He Watched This Channel and Made $32K in His First 2 Months Transcript, AI Summary & Key Points

00:00 How much did you make before you even quit  your job on this? And I did nine grand of revenue with the full-time $32,000 in the first  two months. It's one stump sitting there. I have a $200 minimum. 200 bucks for 5 minutes of work.  I didn't even have to Google my business till like month four or five. And worst case scenario, this  business, the grinders don't really lose value.

00:16 Trailers don't lose value. I would have had a  truck that I would have drove to my new job. If someone's watching this and they're like,  I'm broke, but I love this business. What is the most costefficient way to start it? You  could rent a truck, you could rent a trailer, incredible that you spend $0 to send a text. You  spend $0 to call them and that 5minute investment pays you hundreds to thousands of dollars per  month.

00:34 Can I tell you my number one contractor how much he gave me this summer? Yeah, I think he  gave me 25 grand in four or five months. I'm out of here. It's ridiculous. Whoever said that money  doesn't grow on trees never thought to check in the stump. So, today I'm going to tell you about  Tyler. Tyler is a 28-year-old that one year ago was listening to my podcast where Nick and I were  talking about the stump grinding business and how profitable it would be.

00:58 He liked that segment so  much he listened to it a hundred times. 2 months later he had quit his job and made $26,000  of net profit. And the best part, he has no employees. So today I'm going to talk to Tyler.  I'm going to talk to Nick. We're going to break down this business and show you exactly what you  need to do to copy everything he did. So let's go.

01:21 How many jobs did you do before you got like  a big fancy trailer? I had like 70k in revenue before I got anything wrapped or any branding or  I think before I even had to Google my business. Yep. Yep. Yep. [Music] So, this is the job site. Yeah. They've already  cut. You got a call from who? The homeowner or this one was a homeowner. Yes. Home owner called  you.

01:50 Really? Yeah. How'd they find you? I'm like number one on in Utah County. Not to brag. How  are you number one? Uh, a lot of reviews. So, name of the game. Name of the game. And I  actually kind of backdoored some reviews. So, this is kind of cool cuz it's a sub business  to start. So, everything probably my first 50 grand of revenue was just from subs.

02:06 Explain what  you mean by that. Okay. So, walking through this, a tree company came here at one time and took the  trees down. What the tree company hates doing is they hate doing the stumps themselves. They have  to bring another trailer. They have to bring this whole setup outside of their chip truck, their  chipper. You guys get it. You guys have a tree company.

02:22 They hate doing the stumps for the same  reason you hate hauling away the shavings. It just doesn't go into your workflow. It's another  service not in the workflow. And so I approached a bunch of different tree companies and asked who  was doing their stumps for them. Some of them had their own machine, some rented, some were using  another sub. The people that rented or using another sub are like my prime customer.

02:39 Cuz if  you're renting, hey, I can save you money and a headache of doing it. If you're using another sub,  I can be better than your sub. do it for maybe a dollar cheaper or do it better, be more on time,  whatever it is. What do you mean you back doorored into those reviews? Oh, so yeah. So that's how I  got my first 50 grand of revenue was doing jobs for tree companies.

02:56 But the thing is that wasn't  my customer technically, but what the tree company doesn't know is I'm the last person here on the  job site. So after the job, after every sing once I got my GM live, I would do the job. I would meet  them first just to be a good sub and just say, "Hey, I'm Tyler. I'm with a different company.  I'm here to do your stump."

03:10 I would do the job uh and then walk up to the homeowner and be like,  "Hey, if you felt like I did a good job today and you know, I put on a little charm." Say, "Hey,  could you give me a review?" They were giving the company that didn't even land the customer  a review. And so that's how I got my first 70 75 reviews and then it's not the most competitive  industry in the world, so it's not super hard to get to the top.

03:29 Did you know that when you  started or did you go with the thesis of like, "Oh, I'm going to go be a sub. That's how I'm  going to get all my business." I thought it was going to be a complete sub business. That's kind  of the idea that I heard from your guys podcast and that was my idea going in. But slowly but  surely, I was I was hearing about other guys getting jobs from Google.

03:44 So, I was like, "Oh,  there has to be some revenue there." There's not a ton cuz usually people have this out when  the tree is out. But if you buy a house like this customer did or or whatever it is and you're  inheriting like a beat up backyard, there's stumps and things that need done. So, they'll look up  stump removal and I come up. The crazy thing is, especially with the changes, you've got chatbt,  which is kind of eating Google's lunch on the search side, but Google business profile, I mean,  that's the name of

04:04 the game, especially for local businesses like this. That that's not going away.  It's only growing in popularity. Okay. So, how big was this tree? Didn't see the tree, but I'm  guessing this was probably a 15 20 foot tree just from that stump. From the look of it, looks like a  Kentucky Valley hikamore. I will say it does look like a pear tree. I would say that's my guess.

04:22 Bradford pear. Yeah. And it looks like from the coloring here, you can see some of this coloring,  it looks like it's been dead for a little bit. So, that's what went into my bid when I first saw  it. I was like, "Hey, this is probably dead in the middle. It's probably softer and so it's  going to go a little bit faster." Okay. So, how do you bid this?

04:36 Like, I look at this, I'm like,  I don't know what I'm doing. It's a It's a stump. $50. It's a great question. So, on a job like this  where we're grinding and I guess we could show the job site here in a second, but we're grinding  multiple things. You kind of eye it a bit more than you do full measurements, but if it's one  stump sitting there, I have a $200 minimum.

04:49 So, if you want me to show up to your backyard,  it's going to be $200, whether it's this big or, you know, and then it's on a price per inch. So,  you measure the diameter of a stump like this. Here in where I live, I I charge about seven bucks  an inch. Down south where there's more trees, I've heard guys charge as low as like three bucks  an inch, but they're getting tons bigger machines and tons more labor and they're year round and  they're year round and so there's different price per inches.

05:13 Are you measuring this with like your  phone or do you have an actual tape measure? Yeah, just good old tape measure. For example, something  like this would be like 18 inches. From the widest point from the widest point, I always try to eye  the widest point be like 18 in. So Nick, you're great at math. 7* 18 7* 18 is $126. Okay. $126. So  if we were just showing up for this, it would just this would have been more.

