're doing it and it's like the family is there. Yeah. There's always the ones that look the best. Yeah. That was my favorite. You the ones that are in. I have one we did. That's you mentioned before my love hardscape so much your screen saver. So yeah, right. That project we built a client set me.

a picture of his whole family out there. had a movie projector screen set up. They were out by the fire pit, 10 o 'clock at night, watching movies. That is my favorite project because I'm giving them a space to have family time, a space to have parties and enjoy it. And that's what they're paying for.

Do you ever have like, I think that's one of your beautiful problems, because that's what you're selling. In fact, tell it to James again, because I had him on the bucket, I said, you know what, we're not selling patties, we're selling a space for your family to have a good time. And that's when you're not selling, you know, and Hinescape, all good money, that's what it is. Because if they don't use it, there's no point. But my answer to you is, do you ever have clients that build up super expensive looking... You already did, they don't include. absolutely. But then, what the ball was I talking

Enmanuel Tejada (44:54.699)
For them. mean, I don't know I'm not in their head. I don't have that discussion with them. Right. I mean, I've had them that they built it, the guy got transferred and he moved that little other state for work. So he didn't get to enjoy what we built. There's so many different reasons. But I would say 90 % of the people are using what we build and they're happy with it.

Enmanuel Tejada (45:25.066)
But either way, in the scenario of that guy that, for example, got relocated or had to move, the home of the value increased though. If he sold the house, the value of the house increased. Market study came out last year, 17 .6 % dramatic out -do of the project. Increasing that value. Now, what is that even numbers? I can't believe for 17%. Is that more than what he paid for the building?

I don't know. I'd have to look at that on paper as well. And I think each job would be different and each home's value would be different. Because I could go and put a $500 ,000 backyard on a $2 million home and that's going to be a different percentage than if I did a $200 ,000 job on a $500 ,000 home.

So every job is going to be different on what your value you're going to get out of what we build.

That way you mentioned about the 17 % increase on average reminded me of Andy Elliott. Shout out to Andy, shout out to Elliott Squad. I don't know if you know what they are. It's a motivational guy. Not motivational, it's like a sales trainer. But the reason why I mentioned him is because I was watching a video and teaching Google cars, like just how to sell their products, their pools. And he was saying that when he talked to a mobile owner, told me, listen, whether you put this or not, it's free.

The reason why it's free is because, yes you're paying $100 to build a pool in your backyard, but when you go and sell the home, your home is $100 more expensive or worth $100 more than the pool. So it's free because when you go to sell it, you take nothing from I don't know if those numbers are accurate or not, but what do you think about that analogy? that a good analogy? See, I don't sell like that.

Enmanuel Tejada (47:20.048)
I do sell. We sell what the person and what my client wants. Like I said, we sell on referral. Our jobs are all referral and return customers. They know what they're getting when they come to us. We're selling them what they want and what their needs are. We're not selling them on, you can make your own. That's not our style. We're not salesmen. We're installers. We give them value.

They guess, they pay us, but we're giving more value than what they're paying us. Big difference, big difference. And that's the problem with some coaches. He's probably never put forward in his life. I don't know the jump. And I'm saying coaches in general, You have some coaches in that value in your business. I have coaches in that value in my business. When you're trying to teach a sales technique like that, to me, unethical.

I'm selling to my customer what they want, they need, and giving them value. Let's talk about that because I'm a salesman. I'm a salesman because I run a marketing and branding agency. I sell websites, sell SEO, I sell Google Ads, Facebook Ads, I Instagram. But I don't...

Like, sure, you're right, you can think about that. I've had clients, I've had long -care guys, which by the way, a lot of my guys are like, my clients are long -care guys that are starting to phase in some artsy projects, and I help them transition so they can brand themselves as they do trust. Some of them.

We're not at that point. I do not sell them. I say, hey, listen, can sell like other people's. So I'll say, hey, listen, I can build me those $6 ,000 website, but you can not even. You know, try to book where like, if you're still cutting grass, what's the point of having a $6 ,000 website? Your product is not that expensive. You know, so a lot of other people's stuff, many think they're so, so what does that mean? that one has something for them to set like, or even they're not like. We're going to do right by our client. Just like you said, you're not going to sell them something they don't need. Right. Exactly.

