Rebolt Rundown
The Rebolt Rundown is the definitive, no-fluff guide for home service business owners, delivering actionable marketing strategies and growth hacks designed to help them scale. Each episode features a high-achieving industry expert who breaks down the exact tactics required to move from the daily grind to a success story.
Rebolt Rundown
The $900K Lesson: Revenue Doesn't Mean You're Making Money
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Logan was a sponsored surfer until COVID pulled the rug out. He grabbed a pressure washer to make rent — and three years later he's running a landscaping and hardscape company in Orange County doing $900K+ a year. The catch: at $900K in revenue he had $8K in the bank and $30K on a credit card. "Basically dead," in his words.
This is the real math behind a fast-growing trades business — how he landed his first jobs off a single Facebook post, why he learned to build by watching YouTube the night before, the $5K website that did nothing, and the one shift (brand before marketing) that finally fixed his margins. No hacks, no hustle-porn — just what actually worked.
I would door dash at night for like four to five hours just to make enough money to pay for my tank of gas for the week. Couch surf eight, nine months. Basically dead in the water. So I was like looking up on TikTok how to make extra money, how to make a buck. I made like 500 bucks. Holy. What if I could actually make this into a business? And then this year I'm projected to at least 1.5. I should be at like a 30%.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to the Rebolt Rundown. I'm here with Logan, the owner of Coastal Outdoor Services. Logan, thank you for joining us. Uh tell us uh just a little bit about your business, uh, your your backstory, and and then we'll get into it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, so we're based out of Orange County, California, right down the road from you guys, and we do landscape hardscapes. We do full outdoor living designs uh and installs, and then grew up in Florida, moved out here about nine years ago. Awesome. Awesome, awesome.
SPEAKER_02So you have an interesting story because you very interesting what were a professional surfer. Is that right? Yes. Give us the full rundown. Like, I want to know, you know, in in Florida, surfing to like why you came out to California, and then we'll get into how you actually got into the trades.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. So growing up in Florida, I grew up in kind of like Tampa, Clearwater area, and then always went over to the East Coast every weekend, three, four-hour drive, uh, there and back in the same day. So kind of like right when I hit about 15, my dad had a job opportunity out here in Long Beach, and all the sponsorships, the contests, kind of like, and in the being in the middle of Hawaii and kind of like the US of where I'd travel. So it was kind of like a good opportunity to come out here, kind of break ground out here and get my face in the industry. So we moved out with my dad and I. My mom was a teacher. She couldn't find like a job out here that matched what we should be getting paid or whatever. So my dad ended up moving back right before I turned 16. And I ended up staying. So that was pretty cool. Um, met this kid from high school, moved in with him like two weeks after I met him. Lived with him for about a year. Their family was great. His name's Cade. And then COVID hit, came back out here and because I was back home in Florida for a contest. Okay. Got stuck there for a couple months. Made it back out here, couch surf for maybe I don't know, eight, nine months with my coach. Got a storage unit, kind of lived out of that for a little bit. Yeah. And then moved in with my best buddy. And then during the COVID kind of time, sponsorships kind of started dwindling down because we couldn't travel, we couldn't surf. So I started picking up pressure washing. And I was doing pressure washing as kind of like a side gig. Yeah. And then this lady's like, hey, you want to do my landscape? And I was like, Yeah, sure, I'll try it out. Went and bought a chainsaw, had a forerunner, packed everything in my forerunner. Yeah. Did that job, and then it was kind of that kind of started the the journey. Wow. Kind of started seeing that I could make my own money and without getting a job. Yeah. Because nobody would hire me. Um, I tried applying for jobs, but with how much I traveled for surfing, I couldn't hold the job. Nobody wanted that. Um, and school too, my teachers hated me. So I always asked for my my work up front. So I went on to online school, had the opportunity to do that, did school for like a couple hours a day, surfed, did my side gig jobs, and built up into this business.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Um, and maybe so uh surfing in in Florida, and then you moved out to California with the fam and then kind of went back and forth competitions. You also went out to Hawaii too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my uncle lives out in Hawaii. Um I got a coach out there, and there was contests, so I'd be out there every winter. Yeah. Um, every year, and then I would travel kind of all around the U.S. for contests, Mexico, Barbados, kind of all around.
SPEAKER_02And was this during school? Like you were uh out of school, you were out of high school at this time.
