How to Run an Awesome Landscaping Business Efficiently After Recovering from a Business Failure with Caleb Auman

Caleb Auman is the Owner of the Auman Landscape LLC which is based in Carroll, Ohio and they serve the Fairfield County region, Lancaster, and selected Columbus clients. From crashing his old business he survived and managed to get up again when he met his wife  Brittany Auman who has been supportive to him until now. Brittany manages and signs all of his paychecks and he is very proud to say that. They pick up all the pieces together to create and establish their landscaping business. And now, they not only do landscape but also other types of construction services such as Commercial Stormwater service. Caleb is not only a businessman but is also an awesome mentor and you can see him mostly on his Social Media channels on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Check him out you will learn a lot from this awesome man. 

“A company is a blank book that you can write, finish to the beginning and so you say I want to end up here. I don't want to have those incredible burdens like running a big company. You can run a company with two or three guys and yourself, it's your book, write it how you want it.”   - Caleb Auman 

Today’s Topic we discuss: 

4:19 - Stage three is where Caleb’s business is right now, where they go out in the field and they have employees to do the job, his wife, and him doing the sales, marketing, and running the business. They also open up another division of their business called Auman Environmental.  Awesome, right? 

13:18 - Fear and Confidence Issue gets in the way for you to raise up your price. But you need to realize what is your worth and you got to know how to get to that too. Don’t let fear and confidence issues prevent you from getting what you deserve. 

18:59 - The tax issue is a common problem in a start-up business, especially if you don’t have a bookkeeper to manage your finances. This might lead to business failure if not managed pretty well.

20:30 - It’s not easy to manage your finances if you will do it just yourself. The biggest benefit you’ll get from hiring an accountant is, you will have someone to look into your records and tell you where your money is going. They could give you any advice about your tax issues too. 

25:09 - Building a company is not as easy as you think. The difficult part of it is if you mismanaged your business because you don’t have the goal of building something in your life.  

28:45 - Mentors, you got to have one. If you can’t pay one find a legend who you could look up to, know their history. If you can’t follow their footsteps because we all have our own strategies and ways. Learn from their mistakes, and take only those that could help you. Caleb shared some of their names, looked them up, and researched them. 

30:48 - Listen to this, guys. Caleb’s advice to guys out there who feel that they are trapped in a deep abyss of business failure. 

Helpful resources for you:   

CALEB’S LINKS: 

Instagram:  Auman Landscape LLC  

Website:   https://www.aumanlandscape.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AumanLandscape

KEITH’S LINKS: 

My Blog:  https://keith-kalfas.mykajabi.com/blog/

My Podcast: https://www.keithkalfas.com/podcast

Get a Trial of QuickBooks Here: https://quickbooks.grsm.io/keithkalfa...

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Key Takeaways

“And just even if it's a confidence issue just start slow, raising your rates, slowly, anything, you got anything you got to do to get to that light, you got to do it. And it's tough, man, I've been there. And it's tough, but you got to get there because you got to build a company that you can survive on that you'd be proud of.”  - Caleb Auman

“One of the hard things to get over is the fear and the shame of actually having somebody look at your business and how good you're not really doing and like and so because you're afraid they're gonna go, "What, what the hell are you doing?"  - Keith Kalfas

“Get someone, it's gonna cost a lot of money but it's worth it. And you'll end up making you money and it'll save you a ton of heartache down the road. So get a bookkeeper, you know, we were so adamant generally about hiring a professional to do something right like how you hire a guy to build your website. Why not hire somebody for your books?”  - Caleb Auman

“Seek your accountant’s advice on that. Absolutely. Depending on how you file your taxes and everything but we pay yourself a reasonable salary, but basically by the time the winter comes, when I finally said, Oh my God if I wanted to, I could literally just sit around on my ass and watch Netflix all winter and do nothing. Until springtime, because I have enough money budgeted out to pay all the bills for Christmas forever. And obviously you like you wouldn't do that. But I think when you get like to that level, once you start having some money where you can go on a vacation or two, and you can experience the freedom of the business and you get over that first or second hump, you start to reap the benefits.” - Keith Kalfas

The Transcript 

Intro 

Welcome to the untrapped podcast where we're motivated and inspired about success, small business, and personal development. And now Keith Kalfas.

Keith Kalfas  0:14  

Three.. Two... One. What's up guys, this Keith Kalfas with the untrapped podcast coming at you from Mendota Heights, Minnesota. We are in Stanley dirt, monkey genetics, living room right now, hanging out. We'll talk about that later. You can check that on my YouTube channel, but I'm next to sitting down across from Caleb Auman from Auman Landscape. Caleb and his wife run a breaching on a million-dollar landscaping business in Columbus, Ohio. And Caleb is an awesome mentor and he's rising up as a leader in the green industry. And I was on Instagram like two days ago, and he's live. He's sitting in a truck waiting for some concrete or something to be delivered on an actual job site. He's got crew out working, a project manager, and all this stuff going on. 