05:36 So this is a small  stump. If this was the job alone and you don't have to get into a backyard. It's all open here.  This takes me about 5 minutes. 200 bucks for 5 minutes of work. You got to be careful cuz you're  not just including your own man hours. Like this is a very expensive machine and it depreciates. So  you have to price jobs well so you don't lose.

05:48 So I came here, got a call from Google. It was close  to me. A lot of times I'll quote things over text, but it was close to me, so I was like, I  live 5 minutes this way, so I was like, I'll swing by and check it out. So, we have this  stump and then I gave them a bunch of orange flags cuz they wanted a bunch of little small stumps  taken out. So, if you see through the job site, there's orange flags here, some orange flags over  here.

06:07 There's just tiny little guys. They wanted all of these gone. So, we're getting all these  little orange flags gone as we go. There's another stump there. And then there's one more over there.  Are you doing this bad boy? Yeah. Yeah, we're doing that big one. So, you don't have to cut  this down. This is just ready to go. Ready to go. And then there's one more tiny stump right there.

06:23 How tall is too tall? Too tall is about 20 in. It depends on your grinder, but 20 in off the ground.  There's a tradeoff. So the taller it is, the more chips that are going to come off it. So if you're  doing the cleanup, a lot of times you want to cut it as low as possible before you grind. That's why  I have a really cool chainsaw with a uh 3ft bar in the back of my truck, which is cool.

06:40 So instead  of like turning it down or calling a tree trimming business, you'll just pull out the chainsaw. Yeah.  And I my rule is I'll cut anything that's below 6 to 8 ft. Does your website have tree trimming,  land clearing, and stump grinding? Because you just described three different businesses right  there. Am I right? That's right. It's true.

06:54 I do not. Reason being is I I try to stay in my lane  because so many tree guys give me so much business that I don't want to cannibalize that business.  Well, and you don't want to do that business and I don't want to do it. But I have subbed out a  few tree jobs now cuz I my numbers around and so I've made some good money that way. My first job  that I showed up to was about this size and it took me 2 and 1 half hours.

07:12 If you guys weren't  here, this would take me about 30 minutes. So, we're getting a lot faster, a lot easier to do it.  There is some things to learn with the machine, but you're not going to break it. We know that's  a 200 minimum. How much is this whole? How much did you 350 for the job? So 350 for 30 minutes.  Yeah. And not every job turns out that easy.

07:23 Um cuz sometimes I would price this the same if it  was in a backyard and you had to get through a tight fence, you know. So there's other things,  but yeah, for something like this is about 350. How did you find this exact job? This one came  from Google. So they just found just organic top Google. I I do Google guaranteed. What's  Google guaranteed?

07:39 Basically, Google guarantees the service of certain businesses by knowing that  they're insured and they have they hit a certain level of requirement and then you pay per ad, but  they put you at the top. If you look up some a service on Google, they'll have at the top Google  guaranteed businesses and I come up there. Is it the same as LSA? Yes. Similar.

07:55 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  I think it's the same. You have to go through more of a verification process. Yeah. You know what?  If you're an actually person, guess what? He's grinding stumps. Okay. That's this is what I'm  good at. So, yeah, we can we could start here. So I can kind of get this started. For something  this size, we don't need to put a full net around it or anything.

08:14 Not a lot of things to worry about  here. So we can kind of just get going. So we'll scoot it up. You always want to start on a stump  grind. You want to start in the dirt before it. So that means that you can get to a certain  depth. You set your depth with the first cut, if that makes sense. And then the rest of the  stump, you're just going to that depth as you go through.

08:32 So we'll move this move it a little bit  forward. We're going to make our first cut right about at this line here. So, we're going to push  it up. This starts the blade here. Pull it. Start that blade up. We're going to rev it up really  high. It's going to get real loud here. Now, over. So, I have that your first time. Yes. Did you  get training? Did you go out with somebody?

08:51 I watched uh there's like seven YouTube videos of  guys grinding stumps on YouTube. Most of them even have a remote machine, so it wasn't even  applicable to this. And I kind of was like, "All right, I kind of get it kind of." And then  I just I ripped it on a job. Did you do like a practice job or anything? You showed up to your  first paid job. I didn't even have any I didn't know where to get a practice job and the tree  company sent me one and I was like, "All right, let's let's do it."

09:16 It was a backyard job,  open backyard. I was very lucky with my first job. It wasn't super scary. It didn't have any  complications or else I probably would have quit the first day. But yeah, I just kind of ripped  it and and we got it done. That's a Chris Ker special right there. So I'm on the other end of  the spectrum. You and Chris are like, "Oh, how hard could it be?

09:31 I'm just going to go freaking  figure it I'm going to be like, "Well, does like a diagram show exactly what degree I need to  lower it by?" There's probably an in-between. What would you recommend to somebody who's like  just starting? Just jump in like you did or like should you get some practice first? Uh, you could  get some practice definitely if you're starting.

09:40 I That's probably what I'd recommend. I love it. I  love it. He's like, you you could He's just He's just being nice about it. I don't think it's over  complicated. If you really wanted to practice, come shadow me for a day. Fly out to Utah and  shadow me for a day and I'll I'll teach you. But I actually I think you can you can do this job  without practice is unnecessary friction to just launching.

10:01 Don't practice. Just do it. I agree.  I agree. If you worry about practicing too much, you may never get to the thing. Totally. I  drove it around my parking lot that I parked the trailer at for a few times just to make sure  I looked like I could kind of drive it. And then, yeah, the actual cutting part I I figured out on  the job. Well, I will say my salesman hated me, the one that rented me the machine to start  because I called him like once a day for a couple weeks like, "Dude, it's making this  noise."

10:21 He's like, "Yeah, that's normal." "Oh, it's it's doing this." He's like, "Yeah, grinding  a stump." Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's the grinding a stump. He made me feel very dumb many times.  He was nice about it, but he I was like, "Yeah, I'm an idiot." And then one day you called him  and like, "Hey, I'm flooding an apartment with a sprinkler." He's like, "That's not normal."