SPEAKER_01So this was so I started competitively surfing around kind of like when actually when I was super young, like eight. Okay. But I really started going for it when I was like 12, 13. Traveled a lot through middle school and then high school. I moved out here middle of freshman year, and then that's where it kind of like really took off. Um so I went to Huntington High School, middle of freshman year to junior year, still traveling through that time, and then junior year is when I switched online. Got it, got it, got it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. And maybe uh talk about like the discipline aspect of training for a sport, right? Um, it's and and I uh I think it's really important that like I I want to hear about the the discipline of surfing and how that uh transitioned into running a business because I think a lot of uh it very goes hand in hand.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah, definitely. Um because I mean to be at the top of the game at the level that I was, yeah, it was surfing for two to four hours a day. Yeah. Going to the gym, working with personal trainers, working on nutrition. Nutrition was the biggest thing. Um, I don't know if you go to the gym, but yeah, you gotta be so dialed in on that. Oh, yeah, and so dedicated that having that discipline in the sport really transferred into the business to where getting things done that have to be done, that's kind of where I picked up on that super quick. Yeah. And then just also kind of being able to grind on that, putting that energy into the business, kind of like the same aspect, yeah, really helped out.
SPEAKER_02Nice, nice. And so um, it was during COVID when kind of the sponsorship opportunities for surfing started to go away. And then um, how did you get that first pressure washing job? Like, or or I guess um, why why did you pick pressure washing to begin?
SPEAKER_01It was kind of uh, I think like TikTok kind of came out right around the end when it switched from like whatever it was to TikTok, yeah. And then that's kind of like when the trend started, it's like everybody started pressure washing for like side gigs, yeah. And I was like, oh man, I need to make some money.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I was kind of like on my own in that aspect. My parents helped out, but anything extra I wanted to do was on me. Yeah. Um, so I was like looking up on TikTok, how to make extra money and make a buck. Yeah, tried drop shipping, didn't that that didn't work. Tried doing everything else, and then my buddy had a pressure washer. I was like, hey, can I borrow that? I got a small job that I found from a friend, kind of like a referral. Went and did that, posted on next door after that one, and then posted on Facebook, and then kind of job started building up from there. Wow, wow, very cool.
SPEAKER_02So it was kind of and at this point, you were you said like kind of couch surfing, right? When you were living out here? Yeah. Or had you moved in with your buddy?
SPEAKER_01So my dad moved back right before I turned 16. Yeah. Moved in with my buddy from high school, lived with him for a year till about 17, 18, and then coming back from COVID, it was like that COVID, it was like May. Yeah. Um, where I got stuck in Florida. Okay. Came out here. They ended up moving, so I had nowhere to go. Got a storage unit, threw all my crap in there, and then it'd be like, I'd call up one buddy for the week. Yeah. Hey, I need a place to crash. Can I stay with you? Yeah. And then that was kind of like an ongoing cycle.
SPEAKER_02So you're like 18 to 19 years old. It's kind of like COVID time frame, don't really have a lot of money. All your stuff is in a storage unit. Yeah. And you're like trying to figure out like how I can make extra cash.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I was still trying to surf at the time. Yeah. At that time, since everything was shut down, I couldn't travel. So that's kind of where the sponsorships pulled back because they were losing all their money on that side. Yeah. So that's kind of where the transition, I could see that in the surfing industry where I kind of had to start doing something else. Um, so yeah, I got a storage unit, would do a couple jobs during the day while still training and surfing. I would DoorDash at night for like four to five hours. Yeah. Just to make enough money to pay for my tank of gas for the week. Yeah. And then that was kind of like on repeat.
SPEAKER_02Isn't it so crazy? I talk with obviously a lot of business owners, and the inception story is always something like this. Yeah. Where it's kind of like back against the wall, there's like kind of some luck involved. Like, oh, you know, a buddy had a job. I kind of picked it up, or I was looking on TikTok, and then I started doing it. And it's just so fascinating to me. And then all of a sudden you you hear, and we're going to talk about it, but like how the business progresses, how it becomes more serious, and all that sort of stuff. Um, very cool. And then so after you started doing some of those pressure washing jobs, um, what was like the how were you getting business at that point?