1:04 

And he's talking about efficiently running a landscaping business and people are flowing in the comments asking all these really good intelligent questions about like hiring, project management, measuring, bidding, all these questions that you would ask when you were in the first few years of your landscape business and you're reaching out for some mentorship and Caleb is just literally spitting out golden nuggets left and right. I stopped everything that I was doing. And I tuned in and I just and I was learning all these things. I was like, “Oh my god, this is really, really good.” And he doesn't let his ego get in the way. And he just flows value because he's been through pain and suffering. He's had a business failure and now he's back climbing back top of his business and he's crushing it and now inspiring others to do the same. So what's up Caleb?

Caleb Auman  1:49  

Hey, Keith, man, it's awesome to be here and thanks for the kind words and as I was saying earlier I followed you for a long time. So to hear like a dude I've like followed admired for such a long time to say that stuff is like really flattering. It's cool. So thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

Keith Kalfas  2:01  

You're welcome, man. And thank you, just talking to you for five minutes. It just became very apparent to me. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're gonna dive right in and talk about hiring people hiring the right people, project management, taking your hands off your business a little bit. So you're not stressed out trying to do 100 things at once to the point of breakdown, and how do you do that? And how do you get to the point where you can afford to do that? And I really like the saying what got you here won't get you there. So let's dive right in. So you guys did what 6 or 700,000 last year you said?

Caleb Auman  2:30  

Yeah, last year, our sales were right at about 700 I think we had 690 or 710, something like that. And we did that with four guys in the field Brittany and I in the office. She and I did a little bit of work. I think she and I did maybe about 100 grand worth of work ourselves.

Keith Kalfas  2:4  

Brittany, is your wife?

Caleb Auman  2:45  

Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, Brittany is my wife. She's on the company for 10 years, she signs my paychecks and essentially started a new company after I crashed my old one. There's a whole long story there of me doing stupid with a capitalist for about 10 years prior to that.

Keith Kalfas  2:59  

How old are you now?

Caleb Auman  3:01  

37, I think about that for a second. haha

Keith Kalfas  3:02  

You guys are married and have three kids?

Caleb Auman  3:04  

Yeah, married with three kids. And we've, our sole income is the company and we wouldn't have any other crazy lifestyle but we wouldn't have any other way.

Keith Kalfas  3:12  

Awesome and I saw you guys on Instagram you're about to hit 20,000 subscribers and followers on Instagram.

Caleb Auman  3:17  

Yeah, Instagram's my jam. I just love Instagram and I've learned so much from other contractors that I admire on Instagram.

Keith Kalfas  3:24  

What's your tag so people can check you out?

Caleb Auman  3:26  

It's Auman, it's @aumanlandscapellc is our environment. My foreman has one it's out on the landscape but he doesn't put much on there.

Keith Kalfas  3:33  

So,  a-u-m-a-n?

Caleb Auman  3:34  

Correct. Yeah, the Spelling's crazy. Yeah, Auman. A-u-m-a-n. Yes, Sir.

Keith Kalfas  3:38  

Alright, sweet. So, all right. So stage one business, the guys running around by him by himself in a pickup truck, like a chicken with his head cut off trying to do it all. He's getting home at dark then trying to do paperwork. His books are a mess. He doesn't even know what his numbers are because he doesn't have time to do them. And the profit margins are to the point where he can hire stage two. It's maybe you've got a couple of guys working and you can leave the job site for a few hours to go sell. You're doing marketing. You've got some guys on payroll, stage three is where you're out of the field. And you've got guys now working and you're doing sales, marketing, running the business and making sure that calendar stays full. Where are you at?

Stage three is where Caleb’s business is right now, where they go out in the field and they have employees to do the job, his wife, and him doing the sales, marketing, and running the business. They also open up another division of their business called Auman Environmental.  Awesome, right? 

Caleb Auman  4:19  

We're, I guess we're stage three at the moment. So yeah, I'm, we do. Brittany and I will go out and do a little bit of like, almost like emergencies. We started another division or a company called Auman Environmental and so it handles like stormwater management type work. So you'll see like retention ponds at like grocery stores and stuff like outflows. So we've been cleaning, we clean those out or we put new big rip rap in there or fix broken pipes or the drains in parking lots we go fix those. So a store will notice a sinkhole and like they need a pretty quick turnaround on that sinkhole repair and so her and I usually jump in a truck grab an excavator and run and take care of that. So that's kind of like her nice like emergency response kind of deal otherwise, our other project manager john handles that stuff. It's if it's a little more scheduled out so that's what she and I do, but primarily we're kind of I think vision casting is what I call it earlier and I think it's a maybe that's common, I don't know. But she and I are trying to just keep the direction of the company right away keep our four guys that are in the field because they consume a lot of work and a lot of materials and so we've got to be more than ever diligent with like working, you know, working on the business and not in you know..

Keith Kalfas  5:18  

These guys out here. They're cutting lawns and edging and?

Caleb Auman  5:21  

We don't, we got out of lawncare about six years ago, I think.