Enmanuel Tejada (49:23.475)
You know, we're selling what they want what we think is gonna work for them We're gonna create and add value to their home, but we're not gonna use that as our sales team Yeah, we're adding something Listen, this is what you're looking for. This is what we're gonna build you We're gonna give you the best value we can for the money you're spending

What type of objectives? Do you make any objectives in your sales goals? Like when you go to close and you have a proposal. I close 85 % of my time. But you're coming from referrals. Everything is referral. What about that 15 %? Are those guys that went to the cheaper parts right there? What are their objectives? Why did they not move forward? I will ask. But I, some of them just didn't know what this type of project cost. Some of them.

We didn't buy it. They'd buy it better with another contractor. Most of my jobs I don't bid against people, but they're hard jobs that I do. But I would say 70 % of my jobs, I'm not bidding against Landscaper A, Hardscaper A. We're there because they want us to put that project forward. But that takes years and years and years.

of trust and building a business that people have seen in the community for years. So when somebody sees a company that's been here 20 years, they know that company's doing right by people. You know, when you see the same, you know, colored trucks driving down the road every day, people, see that in me. You can't become successful overnight in this business without proving yourself.

Now are there exceptions? there some guys that yeah, is that skill? it luck? I don't know. I have to fail a lot and do the right thing to keep my reputation. And that, you know, I don't care who you are, you're gonna have failures. Everybody has failures in this business. Something doesn't go right on the job. It's what you do after the fact that you had that failure.

Enmanuel Tejada (51:41.256)
is what's gonna dictate your reputation. If you walk away from it and just forget about it, your reputation is gonna go right down the drain. But if you open up to it and say, you know, we had a problem, we fucked up, we're gonna fix it. That client's gonna go sell more jobs for you than the client did. You didn't have a problem, they loved it. Because they're gonna see what you did and say, he went above and beyond and he did the right thing by us.

But even after, absolutely. Would you mind chiming in on some of the failures you've had in your career? Like have you ever had like, what are some of the failures you've had? is it like big projects and it's been a profit or you ever have to pay? I would say it was project, but failures for me were not the project itself. It was, I had been enough.

Enmanuel Tejada (52:41.323)
didn't bid enough on it so we didn't make as much money. Have you ever had a project where you lose money? Yeah, have a bunch of ones that I lost money on. Yeah, and that's what's tough in this business because you don't know, especially the bigger the project, we've come to now where we used to bid things by the square foot. That's where we had problems. We don't have those problems now. We put systems into place the way we bid our projects and we've bid everything on material, cost of material.

labor hours and that you can still mess up there. You have to your labor hours right. That's the hardest part. Overhead and profit. And we don't do it on that square foot number anymore. We will know our square foot number to the.

that we have our final numbers of the job and we take the square footage and divide it by that number. It might come out to 20 feet, 22. It might come out to 34, 36. Every job is different for us now. When I was younger, I remember when Gators was six bucks a square foot to put in, install. Our average right now is 20 into 32 is what we're getting for installation.

$32 worth of debt. Well, between 28 and 32, that seems to be where the numbers that we get come up with fall into that range now.

Enmanuel Tejada (54:08.766)
How can you calculate that number? Like does that equal your material labor overhead profit? Combine all four of those together. Awesome. I'm going to go with a different angle here too.


Enmanuel Tejada (01:05:37.718)
So really it's all about investing in some end -to stewardship, making a bundle of it forever, at level of trying to get to the next level, right? So what about in that hardscape space, know, organization managers, look and explore, are you a part of those or are you a part So we actually compete, we go to HNA every year, we go to the Northeast Hardscape Festival every year. We're very involved in the organizations that support and are part of the hardscape industry. So we did our first

competition four or five years ago up in Connecticut for the Northeast Arts Gate Festival. We took second place and that qualified us to go down to Louisville to HMA and quit and we compete for the national title every year. Now have my son

My son who didn't come to 19 that while we're at GIE HMA, he will turn 19 and he will be on the national stage this year. well, he's 18 now and I got another young guy to me. We're not out there trying to win every year. I'm out there promoting my son, but he can promote himself, letting him learn the trade. And eventually he's going to win. But you don't go in at 19 years old that beat guys that have been doing this for 20 years. I mean, but look at his dad.

know he's got a shot. But I'm more about letting him get the experience and the recognition and building his brain. That's why we do it now. It's not I'm not out there to. We we set a goal to go win, but it's not our top priority. Our top priority is really not enough fun and joy himself and learn.