SPEAKER_01Like, was it word of mouth or the pressure washing jobs was pretty much all next door. Oh, okay. And then I didn't find out about like Facebook local groups until kind of later on when I saw like a friend of a friend again post on Facebook, hey, looking for a landscaper. So I reached out to her. I was like, Hey, what are you looking to do? Because I grew up in Florida mowing lawns and all that. Um, and then she's like, Yeah, I need some bushes cut, mulch put in, whatever. And then she's like, Hey, you should join this local group for Huntington. Got in there, and then I posted my pressure washing pictures before and afters. That got a lot of traction. And then I did the landscape job, posted that one, and I was like, Hey guys, I'm a 19-year-old kid from Huntington Beach. Yeah, I'm a surfer, I go to school, looking to make some extra side cash. And then I got so many phone calls. Really? Oh my gosh. And I played that for probably like a year or two, just putting my age, college student, looking to make extra money. Yeah. And then that kind of like started that trade. This was in the Facebook local groups. Yeah. Wow. Yep. All Facebook local groups. And it's still to this day, probably 60 to 70% of my work is from Facebook local groups. Wow, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02So at the um, I'd be curious, like in the earliest day, what do you recommend if somebody is getting into the trades today and they have a pressure washer at home or maybe a chainsaw or whatever, and they want to get into it, what should they do to start getting business leads?
SPEAKER_01I wish I figured out I wish I did door knocking and like door hangers at that time, because we do it now and it it kills. Really? Um, and I mean, during that during my early days, I would make one post and then I would just sit around, wait for somebody to reach out. And I never kind of like put in the time for door knocking or door hanging. Um, so if I did that, and if they did that, I think that'd make a huge killing. Just kind of get your name out there. Yeah. And then you kind of start the brand, people see your face, and then kind of get into like the Facebook, the next door, and just get out for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So that first the first set of jobs, it sounds like, was like kind of a year time frame where you were like pressure washing, getting into some soft scaping, like not really hard scaping. Yep. And so um that went on for uh roughly a year. Was that right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I've had my company for actually three years now. Okay. When was it founded? What year? 2023. Okay. And so Coastal Outdoor Services was kind of based off of pressure washing, landscaping. Like we do everything window cleaning, gutter cleaning. I picked up anything that could make a buck. Yeah. Um, so that's why I called it outdoor services. And then so I kind of pulled, I did that for about a year of just trying to pick up anything I could. And then I would say probably like 2024 is when I really started to dial in on just landscape. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Awesome. So about a year of the okay. And then uh how long in the business was it like just you? So it sounds like that first year it was just you. What at what point did you like bring in folks to actually start helping? And then also, like, why did you bring them in? What purpose did they serve as early on?
SPEAKER_01So the first year is pretty much just me. I mean, kind of when I started to get some of the bigger landscape jobs. I mean, not big, but very small, but I needed an extra guy. I'd call my buddy and he'd help out. The second year in, I started to get a couple bigger bigger jobs that I knew I needed more guys, or else it would just take me like three weeks to complete on my own. Yeah. So I found this one guy on Facebook that posted he's looking for work, his name's Giovanni, and I still have him to this day. Nice. So I hired him for the day and he helped me out. Um, we worked together, and then for about another year until 2025, beginning of the year, I was still in the field working with him, picked up two more guys, and then it just got to a point it's like, okay, I cannot be in the field, I cannot be picking up material, doing the labor, doing the computer work, all the back end, everything, and still be productive. So that's when I hired one more guy to take my spot. Giovanni became kind of like the foreman, and then I started working on the back end. Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER_02And um, what took uh how did you start getting the the bigger jobs? You said you were getting like a lot of kind of the the smaller gigs, but then you you got like one or two, three big ones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What were those jobs? How did you get them? Were they like existing homeowners that you had worked on in the past?
SPEAKER_01Like there was a couple, but it was kind of like how I went from pressure washing to the landscape. Somebody would post something, and I was always trying to make any buck I could. Yeah. So I'd say, Hey, I can do it. And then I'd go out, I'd bid them out, watch YouTube on how to do it, and then I'd go do the job. Um, and that kind of was like a domino effect, like especially with my first concrete job. Somebody posted, Hey, I need concrete. I looked up on Google how to or YouTube, how to do concrete, found a guy local from like Santa Ana that was like a concrete finisher, called him up and I said, Hey, can you form and can you finish? He said, Yeah. I was like, so I hired him, brought him out, worked hand in hand with him on that job, picked it up pretty quick. I mean, concrete's pretty easy, and then he basically ran the whole thing, and then I kind of took it on from there. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So it's really for you, it it was just like a lot of like figuring it out.