Keith Kalfas  5:26  

And you're doing hardscapes and patios and construction?

Caleb Auman  5:29  

Yeah, that's the primary portion of our business at the moment is hardscape construction, landscape design, so paver patios, retaining walls, and then horticultural work planting trees and shrubs and doing landscape install stuff like that. And then the other division of the company is more construction based. And we're working on getting that off the ground with our project manager there and that's, that's exciting. You know, sometimes that's fresh. Sometimes like a breath of fresh air starting something new or new venture is like is really exciting, and it's cool because it's also diversifying us because it's deemed essential work too. So, with this new quote, new normal unquote, you know, that we're going into, I think that kind of work is going to be, we just want to diversify that way long story short, we want to kind of like target was able to stay open during this whole pandemic thing because they carried some groceries, how fortunate

6:16

I bet you they'll take a loss on that division of their company for the rest of time, just to be able to stay open during a pandemic or something should these shutdowns which are going probably going to be the new normal which I hate to say so diversity is diversification of work and work styles is like pretty important to me but trying and the same time and not to get caught up in that trap of like doing every style work there because I used to do that too. I wouldn't turn anything down I know to a freakin thing man we'd be, I'd be up in a tree that I should not be in on a ladder cut and topping out a tree to bring it down. Dude, I've done so much crazy dumb stuff in contracting and not at all the hard way and not make money and all that stuff. So, you know, it's maybe more typical than that is but I like I'm not afraid to share because I don't want guys to go down that same road that I did or hopefully they don't, or at least, you know, they don't get hurt as hard as I did by losing their company, their first company or whatever. So that's why I try to be as open as I can be. Here we are.

Keith Kalfas  7:09  

Thank you so much. So I'm trying to do a million things at once we do that because you know, I go deep in @PaulJamison was making fun of me about this the other day, I mean, all the civil I love Paul man he..

Caleb Auman  7:21  

He is a genuine Heart of Gold dude.

Keith Kalfas  7:23  

So, what's up, Paul, so, but your sympathetic nervous system takes over it's a fight or flight response is the part of your brain that makes you survive, you know, then just strictly the mammalian part of the brain. So you can't access the structure and strategy and actually calm the fuck down for a few minutes and then take a look at what are we going to do to strategize for this thing long term? What are the right decisions to make? What is my f**** man-hour rate? What are my numbers? I wonder my books like? And when people say things like that to me, like "What do you mean you don't have QuickBooks and you're not tracking every penny?"  like, and it would be like almost like, take on all this shame when they would say that. And it's because Dude, I wasn't even charging enough to even afford the time to do that I was just trying to get the lights on and keep the bills paid. So can you talk about the transition from going to that? How do you get out of that and get to the next step where you start putting some structure and systems in your business?

Caleb Auman  8:19  

Sure. A huge part of it for me early in business and even I still even struggle with it to some extent now, but like, I heard you say, your awesome presentation at Entrepreneur last summer, last winter? Or was it still 2020 that went on or is that 2019? Anyways? Yeah, 19 duh. But you say you know, you got to know your worth and I was way underselling our skills, way underselling our ethics because we were at what I mean by that is we were an ethical company, we were good and like honest, and we didn't put a dollar value on that of like selling what we were worth and so as the part, it was like a self-respect issue possibly of like, not just not selling our company in our services for what it's worth. And so you then get it. That issue of you start to get behind an eight ball, you get behind the eight balls of like. It starts to become tough to get ahead of like taking the time to run your numbers and figure out and I would run numbers sometimes back in my first company and it'd be ugly of like oh god we hit $25 of man-hour there. That's not good and I would kind of like always kick can down the road. Okay, next month is going to be better we'll price our work for what I know this job is going to take I'm going to put that number on it because I know that's what it's gonna take to hit $60 of man-hour, whatever. And it just didn't materialize for so long.

Keith Kalfas  9:32  

Why not?

Caleb Auman  9:33  

Fear and honestly like I probably you know, really cuz I guess we're just gonna be really I'll be really open here like, I just don't know if I it's weird cuz I didn't see it like this at the time but like thinking, hey, that customer will never pay that for further work and not I just really didn't even realize but it didn't respect my own time enough to like charge enough to run a business off of it. Greg Wittstock so said something. He's like

Keith Kalfas  9:55  

The pond guy.

Caleb Auman  9:56  

Oh, gosh, man. He's driven, Dude. Yeah, he is. And he's built a huge, huge, amazing company. And one of the greatest things I heard him say, was like, "Never place your value of $1 against your client’s value of $1 or the value of a project" just because this patty, I can build this patty, I can build a patio, and like I would never pay $10,000 for a patio. But that's because I'm looking at from a standpoint like I can build this myself. Like I can do it way cheaper because I know how to do it, I've got the stuff. And so I'm putting my value of a project on against the homeowner’s value project. Well, the homeowner, like with a website, like I'm willing to pay someone a lot of money to build a website because the value to me is there because I don't know how to Freakin' do it. And hopefully, that web person respects their time because, their own time, because I respect their time enough to be willing to pay a premium for it. But I fell in this trap of not respecting my own time enough and there's a lot of things to like early on in my company like we weren't efficient enough. You know, we didn't like for a long time we didn't own any skid steer so we were renting one and that whole debacle of going to get a machine doing it. Try to get done in the allotted amount of time return it, then, oh crap, we really need it tomorrow.