10:35 He's like, "I can't help you." And I was like, "Great. All right. We'll figure it out." Roughly,  what size are we talking? Are we talking a foot across? 3 ft across? What does it look like? Maybe  between 2 and 1/2 and 3 ft across. Okay. I'd say they're good size. I'll get you an exact quote  over text, but three stumps that are all like 3 ft across, we're probably somewhere around around  $800 to grind those out somewhere if if they're that size.

11:02 If I can just text you real quick and  you can text back a picture of the three stumps and just a diameter measurement. And if you get  me that, that's all I need for a full quote. Um, and then I can send that over to you. And then if  we find a good price that works, we can get you on the schedule probably as soon as Wednesday  this week. We're We're pretty busy right now, but we could definitely find a time to get you  in.

11:20 Okay, awesome. Sounds good. Yeah, text me and I will send you a picture right away. Perfect.  What was your name again? Emily. Emily. Cool. I'm Tyler. I'm the owner. Thank you. How many calls  a day do you get? Two to three, probably. Two to three. It depends. Contractors jobs I'm adding a  day. I'm probably adding anywhere from like three to five a day during the busy season.

11:36 So, two to  three calls a day. How many jobs does that turn into? Probably. I I probably 60% of my close rate.  Most guys aren't answering their phone. Most guys aren't getting quotes pretty fast. A lot of the a  lot of people I compete with are side hustle guys, which is totally fine, but if I'm I I can I can  beat them in pretty much everything. Yeah.

11:50 So, you prioritize answering the phone. Exactly. How  much did you make before you even quit your job on this? My first month was August of 2024, and  I did 9 grand of revenue with the full-time. With a full-time job. With a full-time job. I did  multiple jobs. In Utah, you get the luxury of a lot of daylight. So, I worked 9 to probably  3 or 4 at that old job.

12:08 That month I would do jobs before. I'd wake up at like 5:45, grab the  trailer, go do a job, go to the office, change in the office bathroom downstairs. I would park  my trailer two parking lots away so that no one knew that I was grinding stumps cuz it was like I  I felt I don't know why I felt embarrassed, but I felt embarrassed. And then I would go to work the  full day and then I'd have my grinder already at the parking lot, get in the truck at 4:00 and then  go rip like three jobs after work and then I was home by

12:35 8:30. It was still light. So 9,000 before  you quit your job. And then once you quit your job at the beginning of month two, what did you do  that month? That month we just rocket fuel. It went to we did 23k in the month of 23,000. I think  that's such an important distinction because you crushed it while you had a job, which is awesome.  That tells people that you don't need to quit, but then when you did quit and put all your chips  in, you really crushed it.

12:55 Totally right. It was such a good example of that. And I I just remember  we had a pre-planned vacation from before I ever started stump grinding to California. It was the  end of August. And we talked that whole trip about me quitting my job. And I finally came home and  I was like, "All right, I'm going to do it." And I walked into the office, quit my job, and after  that I was like, "All right, I have to pay for me and my wife's life through this business."

13:15 So, I  worked like a What was that feeling like when you walked out of the office? Were you scared or were  you excited? Oh, it was electric. It's usually not anywhere in between, right? Yeah. I drove my  grinder to the office cuz I had a full day of jobs right after I quit. You just rode on the grinder.  Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Wrote on the grinder. I quit.

13:32 No, it was the most electric feeling in the world  walking out of there just knowing I didn't really like my job then. It was a good job, but I didn't  like it. $32,000 in your first two months. Yeah. How long did it take you to make more in the  business than you were making in your job to replace my income? It kind of honest Is it bad  to say right away?

13:46 Like I don't know if I had the exact numbers like carrying across cuz in  business some sales it's lumpy. Right. Exactly. I didn't have the big commission checks coming in.  It was more steady. Some things that I normally would have had as personal expenses were running  through the business. So all in though it felt like right away. Basically that first month when  you were full-time in the business, you made more than if you had not quit.

14:06 I think so. Yeah. Yeah.  And it never felt like we ever took like a dip in lifestyle or anything. The reason I also quit  wasn't just because I wanted to go full-time. I was looking at my schedule for the next two weeks  and I realized if I did every job that I had, I would not be able to keep my job. Every stump  job there's you had to choose. You were forced in a way.

14:22 I would have been fired for sure. I  just had too much work. So she saw that on my schedule and she's like, "Oh, that sounds like a  good opportunity." You know, made it easy on her. It was also probably ner nerve-racking in the  sense that you're in a seasonal market and you're going into the winter, right? So, you're  like, "All right, we could be really good through October."

14:37 But then what did you know that at that  point? Yes, I did. And I was very I that that was the piece I was most worried about. We had a small  amount of savings. So, I was like, I think we could make it if we did zero. How much savings?  We had probably 20 grand in savings. $20. Oh, yeah. 20. Yeah. About 20. I That's probably not  exact, but it was somewhere around there.

14:53 And I knew like what our costs were per month. So I was  like, h we could float till March of next year if we need to. But I didn't want to do that. I  didn't want to come close. So I just worked hard. And I actually found a lot of winter work.  I mean, as long as snow is not on the ground, which Utah it snows a lot, but the snow melts in a  day or two here where we live in Utah County.

15:09 So I actually found a a lot of work. Okay. So you were  looking at that. You're like, I made 32 grand in my first two months. Profit off of that was what?  Probably 26 25 23. Okay. All right. So $26,000. You got $20,000 in the bank. So you're like, okay,  we're sitting on some money. We can probably make it through the winter months. What was your like  nut every month?

15:27 Fixed cost for this business at the time was probably like 2 to three grand cuz  you had probably payment on the truck, trailer, stump grinder. So stump grinder you were renting.  How much was that a month? Uh I bought it at that point. I bought it right when I quit. It was it's  900 bucks a month is the Okay. So you finance it 900 bucks a month. Truck trailer.

15:44 Yeah. Trailer  is like 170 and the truck is like 490. Cold outreach and to do some marketing, but that even  came later. So I think early on, you're right, it was probably more towards 2K. So you were  like, "All right, overhead on the business, $2,000 a month. We're sitting on this cash." Was  your wife working? Yes, she was. And that was helpful. And she was cool with Was she like, "All  right, I'll give you 6 months to figure this out."