SPEAKER_01It sounds like you didn't have I did I wasn't taught anything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I figured everything out from Google, YouTube, and then just talked about other people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So there wasn't like um I was gonna ask about like mentors and like obviously you work with Logan now, which we'll talk about, but like prior to working with Logan and the Blue Car Business Accelerator, it was really just you and you. Like there wasn't much else, right?
SPEAKER_01No, I mean when I was actually in my surfing career, yeah, I had a personal trainer, and then there was this old football player that played at Uh USC, Paul McDonald. Okay. I don't know if you've heard of him, he was a quarterback, yeah. And so I got in touch with him. Does he have a brother, Matt McDonald? He might. Okay. Yeah. He's older, he's like way older. Okay. I think he's probably like in his 60s or 70s. Um, so I started having some sit-down conversations with him on like what to do with my surfing career, kind of like how to be guided through life, dedication, training, all of that. And at that time, I actually started up like a mini surf school. So I would do that on the weekends. And then he kind of helped me build that up. And so I took that, um, kind of like how I was running that into the landscape. So he was a good mentor on that side, but for the build aspect, it was just Google and YouTube, YouTube University. Wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What characteristics do you think translated uh very well from surfing into running a business?
SPEAKER_01Having the dedication um and just being able to kind of like pinpoint exactly what needs to be done, because I was very critical on like very specific things that I needed to fix in like my surfing. So being able to see that in a business and just being able to sit down and kind of run it, I guess. Yeah. Um I mean, all all growing up, I kind of would figure out anything that could make a buck. Yeah. So I'd lawn mow, do windows, and then I did that surf school. Yeah. And when I started this surf school, I was just doing like private lessons on the weekend. Started with one kid, went to two, went to three, and then I had like this class of like 20 one day. Wow. And I had like five instructors. Yeah. And it was two hours. I paid the instructors 20 bucks an hour, and I made like 500 bucks. And I was like, holy smokes. Like, what if I could actually make this into a business? Wasn't able to kind of really scale the surfing, the like the surf school aspect, but that's kind of where I saw it into the landscape side. Wow, very cool.
SPEAKER_02Um, and then how did your tooling in the business evolve over time? So, like early on, it sounds like you know, you used Facebook groups. Um, were you doing everything like pen and paper then? Like, how are you keeping track of stuff?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's all Facebook groups for kind of like the marketing. Yeah. And then it was just, yeah, all pen and paper. I had zero clue what money was coming in, zero clue what money was going out. I started using like Excel spreadsheets, and I'd be like, all right, I gotta track every dollar that comes in. I would do it for like two weeks out of the month, and then I would just fall off. And then at the end of the year, it's like, okay, I did $500,000 revenue, made about $1,500 profit. It was like, yeah, I got a business. Yeah. So then kind of sitting back and seeing that, it wasn't until maybe end of 2024, 2025 where I got QuickBooks. Yeah. Got an accountant. So he kind of started helping me with that. And then I used QuickBooks for a long time, switched to another CRM, and then got with Logan, switched to you guys.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Awesome. And then what about on the marketing side? So you evolved that was operationally. You went from uh, you know, pen and paper, Excel to QuickBooks to another CRM to us. What about uh you went from Facebook groups, and then we talked about how you had a previous marketing provider. How did your marketing evolve over time?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it started Facebook groups, and then I tried door knocking for a little bit. That didn't really work. And the Facebook groups, it's great because people know your name, but it's not consistent. So it'd be like, I never knew what I had for the next week. And it'd always just be like this race of what job can I get? All right, let me bid it out low, make no money, but I'm keeping guys busy. Yeah. Or I'm making 500 bucks. So I felt I saw this marketing agency be popped up. Um tried them out. Did pretty good, but I was spending a whole lot of money. Probably spent like Yeah, how much were you spent in? I think it was like four thousand a month. And then with that agency, I paid five thousand dollars for a website that didn't do anything and didn't work. Um it was a really cool looking website, but the SEO side, it didn't do anything. So that kind of brought me in some more jobs, but it was still very inconsistent. Um, and then when I got on with Logan, I saw him on Instagram. I was like, again, hey, it's another agency just trying to sell me some bull crap. Yeah, not gonna do it. Yeah, got on the Zoom with him because he called me out on Instagram because I hit him up in like I think it was like March. I was like, hey, I'm interested, I want to get on a call. Yeah, I had a call scheduled, I didn't show up. And then it was like June time. He I hit him up again, and he's like, No, I don't want your business, you flaked. And I was like, dude, I'm serious this time, like I'm wasting all this money. Got on with him, and then that's kind of where I realized like I had to build the brand before I pay for the marketing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So where were you at right before? So Logan obviously in the Blue Collar Business Accelerator, we work with a ton of their guys, they do great work. Where were you at business wise, operationally, like just in general? And then um, how did Logan's uh group really make an impact on your business and you?