11:04

But we don't have the budget forward just so we're up to 85 wheelbarrows and make it, I'm exaggerating, but and so you. So the big thing is like you've got to know your numbers with your company and know what you need to survive dollar-wise, first off, and then be able to pass on jobs that aren't going to, aren't going to get you there. You got to have the skill level of course. But the thing is most guys have the skill level. It's the business acumen they lack. And you got to put so much effort into really knowing how to run a proper company, a proper business and it's something I knew a lot of stuff because I used to study like Charles Vander Kooi, who was a huge like, multiple overhead recovery system gurus, you know, he always he signed a book I bought from such a dork. I mean, I understood all the things in your heart of hearts. I knew my first company was failing, like, I knew what was wrong, but I just, you just get so busy and just again, that 10 million things to do. It just becomes hard to write the shift eventually. And so you got to recognize if that's what's going on in your company, you got to recognize it and figure out a way to push pause or scale back a little bit and just try to get your head above water.

12:08

And just even if it's a confidence issue just start slow, raising your rates, slowly, anything, you got anything you got to do to get to that light, you got to do it. And it's tough, man, I've been there. And it's tough, but you got to get there because you got to build a company that you can survive on that you'd be proud of. And that was, I said this the other day, so I feel like I'm the reason I say I feel like just I repeat myself too much sometimes. But like, when I was younger, especially and this is one of my things when I was 24 and even 20 a lot of guys I knew that age or you know, they had lawn care businesses, and they would have you know like they would end up having kids or get somebody pregnant or whatever, like well, I got rid of my lawncare company cuz I need to get a real business need to get a real job, need to go get a real job, and I always heard that and just curled my skin and like curled my blood, so just like, but this isn't a real job. And I just it just lit a fire in me to like I swear I'm going to have a real company someday that I can draw a salary off support a family and do some of the nice things in life with that. And it took me way too long to get there, Keith. But we finally got to where we're drawing a decent salary and can do some stuff but it took me learning the hard way a long time. So I don't know I think I rambled on there for a little bit sorry, man, but it's just for me, it was a confidence issue.

Fear and Confidence Issue gets in the way for you to raise up your price. But you need to realize what is your worth and you got to know how to get to that too. Don’t let fear and confidence issues prevent you from getting what you deserve. 

13:18

I think a lot of like, just knowing my worth, like you preach a lot. And you gotta, you got to come to that realization of what’s your worth and you got to know how to get to that too. You got to know and it's really not that hard is the crazy thing you've really figured out, you know, how many man-hours a year you're going to work and generally, for the seasonal business, you know, if we're not planting everything, 1500, 2000 hours if you're really going nuts, and then you divide your overhead into that, you know what I mean? All your bills, I'll help you give an hourly rate. Let's just keep the math simple. Like you're if you're gonna work 1000 hours this year, and you need to make at least $35,000 a year. Okay, right. There are 35 bucks an hour on your charge. You've got to have 35 an hour in there just to make your own salary, and then truck payment and your truck or whatever or even if you don't have truck payments, you need to be banking up that cash. To buy things is the revolving door of purchasing, updating your asset. And so like you take your phone bill and divided in at 30,000 hours and you know your internet and you've all these fixed overhead costs. And so it's not super hard, it can be intimidating, but just you know, just start taking a stab, there's software out there that can help you do this. There are people out there who can help you do this, you know, invest 500 or 1000 bucks and somebody can help you figure these things out and you'll be all the better off for it.

Keith Kalfas  14:18  

One of the hard things to get over is the fear and the shame of actually having somebody look at your business and how good you're not really doing and like and so because you're afraid they're gonna go, "What, what the hell are you doing?"

Caleb Auman  13:18  

I know, dude, I did a job for an accountant one time and I know he knows I did the job to cheap and he's like, "Caleb, I'd love to help you with your business someday. And like, you know, I'd love to all look at your books, no charge. I'd love to help you just see if I can help you in any way." And I say one of the things like I think he wanted to mentor me but I was young and dumb, and I knew everything and, and I  knew again in my heart hearts like I would embarrass myself because I knew in my heart hearts, I was not charging enough and I wouldn't make any money. And I didn't let him do it. And it's one of those things like I believe things have got to take their course. And I wouldn't change my history or trajectory in any way because it put me right here on this couch right now, I believe. So it's like, you have to go back and change some things. Everything I've learned up till now is like, got me where I'm at. I wouldn't change anything. But it same time. It's like, gosh, man, what would the trick what would look different? If I would have been open enough? Be like, "Yes, God, let's do it. Yeah. Okay, let's do this." And like, what would that have done? You know, or what? Or what I've, you know, so it's just you look back and you can't dwell on stuff too much. But you know, if somebody is willing to help you consider it, I guess is what I'm getting at.