16:06 Or was it like, "No, you better be making money  in October." I asked her to give me a year. Said, "Give me a year." And I was like, "I promise like  if it doesn't work, I'll just go." I was good at my job before, so I had a really good network.  I could bounce back into it. So you reduced your risk by starting this before you quit. You  reduce your risk by leasing a truck, leasing the equipment, renting a parking lot so you don't have  to buy a big lot.

16:23 You did everything right, it seems. Yeah, we kept it low. And the last piece of  like de-risking was, and I still feel this way a bit is is I did everything myself. I wasn't scared  to go do the work. If I if this business would not have survived the winter, if I was like, I need an  employee right away. I can't grind stumps. I can't like go to that level.

16:41 I was just like, no, I'm  going to do everything so I don't have that cost yet. And in the future, I want to scale and do it  right. But early on, I was like, it's something I don't even mind doing. And on it's fun. It's a  blast. And this is what I do every day. I listen to podcast in my helmet and yeah, I just I I hang  out. It's one of the businesses I love businesses where there's a stark contrast between before and  after.

16:58 Yeah. It's like it's so obvious the before and after for a business like this. Totally. And  I still some days feel like I'm uh playing dress up with like Carheart and stuff. It is what I do  every day, but like this is not who I was before. Well, there's two types of guys that were carart.  People in Brooklyn and people that actually do work. And I was the person in the tech office  wearing Carheart.

17:15 So luckily I had those shirts. Brought it over. Yeah. I was ready to go. But now  they're actually like dirty and like a little bit, you know, like he was in the office playing  stump grinding video games. Car heart. I was I was trying to act like tough to like the guy next  to you. Started this business. I already have the clown. Yeah, exactly. That's pretty much most of  it.

17:31 You reduce your risk by buying Carheart while you still had a tech job. Yeah. And I got to get  a truck. Talking about actually I didn't have a truck before. I was wearing car heart in like a  Nissan Ultima. Nothing against Nissan Ultimas, but you can't wear car heart in that. Why do you  think this is going so far? I mean, I think it's going well. How do you think?

17:47 Pretty good. I think  people are loving this right now. And I want to keep doing stuff like this. How do you keep doing  stuff like this? People need to subscribe. Yeah. What's your What's your podcast? I'm the Kerner  office. All podcast platforms and YouTube. What about you? I'm Nickomics. Same thing. All podcast  platforms and YouTube. All right.

17:57 So, what are you guys waiting for? Like and subscribe already. So,  you don't leave it like this, obviously. No. So, after this is done, that's what the whole looks  grinded out. We'll just push that whole pile with my back blade on the back of the machine back into  the hole. Is that what you do with most customers or are they like, "No, get rid of the wood."

18:13 Uh  about 20 to 30% have me haul. And when I do it, I I upcharge for that. But most of the time, I  just leave it like that. Well, cuz like why would they want to hauled? It's going to leave a big  hole in their yard. Right. Yeah. If it's a big stump, you're going to be left with like a semi  load of of chips. And so they'll want the extra chips hauled and just leave it at grade.

18:29 What can  you do with these wood chips? Do you like resell them? Do you sell them as mulch or is it too much  dirt mixed in? There's some stuff you have to do, and I'm not a pro on this, to make it into  mulch that you sell and put it away. I give it to a landscaping yard that does that for  free. They turn this into mulch and we have a great relationship that I dump for free rather  than driving down to the dump.

18:46 It's right here in Provo, but I don't currently do anything with  it. How inception would that be? It's like start a mulching business from the stump grinding. If  I had a place to just dump big piles, I would do that and have just mulch in my backyard for  people to come shovel and charge them for it. So, anyways, that's what it looks like. So Chris  knows this.

19:02 He's a starter. I'm a buy guy. I've only ever started or bought businesses.  Chris has started businesses from scratch. But I love this business because it doesn't require  all of the personal guarantees, the cash down, the risk associated with buying a business. Yeah.  You tested it as a side hustle. Uhhuh. And then you went into it full-time. You actually looked at  buying businesses, didn't you?

19:23 Yeah. Yeah, I did. Uh I've always been interested in entrepreneurship  and it felt like very unattainable. like the how-tos felt very unattainable cuz I didn't have  an entrepreneur in my family that I really knew of. And so I yeah, I was I read buy then build  the the classic buying business book. Walker, realized I didn't have a lot of money. I mean,  I'm young.

19:42 I didn't have a lot of money at all to buy a business. So I'm like, why am I dreaming  about this? And then I looked into franchises, which felt a little bit more approachable, but  that felt like a big risk signing on the dotted line of a franchise. So when I heard this, it just  kind of the light bulb went off. I like to always think about worst case scenarios.

19:58 And worst case  scenario, this business, the grinders don't really lose value very a ton of value. Trailers don't  lose value. I would have had a truck that I would have drove to my new job. And that's basically the  downside. If you would have bought a business that like the business that you're currently doing  right now, probably worth in the mid-6 figure, $600,000.

20:13 You would have had to put $100,000  down, get an SBA loan, you would have to buy new equipment, you would have the owner train  you, all that stuff. But you did an approach that is freaking a Chris Kerner special, which  is test, iterate, launch, right? Like you tested the idea first. You didn't quit your job. You  iterated along the way. At first you were renting, then you decided to buy the stump grinder and then  you actually launched when you had enough data and information.

20:32 And I mean that's one of the things  I've learned from Chris is totally test, iterate, launch. Ready, fire, aim. Absolutely. Absolutely.  What I love about your story is the fact that it was a perfect overlap of your interests and your  skills, right? You had sales experience. So you heard the podcast and you're like, "Oh, okay.  I I like that." And then you had uh didn't you work on a tree company in high school?

20:50 Yeah, I  did. So you're like, "Oh, grinding stumps, that is a painoint, but huh, okay, there's something  to that." And then the third side of that kind of ven diagram was the fact that you were already  entrepreneurial. You wanted to start a business or buy a business but you had no money. So everything  just aligned where this became like the perfect business for you.

21:08 And I think that for for those  listening or watching this like they need to find the thing that applies to them. Not something that  looks sexy but something they have an interest in, something they have a history in and a time in  their life or a period of their life when they're ready and or willing to try or test something  like this. Well, and the other thing is look at this guy.