SPEAKER_01So I got on with him in August of 25, and I like just got out of the field then, but I was still doing like the everyday material pickups, checking up on guys, having to be there for shit to be done right. Yeah. Um, and so that kind of was taking a lot of time. My margins were terrible. I was still picking up any job I could. That was what were your margins like roughly back then? I thought they were 30%, but looking back and actually doing the numbers, they were anywhere from like five to fifteen percent. Wow. And my overhead for paying for the marketing agency was like astronomical. Yeah. Um, so I was barely breaking even on a lot of projects. And I had a lot of projects that I had to go and redo. Like a lot of concrete jobs we had to rip out, repo, because I couldn't be on site, and my guys were just missing a couple little things, so I was losing money there. And then getting on with Logan, I really had a pullback, stopped the marketing agency, and kind of started focusing on the brand, and that helped being able to sell the jobs at a higher margin ticket, which really helped me be able to pull out of being in the field and delegate that out to a project manager so now he can kind of run the guys, and then I can work on all the back end.
SPEAKER_02And how long into being Logan's in in Logan's program did you start feeling the impact operationally?
SPEAKER_01I would say uh got on in August, I'd say about January. Wow. Um, because it's like out here in so Cow, we don't really have a winter or fall or anything, but the winter time still slows down because you got Christmas, Thanksgiving, yeah, all of that. And the new year, people are gonna want to spend money. So the winter times are always slow. I was busier in the winter than I was in the summer. Wow. Three months after starting with Logan. Yeah. Following all the phases that he teaches, winter was insane. That's awesome. So that's kind of like where I really saw everything start to take off.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And then you talked about branding. I would love to hear like what you actually mean by like how did you improve your brand? What are the things that you do? Because I've talked with a lot of uh pros early on, and I think this is somewhere that they really miss. I think like the most important thing is going and just figuring it out, door knocking, going to your local grocery shops and tabling, and just like doing anything to figure it out. But I think brand matters a ton because as a homeowner and you want to like redo your backyard, you really want to like the person coming into your home, you want to feel very comfortable about. And part of that is their presence, their digital presence, uh, the way that they dress themselves, their trucks, like all that sort of stuff matter. Um, what did that mean like for you when you came into Logan's program and improving your brand?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I mean, starting out, I had no clue what a brand meant. Um and kind of when I got to the bigger scale, I would have different guys on the job every day. So the homeowner never saw the same people. My online presence, I'd had a Facebook, but I had maybe one follower, no posts. I just had my logo. Yeah. And Google, I had zero reviews, maybe six. So people didn't really see anything on that side. Yeah. Um, we wouldn't wear branded shirts. I had hats, but my guys would barely wear them. Trucks weren't branded, didn't have any sort of organic marketing for them to see. Um so once I got on with him, kind of had a pullback, and we worked on the Facebook side, got some followers from the local community there, had my face as the brand, so people could put a face to the name, and started having the guys wear company shirts every single day. We had yard signs, we had A-frame signs, got the truck stickered up, so it looks like a legit company is pulling up to your home. Especially for the homeowners paying $100,000 for projects. They don't want to see a chuck in a truck pulling up and old beaten-down truck and new guys flushed in every single day, just paying whoever. Um, so that's what really kind of helped make the homeowners trust us more.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think it's a really difficult thing to do as an early uh stage business owner because it's like you can't directly tie like a quantifiable ROI to it, right? Like when you change these things, they're not like, okay, I'm gonna change my brand colors or I'm gonna make sure that my guys wear shirts and see an increase in revenue by X amount. Right. And so it's very difficult to like underwrite, but it's very important because it makes an impact in terms of like winning the jobs, having higher margins on your jobs, these different things that you know do actually create revenue, uh, but it's difficult to be like, oh, this is actually going to make that impact. Oh, definitely.