Keith Kalfas  15:42  

My good friend Joshua Latimer says that he has a PhD in pain and suffering.

Caleb Auman  15:48  

Yeah. He says he has a PhD in d u MB. Yeah, d-u-m-b.  Dave Ramsey.

Break  16:00  

More of today's edition of the Untrapped Podcast continues right after this.

Keith Kalfas  16:06  

Guys if you need help, being more organized, and being perceived as a professional to your clients and prospective customers, then you get to check out Jobber. Jobber is an awesome software that you can run your entire service business. You can create invoices, quotes, estimates, work orders, it integrates with your calendar, you can collect money, you can run your whole business on jobber and grow with it as well. Get your 14 days free trial of Jobber at keithkalfas.com/jobber. I use Jobber in my business and it's awesome.

Break  16:44  

The Untrapped Podcast continues. here's your host, Keith Kalfas.

Keith Kalfas  16:49  

So, but when the students ready the teacher will appear. You know that you know when like you know, Okay, I'm ready like you just know that you're there now for instance when I hired a bookkeeper to manage all my books. I started looking at what it was gonna cost. And I was like, "I don't know if I'm ready for that." And I was like, You know what? I asked myself because I don't like to point the finger at anybody else. But I say "Who the f*** am I becoming?" Do I want to be like, the people that I aspire to be like, because if they're not doing their books or having someone in house and they have a bookkeeper, right? So, when I finally hired a bookkeeper, and now I would, I would never go back. Right?  And because you look at when you finally get started getting P&L statements, and you know what's going on in the business and you're looking at the numbers, you go, "Oh, my God, it's all becoming clear." So that just made your money right there because you have a sense of clarity. If you don't know where you're at. That's the first and most important thing I think is seeing with the brutal reality of where you're at. How did you start to see, where you were in order to start making the changes? Oh, geez.

Caleb Auman  17:58  

Uhm. Well, it's kind of cool. I don't know. I've never been asked that question that way so that's interesting. I was thinking about that a little bit and I would love to know Britt, my wife's perspective on that because her and I kind of, I, get off really. Oh boy, Keith You know, it was one of the things. I was getting tired sick and tired of being sick and tired. Like I was just like, so fed up with being broke all the time. But I'll tell you the one thing man that really likes really began to get me like oh, it's real now because for like for a long time my company was like 1st four or five years from like, when I was a kid, 16 to like 22 probably? We're getting by the as okay kid, money, all that kind of stuff you know like I get by. But then after that where I started trying to be like big-time Joe big-time contractor is what I call myself and like trying to take on projects we didn't own the right machinery for and all this stuff like that's in having guys on payroll and trying to hold payroll taxes myself, guess where that because I didn't hire a bookkeeper and things got nasty fat and so like I ended up long story short, getting behind super behind in payroll taxes and sales tax and all this junk eventually got to a point where I was trying to run my problem.

The tax issue is a common problem in a start-up business, especially if you don’t have a bookkeeper to manage your finances. This might lead to business failure if not managed pretty well 

18:59 

I go into winter time go work down on my cousin's ranch in Oklahoma and I got a letter one time my sister would get my mail for me and all that stuff back home and she would go through it and she's like "Caleb there's a letter from the IRS" and long story short was like they're gonna say they say they're gonna start coming to get stuff if you don't contact them so I just totally wrote them off forever and you know A that's the symptoms like run trying to run from your problems for too long because they'll get you eventually they'll catch up with you. And so that was kind of like actually like the great moment of reckoning of like, Oh my gosh, like it's, it's finally it's caught up with me now like, you know, these chickens have come home to roost and the taxman says "Guess what? Pay up or we're coming to take stuff" and a time I really have anything to take but it was still like from the IRS. That's scary. Do you know what I mean? Like it was the first of many of those letters I learned how to begin to like navigate those waters cuz I was in a terrible mess. And like that was the beginning of the awakening, let's say of like, dude, life is real. Now. I can't run from this and I got to figure something out. And so, fortunately, Britt and I started dating right about that time and the hierarchy or not hierarchy this

Keith Kalfas  20:05  

Hey, wait. One more thing, you say a key indicator. It's real now and I can't run from this

Caleb Auman  20:11  

Anymore yeah,

Keith Kalfas  20:12  

Yeah, it's sometimes we do that I had an old friend that said I don't like to make tough decisions so I wait for somebody to make the decision for me or just or things get so bad or in a predicament where I'm forced to make the decision. And he was so honest about that. I was like, wow!

It’s not easy to manage your finances if you will do it just yourself. The biggest benefit you’ll get from hiring an accountant is, you will have someone to look into your records and tell you where your money is going. They could give you any advice about your tax issues too. 