21:25 He's not afraid to get dirty. And when  you get into entrepreneurship, you can't be afraid to get dirty. Lots of people are like, "I want  to buy a business and hire an operator." And for whatever reason, we kind of talk down to getting  in the weeds. Yeah. You have to get in the weeds. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know  how to manage a checkbook.

21:36 You don't know how to collect. You don't know how to build. You don't  know how to take calls like you just did. You got to build the entrepreneurial muscle. You don't  you don't have the experience requisite to like quote unquote hire an operator. And if you want  to be successful in entrepreneurship, you have to jump. And that's Chris has the MIH gene, the make  it happen gene.

21:48 So do you. You're going to make it happen every single time. You can only look at  a spreadsheet for so long. you actually acted on the make it happen gene though I there was years  many years before I actually started this thing that I felt like I didn't have the make it happen  gene cuz either I wanted to like buy a business I wanted to start a franchise all these things I  got cold feet in 28 dude I know I know I'm hard on myself but from 25 to 28 this is what I wanted  to do and I wasn't doing it so I was like

22:08 maybe I don't have that you know make it happen gene but  what you were saying there is a business model that fits everyone out there I truly believe that  but you have to have like a box around it and once you find it you can't be afraid to actually go and  pursue Uh, and that was kind of my luck. Everyone thinks I'm like this gogetter, you know, just  super brave and there was years before that that I felt like the guy that would never do anything  about it.

22:32 That's why we love these is because you didn't start a tech s. This isn't like a sexy  business that you bought. We just talk about how people can start any business. And that's  Chris's whole thing is like you can start any business. You can make money off of any business.  Right, Chris? Yeah. And once you start making off money off one business, like your belief in  yourself to go make money off of other things that you want to do just skyrockets.

22:50 And that's  what it's done for me. Okay. So, July 11th, Chris and I have a podcast, but we're brainstorming  this idea of starting a stump grinder business, right? So, break down the timeline. How long did  it take you to actually execute on that? Yeah. So, I heard that episode. I'm a fan, so this is kind  of weird like being with you guys, but like heard the episode July 11th.

23:07 By July 12th, I had kind  of like tested it in my own market. Wow. And then by August 3rd, I had done everything. I needed  insurance, all the equipment, everything to do my first actual stump job on August 3rd. And  then that month, it was just off and running. We had jobs every day. You did 9,000 that first  month. You did $23,000 that second month, $25,000, $26,000 in profit.

23:26 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was it  was just off and running from there. I listened to your guys' podcast over and over and over  again because there was some things in there on how to like test my market. And so, I just  listened to that specific piece probably 10 times, got every software you guys talked about, actually  tried it. I was going to my wife like, "Look, this works."

23:42 I got a few texts back and I was like,  "Holy crap, I have a business." I didn't have a business, but I was like, "I feel like I have a  business." And I was just fired up. All right. So, we don't want people to think that this is all  just rainbows and butterflies. Yeah. Tell us about some horror stories that you've had in this  business. Yes. And I'm not saying this is passive income.

23:56 I'll look into the camera. This is not  passive income, but it is income and it's a, you know, you work hard to make that income. But  I've had a lot of nightmare jobs hitting sprinkler lines, hitting electric lines. One story from each  of these, I hit a sprinkler line at a townhouse, like a HOA townhouse type thing. Uh, and it was  really close to the window, and the sprinkler line was pressurized.

24:16 Water just started spraying  through their window. It was inside the town, open window. Oh man. Um I had to I started banging on  the door and no one was answering. And so I opened their door. It was open. I opened their door  and I was like, "Hey, anyone home?" Like there's water coming into your house. Yeah. If the door's  unlocked, it's not breaking an in.

24:29 That's kind of what I figured. Yeah. And they ended up shutting  the window and and it was okay. I felt lucky that I had insurance just in case. But we never even  had to use it. How much is your insurance? It's like 400 bucks a month or something. Hard to find?  No, not really. Okay. So, if you're watching this, you're like, "What about insurance?" You buy  insurance.

24:45 You just buy insurance. You just buy it's a cost that you have and you pay it with a  few jobs just like the one we showed today and you keep moving. You never had any claims? No, never.  Knock on wood. The only other time I was close was there was a private electric line going to  someone's back shed. I call the city and they'll come out and mark electric and water and all these  different lines, but they don't mark private ones.

25:07 So, they put this line in themselves. They told  me about it. So, this is completely my bad. And I was like, I probably won't hit it. Sure enough,  going hit it. Sparks flew everywhere. It was the scariest thing. I thought I got electrocuted. I  didn't I was like, "Am I dead?" I didn't know. And then, you know, sure enough, I blew through  their line.

25:20 I I paid for the fix. It wasn't that big a deal. Like, I thought Sparks flying is just  an expression. No. Yeah. It was horrifying. It was actually so scary. So, the reason we brought  that idea up was because we have a tree trimming business that Chris was passionate about. We  launched that business. We had a whole like framework of tools and things that we used, but we  had one pain point.

25:36 Yeah. We like we didn't want to grind the stumps. So, we'd have to go to United  Rentals or we'd have to go find a stump grinder, and it was just a pain. It didn't fit into our  workflow. So we started talking on this podcast of someone needs to start a businessto business stump  grinding business right not business to consumer which wasn't really a thing and it was just kind  of a theory and then you heard that took it and ran with it and from what I understand your first  customers came from B2B didn't you like

25:58 scrape a bunch of tree trimming businesses yeah I did kind  of exactly what you guys outlined in the podcast I scraped a whole list of tree trimming businesses  from all the surrounding areas from where we are here and then I started reaching out to them. I  didn't want to burn all the leads. So, I didn't reach out to everyone at one time, but I reached  out to 20 or 30 people.

26:15 Started getting hits back and I was like, "Oh, there's something here." And  it it aligned really well with my skill set of of I knew how to sell. I knew how to go B2B. So, I  knew how to get in front of these guys and paint their problem as something I could solve and we  started doing it and there sure enough there was a market for it. What is like your framework for  finding customers?

26:31 Yeah, I call it a P framework. It's a little bit complicated, but basically,  we're going to dive into that. I want to hear that. What I love about this home service business  in particular is how visual it is. You've got a clear before and after. You've got a clear time  lapse and you've been taking advantage of that. You've been posting that stuff.