I love that because you're not like forcing like, have to fucking, you're not like a partial. You're going to let him off. Piece by piece. I thought about that. By the way, your son is a killer. At least he's a cheat. I think he was something he got hurt in like, twice. He hits a 15 and 17. It might be a fucking 15, that's a soft one, high city, walk in. And work, and work. Now, he lost 80 pounds to his girlfriend.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:07:49.341)
Summer vacation, we're up New South State, New York fishing. We had to go off the Lake Earl so we could go get this workout in. And he was like, let's go. Let's go get it done. And I wasn't on the program. I went and did the workout with him. He's my best friend. He is my everything. I love that kid more. And I've never had to yell at him, discipline him. I am blessed with an amazing young man. Wow. That's awesome. And he's running his own jobs now. I mean, he's on a...

pretty large project running in himself. Yeah, I show up, I overthink something every day, but I leave.

He runs that project. He sold his first two jobs this year and the job he went on three estimates so far. He sold two of them. The one he didn't get, the guy called me up and said, I just want to tell you how amazing young man, knowledgeable, respectful, and a pleasure. He wouldn't even get that job. This guy said, well, that young man was my son. 18 years old.

he better and he's going to. I know that for a fact. He's much smarter than me. He's much more determined than me. You know, he's a special breed that kid.

So you still competing at the regional levels. Yeah, there's four or five around the country and you need to qualify to get down to HNA. So HNA is the main one in NHK? Yes, that's the national championship of hard state and college.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:09:34.771)
That's amazing. Anybody that's watching, please give me your tickets. I'm gonna be back. I'll take it. We'll be there. Get your tickets and come down. If you're in the hardscape industry, if you're in the warm, green industry, if you're in the snow industry, you guys, need to be GI. Do you snow too? yeah, no, was a whole set. And we have a, I'm in a group that's snow jobs podcast. Shout out to the snow job boys. And we have our inner circle and we got an Airbnb together. All of us travel together down there and we do a couple of

the before on what we want to look at, then we do what afterwards, talking about what we learned, we saw, what's new, what's great. Those guys are crushing the podcast and the snow industry. They're taking over the snow industry. shout out to those guys, 100%. They're the question. Let's talk about snow actually, because I think from a previous competition we had,

You mentioned that you're more profitable with our snow than hardscape. that true? So I have separate company, Anthony Winter Services. That's our commercial snow and ice division, our company. And yeah, no, that's much more profitable than the hardscape for us. Now you said commercial. We only do commercial, mostly big retail lots, industrial, manufacturing, hospital, and even medical facilities, stuff like that.

Now comes what?

We

Enmanuel Tejada (01:11:30.076)
We use as a pre -treatment so that doesn't...

onto the pavement. like that night before snow, right? Yeah, we went three nights before a storm and it'll fly this. Really? Yeah. It'll stick. It'll stick down and cars aren't going to pick it up. You're not going to have people walking in your stores, make them wait for you trick all over your floor. It's not going to run off the road when we do private roads. So we can spray it. It's staying where we put it.