SPEAKER_01Kind of feel that. Yeah, oh, for sure. I mean, before I kind of got the brand, there was the there was this other kid, uh kind of close to my age. Um, he was kind of a competitor. Yeah. And I had two other bigger companies that were competitors, but we're all kind of like the same, the same group. No brand, kind of just doing the same thing, pulling up with new guys every single day. Kind of when I took myself out of that, built the brand, I looked more like a legitimate company. So I saw my close rate go up. So that was kind of like the ROI that I saw. You don't see right away, but kind of over maybe like a month or two after sending out 10 leads, and four people get back to me and they're like, hey, you seem like a legit company. We've got 60 plus five-star reviews on Google. They can look us up, and it actually looks legit, then they're gonna trust you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Talk about actually the reviews and how you um, because we we preach reviews all the time to our customers. It's like so incredibly important, especially early on. They not only do you have like a large number of reviews, but your velocity of reviews continues to be high. Like you're adding like three, four, or five a month. Yeah. Do you have a process right now for getting reviews? Uh, how do you, if if it's your guys asking for reviews, do you incentivize them? Like, what does that look like?
SPEAKER_01So right now it's still kind of me on my side. And with whenever we finish a project, I always kind of we bring in like kind of like a thank you card. And when I present that to them and we do our final walkthrough, get the final check. I have the car that has like a QR code on it. And I said, Hey, can you give us a review? Do you really like what we do? And we grab a testimonial video, and that's kind of like the process. Right now I'm working on getting my project manager to start doing that. So that'll help me delegate that out and get more reviews, especially the ones that say yeah, they'll do it, and I don't follow up. Yeah, and then I miss out. Because that's probably like 80% of homeowners say they do it, but they never do. Yeah. So if I can get somebody to just constantly follow up, then the reviews per month, like you said, three to ten reviews a month, they keep adding on, yeah, make a huge impact.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And then what yeah, I totally agree. I think like the number one thing is like, and with the world changing so much with like ChatGPT and Gemini and Claude and all these different tools, for a business to get found in those engines and the normal SEO stuff, you need to have a very strong digital presence. And to have a strong digital presence, you need an SEO optimized website, you need uh reviews and a large number of reviews at a high velocity and just like an overall good presence online because the the everything kind of works together. If you have the strong presence, you get found in organic search, but then you also um can get found in the generative engines. And if you have a strong presence, it helps with when you run paid media, if you're running paid ads. What I see a lot of the times is guys will run paid ads and they won't have any bit of a presence online. And it sounds like you were kind of in that boat to some.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I had no presence. Yeah. Nobody knew who I was, and I didn't look like a legit company. Yeah. So just dumping the money into paid ads is pretty pointless. Yeah. I'm sure if I did that now, it'd be a whole different bubble.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. You get far more ROI if you started running paid media now because we've established your website, you've got your reviews going, like you have all of that. But if you just like pour gas on ads without like any backing to the business, it's like, where are these, these, the, the traffic from those ads actually going to? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Like kind of a dead business that you don't really know what's going on. And especially in the trades, it's like so important for homeowners to feel that trust. Really, like, not only are you selling your services as a local business owner or service owner, you're selling the the trust and the the peace of mind to that homeowner that you're gonna do a good job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, for sure. And I mean, kind of going back to the bringing up like the AI thing, right when I had so I spent $5,000 on a website. It looked cool. Yeah. I got a website from you guys that really helped with kind of like the SEO part. Yeah. Probably I would say maybe like a month in, within two weeks, I had two customers say, Oh, yeah, we found you on ChatGPT. You came up as number one landscaper in the in the city. And I've never heard of that before. And then I've had other customers say, Hey, yeah, you're number one on Google. We called you, you answered right away. We didn't call anybody else. Wow. So really having that helped.