26:48 Yeah. What has  come from that? Yeah. My small Twitter following. I I I was getting tons of DMs like, "How do you do  this? How do you do this?" Really basic questions and I got really sick of hopping on every call.  So, I just typed it all up into a playbook and I sell it for a small amount and it's it's  changed other people's lives. Like, it's crazy.

27:05 10 to 12 guys are full stump grinders across the  country from a little thing I typed up out of my brain. Yeah. I mean, there's so many people out  there starting businesses that are the same. And we started TK owners so we could just have them  put their heads together and not, you know, go through all these sprinkler inside the townhouse  moments that that you've had to go through.

27:18 100%. That's That is freaking too funny, man. Where are  they? Are they all over the place? All over. Yeah. Virginia, Minnesota, South Carolina. I saw one  guy post, he's like, "Oh, I just quoted a 200 stump job." Yeah, that guy. Yeah, that guy's  a man. He's an old guy. That guy's like 65. Really? Yeah. All right. So, someone's watching  this and they're like, "I love this business.

27:36 I want to do this business." What would you tell  them to do? Yeah. First off, I'd tell them to go do something about it and actually just start it.  The second thing I'd tell them to do if they want a little bit more handholding is I've put together  like a small community playbook course kind of on on how to get this done and to avoid some of the  pitfalls that I fell into.

27:51 I I really wish I had someone to hold my hand and answer some of these  questions early on so that to save my time cuz I'm out grinding stumps. I put this together for  people to come together and learn how to do to do this in their market. You've already had a hundred  people who've bought your playbook and more than a dozen who have actually launched businesses in  other markets, right?

28:09 Yeah. So, we already know it works. We know it works in pretty much any market  that people try it in, no matter what the Twitter haters say. It does work in California. It does  work in the Northeast. It does work everywhere. And and yeah, it's amazing to see. There's been 8  to 12 guys that I know of. There's probably more, but that are grinding stumps and making extra  income with it.

28:25 Well, I mean, I filmed this video right here about appliance rental and hundreds of  people started them and some of them are like on top of each other in the same market. Do you offer  any sort of like loose protections on people like you won't sell to the same people that are in  the same town? Yeah, that's actually the only thing that really I feel like differentiates us  outside of having a a school with some really good information is that I actually care about people  and if they're putting their hard-earned

28:45 money towards something like this, I don't want them  to just have something that's already been done in their market. Yeah. So if someone's in Tampa  Bay or if someone's in Cincinnati and they are part of our course or our school, we don't sell to  another person in Tampa Bay or Cincinnati to allow the guys in our group to thrive because we want  them to thrive and that's that's our whole goal.

29:06 I want you to be honest with me. What's the plan?  Hire more employees, expand to new markets. What are you doing next with this business? My honest  answer to that is I think I'm going to move into a bigger service and never leave this behind. Um  I don't want to say it's on autopilot because I do work hard every day, but it is not. It doesn't  take a ton of brain work to get the revenue.

29:24 Getting the business is kind of on autopilot. It  kind of is. And so I could put a guy in my seat to to do the grinding uh every single day and still  make enough money to pay our bills and save some extra. How much money how much profit would  you make per year today if you didn't grow it and you outsourced your operations? North of 115.  Probably 120.

29:37 Wow. To sit at home probably. Yeah. Yeah. Probably maybe a bit more depending on where  this is growing to. But currently right now if it just stayed where it is right now it probably  about there. The point I wanted to highlight is a lot of people think, "Oh, I started a business.  Now it's got to grow. Now I got to double it. Now I got to triple it."

29:55 Like, you've gotten to  the place where your business is kicking off good cash. You've managed it. You don't need to  grow, but you you've grown to the point now where your life is kind of where you want it to be, but  you've gained experience as an entrepreneur. And so now you can move into something else and you  understand, okay, how do I market?

30:07 How do I price things? How do I manage people? What do logistics  look like? Right? But you got that experience with a great business. You got your feet wet with it.  You kind of know what you do and don't like and you can move on with very low risk. Like to me  that's the best example for someone who's getting into entrepreneurship. And the freedom that I have  now is like unmatched compared to when I was in a W2 job.

30:27 I can go explore those other ideas that I  have or businesses that my wife wants to start or is starting and say, "Oh, you need me for a half  day to help you with this thing." Easy. Like I'll just not schedule jobs for Wednesday afternoon and  go do them or I'll take a full day off or I'll do this XYZ. Once you get into the game, it's so much  easier to like keep playing other games, level up the game.

30:44 That's what this is to me is I got into  the game. I'm gonna keep it as part of my game for probably a very long time, but I don't think this  will be my only game. I I freaking I love that. I mean, that's the key word, freedom. That's like  that's why we're all doing this, right? It's not even necessarily financial freedom. It's just  freedom. Chris has been a hustler his whole life.

31:00 He's never worked for anybody after college. Like,  he's he's just always done his own thing. I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I wanted to like  have everything lined up. And what I've learned now is you learn by doing. Totally. And as you  learn by doing, you can get into other things. But then you have freedom. Then you have control of  your time, of your schedule.

31:12 Anyways, your story is really inspiring, man. Thank you. Appreciate  you. All right. All right. So, what is your monthly overhead on this business? Do you want  line item by line item or do you want like a big cost? Just the big things. Yeah. Big cost probably  all add to depending on the month like four to 5K currently where we're at now. So, this storage  lot's 100 bucks a month.

31:26 Yeah. Your truck lease, trailer lease, y machine lease. Yep. Or insurance.  Insurance. Gas is probably my leading cost outside of all of that. Just hauling it around and gas for  the machine. Um, and then small things like teeth. I mean, got to get the oil changed on the machine.  You know, just all the classic business stuff. What about things like marketing?

31:45 What are you  spending on Google? What are you spending on? Marketing's pretty low. I probably spend 5 to 600  bucks total a month on Google like LSA stuff. Your reviews are your marketing in a sense. Yeah. My  reviews and then contractors giving me work. Yeah. So, if someone's watching this and they're like,  I'm broke, but I love this business. What is the most costefficient way to start it?