Caleb Auman  20:30  

That's open Yeah. Yeah, that's boy, that's crazy. And that's kind of guess where I was like I got it to where a decision was made for me and then it forced me to buck up and take care of it and even you know, and boy, that was a long road and I'm still paying off my state taxes and I'm behind on I got six more months and payments on state taxes and federal stuff. We're still ironing out but it's mostly done. And Dude, that's 10 years later, by the way, and so that's why the reason I share this stuff is like if you're behind in taxes, or you have issues, do the smart thing like Keith did and get someone, it's gonna cost a lot of money but it's worth it. And you'll end up making you money and it'll save you a ton of heartache down the road. So get a bookkeeper, you know, we were so adamant generally about hiring a professional to do something right like how you hire a guy to build your website. Why not hire somebody for your books?

Keith Kalfas  21:13  

Wait a second, now you're talking about hiring people and I just want to say to keep going. Because I want.. I'm always I used to be the guy who said yeah, but I would get angry when I'm here at guys like you successful guys like you. And I would say what the fuck you're telling me to just go hire somebody. I'm sitting here trying to just go hire somebody. Right? And I would hear things like that and I would go insane. And then I would go work like eight days in a row to like till 10 o'clock at night come home to my wife screaming at me threatening to divorce me. And I would go like frantic crazy because I didn't have any control I can access. So it’s interesting how like, you have to have a place to live. So you have to pay rent, you have to have gas, phone, electricity, you got to have good internet to run your business and you have to have a good cell phone with a good cell phone plan so you can run your business. You have to have a good running truck with oil changes. You have to have insurance you have to have this you have to and I go through this whole damn thing. I'm like, Oh my God, this cost so much money like in the beginning, and I'm not saying everybody here listening to this in the beginning, but it seems so freaking expensive.

And if you have dependents you can feel like you're being squeezed through the cracks where you have no freedom. And then you just look in your eyes every day. And you're like, you have deep bags under your eyes. And you're, you become a shell of your former self and you become the person you always feared you'd become, which is a guy who, who's painted himself into a corner who's just and then people say, "Well, you're spending too much money you need to live. You're living beyond your means." Like "What? what do you mean? I go out to eat once a month?"  And they're like, "No, look at those shoes you're wearing." Then they'll cut you down like some Dave Ramsey shit-talking about? Well, you need to go to work four jobs and live a cardboard box for three days. And like that shit pissed me off so bad that I just started like savagely pulling that work the harder lever and raise the price. lever yeah taking chances because but I had to be backed into a corner. I felt I had no choice. What about you?

Caleb Auman  23:06  

I guess that's probably when the Taxman came that's pretty much where I was. That was, again that the hard iceberg of reality that finally was like, I can't run from this anymore. I need to figure out how to fix it.

Keith Kalfas  23:17  

But you had all the self-limiting beliefs back then too, right?

Caleb Auman  23:20  

Yeah, yeah. Still Yeah, like we weren't charging enough for our work. And

Keith Kalfas  23:24  

So did you just work yourself to death?

Caleb Auman  23:26  

Yeah, more or less. Yeah, just worked like crazy and I still have like a good like mid I still have like a good 20-year-old lifestyle, let's say of like, I still travel a little bit with my buddies on a shoestring budget, you know, I'd get paid from a job and take some of that money and go on a trip. We didn't plan for a while and, you know, do all that dumb stuff, but same time, like I'm probably behind in my insurance, and you know, live living that dumb, mid-20-year-old lifestyle with no kids and you know, like, and that's another thing to have. Like as you get older, you start to like, and I need to get some things together to get things together for the future, right?

Keith Kalfas  23:58  

Have you ever had those thoughts, but I don't want to get my life together while I'm out here with the sun beating on me working in the dirt every day?

Caleb Auman  24:04  

Dude, I deal with that still like it's so, so one of the things about when Brittany and I get called into the field to go to a service job or something or the company if we're like we spent some time on some jobs we're working on a job for two weeks and dude the company I say this because it feels like it's not really but dude the company falls apart when we're out in the field because like it's not it's it reminds me so much it harkens back to the days where how I got in trouble the first place like oh my god, you know, I left the house at six this morning, we're pulling in at six again, I do not feel like returning the seven voicemails I've got waiting on me or like dealing with an upset, you know, client and it's like, I see how it keeps me grounded to remember like what it's like to be at that level of the grind, you know? And so, yeah, it's so tough to be an owner-operator. And so it reminds me of that, I forget, I guess whereas even going with this, but I know I totally relate to like, yeah, it just it's so hard to be the producer and facilitate all the stuff that's involved to take the run the company and I guess that's where you got to decide where you're going to go as a company, are you going to be a guy that just works like that? Are you going to set a goal of building something in your life?

Building a company is not as easy as you think. The difficult part of it is if you mismanaged your business because you don’t have the goal of building something in your life.  