Wow, that is amazing. And you guys don't use salt at all? No, we still use salt. We use probably 40 % less salt than we used to. So what's the problem? Like you put down the grime a couple days before, it snows, we should plowing, and then put salt. Yes, so at we spray it again with liquid. We have a common complex that we don't do the plowing at, but we pretreat it, and we post treat it with liquid because they were having so much grum off it, killing all the grass and the plants. It was costing more money to go and kick salt back to

spring and you you don't want to put too much salt in your well water system where we're at there's a lot of well water it's not city water so well water with salt goes down to the ground gets into the wells so your shower and look down yeah like your shower you're drinking people drink their water where city water you know you have ice you have plants and everything and you don't have that salt getting into that water system

sick.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:13:22.048)
I have a passion for the snow in the street as well. And I still sit in the truck and plow if I'm not in Florida. If I'm down in Florida during the winter, I spend two weeks a month down in Florida to go to a winter. So if there's a storm and it's under six, eight inches, I'll stay down there and I'll manage it for my phone. If I know, you know, we have paid meteorologists, we know if we're getting a bigger storm, I'm going to hop on a flight and get up here and be here for my team. If not, my son runs for snow operation.

I love being out in the truck 5 or 7. Love it. It's awesome. Shout out to the FGP for picking me up. It's a bribe. The thing is the same. That's a nice truck.

It's my normal office, it better be nice, you know? Yeah, listen, for years and years and years I drove old trucks. I used to look at the guys with the new trucks and envy them. you know, you get to a point where you need something more more comfortable and more reliable and you earn it, you know? You earn it, I love that.

So let me ask you this, how can a small guy, you know, 20, 19, 20, 41, 22 year old get into commercial or even commercial hardscape? Is that the connection? there a way to sort of... With commercial hardscape, a lot of the disconnections, you gotta have relationship with the builders. We don't do as much commercial, but we do still do soft, but not a lot. There's no detail and it's cheapest price gets it.

If it's on price, we're not going to get that project. We're not the cheapest. Because we're putting our heart, soul, and do the details, doing the job right. Where a lot of these commercial jobs are, they don't care. They just want it done as cheap as possible.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:15:14.666)
It's all about bottom dollar money. Homeowner's gonna pay. That's why we've switched back to that high -end residential client on the hardscape side. On the snow side, yeah, they're shopping price on the commercial, but you gotta find the customer, prove yourself to them. Once you're with them, just do the right thing by them. Make sure that their lives are clean and safe. Your paperwork is there to back it up. Your documentation is done.

And listen, you can do everything right. And they might decide the next year to pick somebody because it's cheaper. There's always going to be somebody cheaper. There's always going to be someone more expensive. So you've got to sell yourself a value that you're going to supply to that company.

And that you're gonna keep their property safe. And when you tell them you're gonna be there a certain time, make sure your trucks are there or your machines, they're gonna work. You think that all that looks good. It's a commercial lot, it could spill over even more, spill quality. There's nobody there, nobody's gonna see you. Well, because the lots, we're in, there's people like, all the time, some of our facilities are open 24 hours a day. wow. But that's really a to be honest. I'm saying like, if it's like a shop or something, or some sort of trip, but there's nobody there, there's just one. You know, it's my kind of like side to do with the night stay. No, no, no,

Where there's a storm coming our car operators and drivers are out and out. They're outside now before it starts snowing. And we're waiting for the snow to come. I don't want my trucks and my guys having to drive on the road with back conditions.

And we're there until the 10th, we don't leave. shit. we'll be out in the store for 40 hours if we have to. I've been out for six days, I slept in the truck for a couple hours. So we might sleep in that truck at night in the parking lot when there's nobody there. But that's not that work. But four o 'clock we're out the right of that place open for six a Because we have places to shut down, they don't shut down. Nursing homes, hospitals, those places do not shut down.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:17:13.278)
During the nor 'easter on the northeast when you get 30 inches of snow, you're in your truck for six days. There's no going home. You might get a couple hours sleep here and there, but we're there when the job's done.

Yeah, I was gonna ask how's the bug does that work if it's a snowstorm and there's six and like there's snow on the road to get there. So how do you get there on time with all the snow? It's just it will stay back a lot. Well, we have some trucks to go from lots of lots and yeah, you drive like you gotta drive careful, you know, then trucks are out on the roads and you know.