32:02 Most cost  efficient? You probably do need some access to a truck is the only thing that you need access  to. You can rent a truck from Home Depot if you need. If you have really scrappy, you could  rent the truck. You could rent a trailer and you can rent a stump grinder by the day. Yeah.  If you want to rent a small stump grinder, most of like the rental places, there's one called  Sunb Belt here, they rent stump grinders.

32:18 They're small, but they'll get the job done. And I think  it's important that people don't try to focus on making a ton of profit that first day, week, or  month. They need to lessen their risk by renting this stuff cuz the unit economics honestly aren't  great if you're renting, right? But that gets you learning. It gets you traction. It gets you some  good reviews, before and after.

32:34 That's exactly what he did, right? You had your full-time job and  you decided, I'm going to do this on the side. You didn't buy the machine right away. You didn't  hop into, you know, large expenses. You tested it on the side. Yeah. You figured out what you're  doing. You actually learned how to grind stumps. And then when September came and you realized you  were booked out, you're like, "All right, I should probably jump into this a little more.

32:51 A little  harder." What were you making in your B2B job? Uh, I made about It just depends. There's a lot of  commission, but I'm about 175K. Okay. So, about 15 grand a month. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What  are you making currently in your stump grinding business? Probably higher than that. Probably like  15 to 20, maybe 25 depending on the month. Uh, is probably what we're walking away with.

33:09 And  how long did it take for you to get to that spot? Second month. Second month. Yeah. Now, there  is a seasonal part to this business. It's not like I make that every month of every year, but  I have a lot more freedom to do what I want and and and achieve those things from from doing this.  Okay. So, unit economics, average revenue per job, it's probably around I would say 300 bucks.

33:24 300  bucks. Okay. And then your average fixed costs per month that you gave us was about $5,000  roughly four to five. I would say it's four most months unless there's outsiz. Okay. So,  let's say it's $5,000, $800 on on average. So, you need about 15 jobs. Yeah. Just to get to break  even. Usually in week one of the month is how I think about it. I pay off my monthly expenses.

33:45 How  many jobs are you doing in a day able to do a day? Depends. A $300 job, you could do five to six of  those in a day. Dang. Okay. Yeah. So, you could stack it pretty quick. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You got to  be smart with your routes and stuff, but yeah, you can stack it up. So, week two, you're in a profit.  Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Would you say this is a competitive market?

34:02 Do you mean Utah itself or do  you mean the stump grinding market? Uh, Utah. Oh, Utah is a highly competitive market. Very, very  competitive. I've already had multiple people try to copy me with the same idea because I post on  Twitter about it. Doesn't really bother me because I'm better than them, but like I they I feel like  if this could be so successful here, it could be even more successful elsewhere.

34:20 Absolutely. What  do you feel like though is the differentiator? Like you said you were better than them. In my  mind, it's like a stump is either ground or it's not ground. Yeah. What do you think you do better?  What like what's if somebody's getting into this, what do they need to execute really really well  on in order to be successful? For me personally, I could give you I could give you tons of  examples, but I'll give you an example.

34:38 You're a you're a tree guy. You're a tree guy and  you only get paid for the job once the stump is ground. That means the job's done. And you get the  you get the tree down Tuesday morning. If you're a part-time guy and I say, "Hey, I need this stump  ground now so I can get paid." And he's like, "Oh, I could be there Thursday afternoon because  he's busy till then and he works a full-time job, but I could be there Tuesday morning so you can  get paid that day."

34:55 Huge advantage right there for a tree guy that needs some money for every job.  Responsiveness is a huge one. Second one is having the equipment that isn't the rental equipment  once you get to that point. And I mean I there's quite a few other things that differentiate, but  responsiveness is number one with contractors cuz they're just like me. They want to get paid.

35:11 A big  reason a lot of people are watching this is, okay, where's my first customer? Where's my 100th  customer? Do I go through the tree trimming businesses? Do I go through Mary homeowner?  You talked about this P method. We got to dive into that. Yeah, absolutely. So the P stands for  piggyback. So we want to piggyback off of existing businesses that have a pain point, which are tree  companies that don't want to do stuff.

35:30 Are there other businesses other than tree trimming that  about their work to you? Absolutely. Landscapers, landscape install. You don't want the the lawn  guys. The lawn guys don't give you anything. Landscape installers do. And then fence installers  if there's a stump in the fence line. Uh and then the last one is concrete guys. The last three  are like more few and far between, but they still need a guy sometimes.

35:50 How do you find all these  guys? You scrape big lists uh throughout scraper. Great website. You you're very familiar with out  scraper. create big big lists of these in certain geographies and you just call them, email them,  text them. I usually cold text in bunches, so 20 to 30. I haven't gotten a hold of every single  ones on my list cuz some numbers they have aren't great for them.

36:10 But that's the best way to get in  the door. If they respond to me in any way, shape, or form, I'll call them. Even if it's a no, be  like, "Okay, cool. I know you're not interested, but this is what I'm doing." So, you're just copy  pasting the same text 20, 30 times. What is in that text? It's really simple. One, it's a picture  of my business card, usually right in front of my Ford.

36:28 Shows authority. Exactly. Ford logo on  the truck. It looks like I'm out working. And then it's, "Hey, my name's Tyler. Run a company  called Grind Time Stump Grinding. This is rough, but I was wondering what you do with your stumps.  Do you do them yourself? Do you sub it out? Or do you own a machine?" Um, and they'll give me one of  those three answers and then I can go from there.

36:43 What percentage of the time do they respond? 30  40%. Which is pretty good. I don't do as much of that cold outreach as I start. I did. I'm busy  and I get referrals and I still do that sometimes, but it's just not as common. Okay. So you  launched with piggybacking, which finding someone who already has the distribution to your ideal  customer. Yeah.

36:57 But you don't do that anymore. So how are you getting business now? All of those  guys that were giving me jobs are still giving me jobs. They're still giving you jobs. Oh yeah. So  that's the start, right? You get your I'm like, "Okay, I'm starting to get to like 15 grand months  just from contractors." And then you start taking this is where the R comes in.