25:09

And it's going to take like, crazy discipline, which is something I didn't have a lot of when I'm in my mid-20s. And I eat we always did good work, quality work. We were a good contracting business. We weren't a good business, you know what I mean? And I was just young and I but you know, I know guys that were like just had a different mentality of me that were my age and they built some incredible companies that were profitable and it just the way my stubborn had had to be, I guess it's just my, my temperament was just how I had to be and how my whole life has worked out the way it has just because it's how it had to be for me, I guess, but it still didn't change the fact that ultimately, eventually, like, I made the decision of like, I'm not going back to that lifestyle, trying to figure out how I'm going to pay, you know, bills that month and also to I was just so in love with the industry.

25:57

 I'd put off paying a phone bill to buy a new string trimmer or like a new concrete saw or something like that just go so in love with the business or you know the actual like work as in love with the work and maybe not so much the business and so, you know, I finally really came to a point where it's like I want to build you know I'm going to build I've always had that mentality like I'm going to build a company and we finally got there I believe but they're just been with a lot of hard times and I but I bit of self-inflicted hard times because I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I wasn't like dirt level poverty either. And I had a good upbringing I'm very blessed for that night count those blessings constantly. But you know, at the same time, I managed to screw up what blessings I did have and drive them into the ground because just mismanagement and all that stuff and I had to work ethic to overcome the shortsightedness of not no financial management so that when all that was like a long-winded route there but yeah, Keith so that's, you know, I've been all through all that stuff.

26:54

So I get them and like you said of like, it's easy for me to sit here now and say, yeah, just go hire someone because I get that like, I know the times when you don't have someone you know the money to just go hire someone you've just got to find it yourself to figure out how you're going to make that happen if you want to get ahead in life and it's just that it's that complicated and it's that simple just all you've got to figure out a way to make it happen and that's just it.

Keith Kalfas  27:18  

No, like you. You really know how to dial in the way you talk about what it's like to be a contractor. You talk the language bro. Doesn't he, Brian? Brian Fullerton here. He said, yes.

Caleb Auman  27:34  

Well, I've done stupid been stupid and I'm not much removed from it now but because I talked to guys going through this crap and even at Brian's event, like, Dude came up to me so sharing stuff about my tax issue and he came up to me like, and this is what makes it all worth it. You know, you go out and you tell her to tell a crowd of 500 people I've been bankrupt. That s** you know, who would want to go say that right? Like, Hey, I'm so dumb. You know, I've been I went broke. I crashed a company, but like this dude came up, he's like, Hey, man, I got some taxes. You know how to get them handled. It's like, so cool. It makes it all worth it. Like it's critical to open yourself up like it, you know, makes it all worth it.

Keith Kalfas  28:10  

Do you have mentors in your life or people around you your Fab Five?

Caleb Auman  28:14  

Yeah, totally. And, and I've always been blessed with the man one of my biggest blessings in life is to be surrounded by people that were like, passionate about what they did, regardless of what it was and good about what it was and I was always still studying and reading like Charles Vander Kooi,  Marty Grunder, and Frank Mariani and Dick Hensley. I could throw names forever of guys that like a lot of my never even met and they're mentors of mine they don't even know if you know, kind of deal and but I still especially in the construction and building realm I always was talking to guys about learning to build I love building like it just building is in my blood.

Mentors you got to have one. If you can’t pay one find a legend who you could look up to, know their history. If you can’t follow their footsteps because we all have our own strategies and ways. Learn from their mistakes, and take only those that could help you. Caleb shared some of their names, looked them up, and researched them. 

Keith Kalfas  28:45  

Say those guys’ names again.

Caleb Auman  28:46  

This is something I want to do someday with a series of like to introduce the Social Media generation to the I would say like almost the founding fathers of the landscape industry and it's Frank Mariani Mardi Grunder, Frank J. Schmidt. Charles Vander Kooi.

Keith Kalfas  29:01  

We got to go hunt these guys down.

Caleb Auman  29:04  

There are so many dudes out there that like had a big influence in my life and in my college instructors at my community college I went to Dick Hensley, Steven Neil, and Fred Howard. Those dudes were just passionate professionals about what they did and a lot of positive average attributes to them I guess like emulating what they did with their companies when they built companies and sold them or did whatever but you've got to find guys that are where you want to be and just do your best with prudence you know, figure out what they're doing like you're saying early and emulate that and I do that now with guys of like, where I want to be and I see what they're doing and I asked him I try to be open and ask and fortunately, a lot of guys share their experiences and it's good, it's good. So you gotta be willing to be open and open yourself up to like, Look, I'm screwing this up real bad. Can you help me and it stops some guys say no, and other guys will and, you know, just take that advice with a grain of salt. And you know, dude, darndest to get ahead for your sake, and your posterity's sake.

Keith Kalfas  30:01  

I got one last question for you. It's, have you ever got those thoughts? Or what would you say for the guys that think, but I don't want to be the guy who owns a landscaping business. And I've built this whole thing like imagine if they see where they're at right now. And they're in a place of working their tail off. And they think of owning some business that's four or five times the size, like five nooses around their neck, rather, they have no freedom in their life, even if they did make more money doing it. How? Do you experience any freedom from your business where they can visualize themselves in a place where like, oh, that would actually be awesome, right? If they're seeing that in a negative light, and they feel like they're just building a big trap?