But a lot of our stuff has dedicated equipment to it. Now, a smaller guy that's got some small parking lots, 7 -Elevens gas stations, he's got to keep driving around, makes it little more difficult. But 80 % of our stuff has dedicated loaders, backhoe skid spears, and trucks dedicated to that site. We have three trucks that do revolving, that we go to different sites. Route work is the call.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:18:29.661)
A of Red Bull, lot of cigars and cigarettes, back when I smoked cigarettes, a lot of cappuccinos. what are you doing in the truck? you listening to music, podcasts, eating, sleeping, podcasts, music, depends. Certain times you want that music to get the energy. Sometimes you want to listen to podcasts and you're getting some educational stuff. No, not reading. because we crash. we get, you know, after the first 48 hours, I might get four hours of sleep that next night.

Wow.

This is nice. Tina. Tina. That's Tina. Tina's on this wall too. Tina likes to go out. Tina likes to go out. She's just walking around. That's amazing. Let's talk about this. mean, you had over 30 years of experience. What have ever considered coaching or getting a cat?

What's the kind of like that's really about? It's to say that. Yeah, we're we're about to launch our coaching mentorship group podcast.

And I have a passion to work with young kids. I have seven guys I've mentored now. Some of them are in high school still, some of them have worked for me before, and I don't charge them. I've been doing it just to learn the coaching game. Because you don't just step into it to become a coach. A mentor, yeah, you get that over years of experience. But yeah, the next step...

Enmanuel Tejada (01:20:23.695)
We're going to start our coaching group, start our mentorship group, work with young kids. We want to educate the next generation of hardscape contractors. When I was coming up, I didn't have anybody to teach me, didn't have anybody to talk to. Give these guys someone that they can talk to, call, work with, learn from. And I think that we're all set to launch this year at Hartscape North America. We just have some final couple of things.

to put together, little bit of marketing material to get finished up, a couple tees to cross and a nice dot and we're going to start taking these kids and making them better.

And I've already thought about the industry. mean, it's as well before my time, it's as good as it's not. not as good as it sounds to all these guys. And a lot of the other guys that see that all they want to do is get out there. I want that. Can you excuse me how the game comments do and how this and how to operate? made my own. I'm like, I'm a coach. I would love to sit here and be like, gave me information that I had for the conflicts I've had. But as far as I think, of course, I do it to them. But I want to point them to somebody. I want point them to other guys.

But you got experience, got it, because a lot of guys don't teach other people. What my business coach, what I've learned from says don't learn from someone who's never built something. So you've got a lot of these young internet coaches out there on the internet selling courses and things that have never built anything.

Now, there are a couple young ones out there, we talked about this earlier, that have built things and I have respect for those guys. Because they have built a real business. They may not be here, but they built something. They built something. And you don't want to learn from someone who's never built anything. We built something.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:22:29.591)
Damn man, are you gonna give us like a sneak peek at some of the things stuck in there or what are you thinking? Is that secret or what? What is

and you don't know how to lay it out. You don't know what the first step is on the project. We'll come out and we'll help you set that job up, set some elevations up, ask them, know, answer any questions they have, but just get the job started for them. Work with you through FaceTime. I use FaceTime with some of my younger guys now.

They'll call him and I don't know how to this perfect. What I'm gonna say, I marked this on and they'll turn their phone around, I'll see what they're looking at, give them some direction and then bam, they get it, it's done.

that is super valid because especially with a guy who's provisioned for long care and so hard care. That's the clients that that's my my target client is the young guy who wants to build it. I'm not going to take everyone that wants to sign up for me. We're not going after the max. We're going after the guys that want to get better. The guys that want to put the work in. If they're not willing to put the work in, we don't want to work with them. We want the guys that have that passion to say I want to go

those these dream back doors like you're building.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:24:05.682)
But I want to work with that job. And I want to teach him what I've learned. I want to teach him my mistakes that I've made so that he can build a better and stronger business.