37:13 You start backing  reviews from these same customers. So I'm the last one there. From what I know, all the tree guys I  work for are totally fine with this cuz they love that the customer loves me. And so I introduce  myself to the customer because it's after the tree got removed. I then do the stump job and  then after I walk to their front door and say, "Hey, I run a different company.

37:29 I just started  and I'm I'm working really hard to grow my company here in Utah County. Would you please give me  a review? Sell your story. That's what you're doing." Absolutely. If you do that every single  time to a mom, dad, does not matter. They will pull out their phone. It's a little uncomfortable.  I wait for them to pull out their phone. So yeah, I I would really like it helps me grow the  business.

37:45 Cuz if you leave, they're not going to do it. They're just not. would you please? It  would help me so much if you give me a review. And then you just stop and they go, "Yeah, yeah,  yeah." And then I just wait. And then they go, "Oh, wait. Like now?" And they start pulling out  their phone and I'm like, "Yeah, I got this right here." It's tactics like that that really just  make this like this video just makes it better because that matters.

38:06 That matters so much. And  what you said about the business card, like your your shoes, your Timberlands in the background and  the grass or the shavings in the background of the picture of you holding the business card. It's not  AI generated. It's real. You can go to Vista Print and get those prefer mailed to you. Like those  little touches make all the difference.

38:20 100%. Contractors want to know that you're out working  and sweating with them and so they don't want to think that you're some guy behind a computer.  They're like, "Dude, that guy's in a backyard asking me if I want to do stuff. I'm not actually  in a backyard there." But I was in a backyard to take the picture, right? You know, so that helps.  Well, I I just think it's crazy to think about.

38:39 You could have had two guys who did the same  thing, right? They got business. They went out. They fulfilled the job. They did just as good of  a job. The customer was just as happy. But because you decided to be awkward for 5 seconds, you got a  review% and somebody else didn't. It's like you're you're uncomfortable for 5 seconds. You just  got to sit in that discomfort for 5 seconds and all of a sudden it's a differentiator.

38:54 Pegback P  review reviews are those drive all of your ongoing business and before I even get to a this is my  ADHD talking. I just find it incredible that you spent $0 to send a text. They respond. They show  interest. You spend $0 to call them and that five minute investment pays you hundreds to thousands  of dollars per month. Oh yeah. As long as you don't screw it up per month forever.

39:14 Yeah. I mean,  can I tell you my number one contractor, how much he gave me this summer? Yeah. I think he gave me  25 grand. Oh my god. In four or five months from one tech from from a tech. It's ridiculous. And  and he was like, "Yeah, I actually don't like my contractor at all, but I've never tried looking  for anyone else, so I'll try you out." Well, that's how the relationship started.

39:32 Even if  you're nine jobs in and you really screw it up, they're going to stick with you because they're  used to the other guy screwing it up every other job. Well, and right when I screw it up, I send  a picture. Say, "Hey, I just hit a sprinkler line here. I'm getting it fixed. Don't worry about it.  But this is what is happening. I got this. Yeah.

39:46 And they're like, "Yeah, dude. Things happen all  the time. They're tree guys. They're contractors, too. They take out fences half the time with  trees." You know what I mean? They have big things that happen to them. So, anyway, before you  get to the A, I want to hit one more thing on the reviews side. So, my background is healthcare and  we have a saying with our clinicians.

39:56 If it if you didn't document it, it didn't happen. Because  we get audited all the time. And if the auditor comes in and looks and they don't see it in the  notes, doesn't matter how much you good you did, you're going to get tagged for that, right? I  think that translate to every business owner if you didn't document if you didn't get the review  like it didn't happen.

40:13 So like yes you got paid that one time for that service but it doesn't  actually translate to broader brand building. So I just I love this like I'm going to get  reviews every single time so that people can see I can build credibility. I can establish trust  and anyways I can't I can't emphasize it enough. I I will give you one more piece of sauce here.

40:29 The reviews I actually didn't start trying to get reviews. I didn't even have a Google My Business  till like month four or five. Holy cow. Um, but I did have a big spreadsheet of every job I've  done. And if they gave me the customer's number, it was in the spreadsheet. So, I just  ran a fullblown like text blast with, you know, text of of my company, a selfie of  me, whatever it was, and just be like, "Hey, I did your stump job a few months back.

40:51 You don't  remember who I am. Totally fine. But we're getting started." And the day that I started my GMBB, I  think I got like 15 reviews that day. And those 15 reviews on day one sends a signal to Google that  this guy's for real. Yeah, he's probably been in business before he ever created a Google business  profile, which they're not used to, right?

41:04 So then they prioritize you in the algorithm. Yeah. My SEO  guy, he's a friend, so this is why he did it. But he kind of fired me. He was like, "Dude, you're  at the top. Like you're getting reviews. Like we don't you don't really need to keep paying  me for SEO. If you want me to do other stuff, like happy to do that." But that was pretty  fast. All right.

41:20 What's the A? Uh the A. So uh piggyback. You get reviews and then you answer the  phone. You guys saw me do it on that job. I answer every phone call. My wife gets annoyed. I walked  out of a movie last night because I answered the phone during the movie. Really? React. I answer  the phone without fail. Contractor Google. You will not call my phone if it's my business line  and and get a mis call.

41:39 In your first month, what or first few months, what percentage of your  revenue came from other businesses versus today, what percentage of your revenue is coming  from other businesses? When I started it was 100% and it was 100% for about 6 months. Like  literally 100% unless maybe a neighbor saw me or something. Uh but it was 100% contractors that  gave me the business.

41:57 Now, it's probably 7030, maybe 6040 of my own customers and contractors.  So, we're growing that side pretty steadily. And I think this is a pretty healthy  spot to sit where I get my own jobs, but contractors fill most of my week and then I  put the small jobs that I get elsewhere. Well, it's a trade-off cuz they're not recurring jobs,  but they're more profitable.

42:15 Exactly. And you get two reviews for the price of one. You can get  the homeowners review and the business owner review. Totally. Yeah. So, it's kind of mixing  the revenue, right? You got your one-offs that is just the Google calls. And these are great  and they they they help you pump revenue, but if you don't have good contractor relationships,  those days that you get zero calls from Google, you're going to want the guy texting you that they  have a job for you next week. So, you want both. [Music]