Listen to this, guys. This is Caleb’s advice to guys out there who feel that they are trapped in a deep abyss of business failure. 

Caleb Auman  30:48  

Right. A company is a blank book that you can write, finish to the beginning and so you say I want to end up here. I don't want to have those incredible burdens of like running a big company. You can run a company with two or three guys and yourself, it's your book, write it how you want it. And if you don't want that, and that's not your drive in life, you don't have to scale to $2 million, or even a million dollars that matter, you can be plenty profitable, like Steve was talking earlier today, like, you can be plenty profitable at three or $400,000 make a good living. And if you're smart with it, and set it aside and invest and do stuff like it, you'll set yourself up so fantastically. It'll make your head spin. So it's all about you've got to write those chapters in that book the way you want it to be and you have that freedom, fortunately, it might how you get there might be challenging and the toughest thing you've ever done in your life, but it's totally possible don't feel that's a trap that I fell into of thinking with my first company like I have to scale I have to hit XYZ sales, you know, dollar, you know, sales or whatever you don't have to you can be very profitable at $300,000 in sales or whatever, or even just a solo guy out mowing grass for you know, and you're bringing in $100,000 a year and you're netting 50 off that like it's totally it's your book and you write it how you want and don't let him tell you what your business should be. It's all it's entirely up to you. I mean, it's you've got to know your why. So why are you in business? Is it to work yourself to death? Or is it to work yourself to death for a little while because that's what it takes. And then you build this, this machine that takes you where you want to go.

Keith Kalfas  32:12  

You know, is one of the biggest blessings? I used to plow snow for years, but I do different stuff now with the internet business. I am full heavy on into landscaping. We do a lot of landscaping. We're booked out for nine weeks right now. But it was going from barely being able to afford to pay my bills and hating my landscaping business to, I opened up a savings account and it's called winter savings account, right? And we're on the payroll, but I also take draws from the business to just balance that out and talk to my accountant. Seek your accountant’s advice on that. Absolutely. Depending on how you file your taxes and everything but we pay yourself a reasonable salary, but basically by the time the winter comes, when I finally said, Oh my God if I wanted to, I could literally just sit around on my ass and watch Netflix all winter and do nothing. Until springtime, because I have enough money budgeted out to pay all the bills for Christmas forever. And obviously you like you wouldn't do that. But I think when you get like to that level, once you start having some money where you can go on a vacation or two, and you can experience the freedom of the business and you get over that first or second hump, you start to reap the benefits.  And have you been able to reap those benefits?

Caleb Auman  33:21  

We have Yeah, we have and we've, you know, from 10 years ago, we were always super fruit, like, we got kind of funny, you mentioned Dave Ramsey thing, but like we got super into the Dave Ramsey thing and we ate slept and breathed it from cleaning up my old mess. And like Britt came into the picture like right, pretty much when the Taxman started coming after me. And it's this archetype and I heard it so well from Jordan Peterson, the guy just love what he has to say about anything. But he was a lot of Disney movies follow these archetypes of like the script of the plot. And so Beauty and the Beast, right, a beautiful young woman comes and rescues this monster and turns them into a gentleman, right? And so like Britt's kind of like this archetype. Over his overall archetype of generally like a woman will come into your life and straighten you out. Thank God. Like that's what happened to me. And like Britt helped me get my shit together ultimately and like without her I don't who knows I may be back to a second crash company at this point Who knows?

Keith Kalfas  34:14 

That's my wife too

Caleb Auman  34:16  

I heard. I understand that and it's it follows those archetypes, right? You know, so I just thought that was just an interesting correlation. Like you know, the reason people like those movies because they follow these themes that are so prevalent we don't even know it. You know?

Keith Kalfas  34:27  

My wife has this keen ability to spot out any little unconscious thing I have that I'm not aware of some even down to a nervous tick, she can pull it out and show it to me and I'll try to stick my head in the sand on it and shoulders hold it there until I till I see the light and I've become so much better for it and bro, I'd love to have you back on the show sometime

Caleb Auman  34:50  

I'd be flattered.

Keith Kalfas  34:50  

As soon as I can work get my way into Ohio which should be pretty soon here. We're going to show up to the company that should have logged and had you on the channel. How can people check you out?

Caleb Auman  34:59  

All our Social Media handles everything is @AumanLandscape twitter Instagram, Snapchat TikTok. You name it.

Keith Kalfas  35:06  

Bro, You are a gem. Thanks for being on The Untrapped Podcast. Go to keithkalfas.com/podcast you can find us on any major platform we just hit one top 100 in entrepreneurship on Apple. If you like the show, go there and show it by leaving us a good word positive Five Star Review. It really helps the show out it'll take you 90 seconds go to Apple podcasts and leave us a well worded positive five-star review and I'll see you on the next show. Right now we're releasing shows every Monday. We're gonna pump it up to two times a week soon. See you later, guys.