There'll be different levels to the group. So there'll be a general community where we'll have, you know, a...

chat so we can all talk together and network and ask questions and so group coaching then there will be the one -on -one coaching where they want to learn about you know maybe scaling their business maybe about leadership maybe about culture and I have other people that you know culture I'm still learning about culture but I have a culture coach that I might be able to bring in and get in the group setting to help these guys out. You know I've had I've been learning about leadership now for five six years and I've

done it. I've led teams. I'm a work in progress too. I'm going to keep educating myself by people who are smarter than me. And then I'm going to, I'm going to bring some of that and some of stuff that I've learned and bring that to them and let them bring these guys up. I'm on a ladder. I'm climbing. I'll never make the top, but I'm going to grab the guy behind me on this side and grab this guy that wants to climb and bring it with them.

excited. I never had that when I was young growing up and then now that I've got some coaches and mentors in my life, my business part of it. I was always the guy that got dirty, was out in field. The first thing one of my coaches told me is work on the business not in the business. You don't need to be in field. You need to be in business development, working on spreadsheets, getting the paperwork done, getting the yes and the no. Buy strong suit of sales.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:26:13.137)
That's what I, my main role right now in the company is client relations and sales. I don't work on the job sites that often.

It's just okay Absolutely not and my hardest part was trusting people and not and not micromanaging When I hired an operations manager to run the guys I had very little contact

with the field crews and I had contact with my leadership team. My leadership team then went out to the fields and executed. And I was able to work with the clients. I was able to go and do the business development side. I was able to be talking to vendors, negotiating pricing, attend seminars so I could work and I could work.

face and now he's packing that up. It's the cool thing about coaching is like...

I get invested I want to be a mentor more than a coach I want someone that looks up to me and wants to learn from me and that's the beauty because somebody like that that's going to learn from you it's not just learning from you they're learning from all the real -class coaches that you've been trying to learn from and now they're getting at my mistakes I've made and they're saying that you're not going to make money from you and they're getting that knowledge out of this guy because you have to pay a share of the money to get that info but I'm not going to take their content and pass it on

Enmanuel Tejada (01:27:52.377)
Of course, I know. We're genuine. We're going to use skills that we have learned and that we've learned to be implemented in real life situations and we're going to pass those real life situations on. A lot of the leadership game, the basic stuff is all the same. Doesn't matter what coach you're dealing with. But there's some coaches out there who are bad ass coaches, mentors that you don't

go and take their stuff and get it to somebody else. Of course not. Yeah. And you're not probably going to your own twist too hard. Yeah. So that's our coaching is going to only be for hard skinned contractors. It's only going to be for people who are going to put the work in. It's only going to be from, you know, we're not going to work with every person that says, hey, we're going to pay you to get my mentor, my coach. We're going to kind of like that. We're going to look at them. We're going to look at their company. We're going to look at them, their character.

We're gonna look at there's gonna be a lot of different things that's gonna decide whether or not you work with that one. This is a passion for me. It's my career. I'm not trying to make a million dollars. I'm looking to help people. That's why now I do for free. have seven of them that I do for free. One guy worked for me. I think he just went through seven to ten years. Went off on his own and started.

And we talk twice a week and I'm helping him grow his business. And he's doing phenomenal. Doing phenomenal. I don't get into his numbers with him. I think he hit a million last year. Steps. I'm pretty sure he did. Just by what I know he hasn't quit.

I'm mentoring him on the skills of what it takes not on his.

Enmanuel Tejada (01:29:53.453)
I appreciate the time you gave me. appreciate us doing the same person and not sitting there looking into a computer screen and this is real, man.

I'm to going through three days. It's all I can do right now. For you young guys, answer the phone when people call. Call people back. Show up on time and do the right thing. And remember, details matter. So it's about that. Well guys, so you guys have it. can call the guys with this podcast. Give us a call. Give us a like.

go to my Facebook, go to my Instagram, go to YouTube, subscribe, like, stay active. And how can you all be getting positive things? How can they follow your journey? can they be around? At AnthonyGrupparchgames .ig, that's most of our content on Instagram. You can find my other Instagram there for Anthony Winter Services. But yeah, check it out, some of our projects. We've got some really cool projects on there can check out. We've got some of our leadership stuff that we've learned on there.

you know, we'll be documenting everything down in large state North America and Look keep your eyes out guys the new product to do It's common. It's coming hard. It's it's driven on passion not on money So you're gonna get a lot more value Appreciate you, bro. Let's go