SPEAKER_02Love it. Love it. That is great to hear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, definitely. We've been hearing more and more from our uh owners that they're getting found in the generative engines. Um, and again, like we see the best way to get found is just to have a strong digital presence. Yeah. So um, very cool. And I would love to hear, Logan, a little bit about like the trajectory of your business. So, like, we we've talked about it in terms of the storyline, but like if you can actually tie, if you're comfortable with it, like numbers to like how you've grown uh over the years.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. So, first year 2023, uh, I think I did maybe like 190,000 revenue, maybe two thousand dollars profit. Nothing. Um second year bumped up to like 550 revenue and probably like in the ten thousand dollar range. Last year, twenty twenty five, I hit what I hit, I think it was like nine hundred thousand, and I only had eight thousand dollars in the bank account, thirty thousand dollars on a credit card. So I was dead, basically dead dead in the water. Um, and then this year, after kind of getting a website that works, having a brand, working with blue-collar business accelerator, I'm projected to do at least 1.5 and I should be at like a 30%. Let's go for sure. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Yeah, so it's definitely been a big game changer seeing everything that I've gone through. Um, where you look at revenue and you think you're making money, but then nobody cares about that number. They just care about how much you're actually making. Yeah, and that's a real business. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of the times guys get super excited. There's another um member of the BCBA group, I think his name is Tommy. Um, he runs a tree service business in Bethlehem, uh Pennsylvania. And he was doing like two million top line revenue, I think. And his margins were just like nothing. Yeah, you know, and a lot of the guys get tied up. Not not a lot of the BCBA guys, but just in general, a lot of the folks I speak with get tied up and oh, we're gonna do one, two, three million dollars of revenue. But then when you break down the margin, it's like yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's how I was thinking for so long. Yeah. And it's like I'm seeing this job. Okay, I'm doing a $20,000 job, materials, labor. I underbid it. I'm walking out with $1,500. Yeah. And then my truck breaks on the way home. Yeah. And I spent $800 to fix it. Yep. I had that happen. I did a job uh down in San Diego, probably my second year in, and I did it in this backyard. Ended up just being me because none of my labors were gonna go. Yeah. So I bid it out. I ended up working for $3.50 an hour for six days straight. Oh my god. And then on the way back up here, my freaking drive shaft dropped and it was $600.
SPEAKER_02Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That is crazy, man. And like that's it's why you gotta kind of plan always for the the worst case scenarios in terms of like um when you have high margin, you kind of give yourself like a soft landing if things do end up going bad.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. Yeah, and you can't do that actually without the brand. Yeah. Because nobody will trust you for it. Yeah. Um, without having the brand, you can't charge as an actual business. Yeah. Because people don't really understand that. Yeah. Which kind of sucks. But when homeowners see a number, they think, okay, I could do this for $10,000 myself. Yeah. Where's the other $10,000 go in, but they don't know about the overhead, having that buffer? Yeah. But also being able to give them that good experience of working with your company. Yeah. I think that's huge.
SPEAKER_02Give us some of the tips and tricks around um when you actually bid on these jobs. Like, are there certain things that uh, you know, you do, position, like obviously the brand more generally helps, but um, maybe like learnings that you have in that process.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I would say the biggest thing was when I used to show up for quotes, I would show up dirty, just straight out of the field. Some homeowners like it, but it also kind of looks bad, especially as trying to be a bus bigger business. So, right when I changed my look, I saw a huge jump in close rate, being able to sell more. Um, and then kind of like being more on it with communication. So somebody calls, I answer within the first hour. That closes insanely a lot more than getting to them at the end of the day. And then on the way to the quote, you follow up with them again, or two days before you do a follow-up, and then you follow up again 30 minutes before. And kind of something that you learned in the with Logan is on the way to the quote, be like, hey, I'm stopping at 7-Eleven, I'm gonna grab a coffee. Would you like anything? And then they're like, Oh, I would love a coffee, would love a water that builds the trust already. And then what else? Um Have you ever seen the thing where somebody offers you a water? So I used to always any quote I go to, most of the time, probably 80%, they're like, Hey, would you like a water?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, I don't. But if you say yeah, it's a transaction. So they're trusting to give something of theirs to you, and then that trusts them to buy into yours. Oh. So it's kind of weird. Like the very little thing, ever since I started doing that, homeowners, I don't know what, but my kind of sales rate started to go up even more. Very interesting. Presenting in person, yeah. Yeah, being kind of on it, knowing your numbers right away, being able to present a formal quote to them, doing kind of like an online quote, but kind of face to face over Zoom. That was huge. Yeah. Just little stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's really cool. And when you say, um, so you went from like kind of uh dirty outfit to to cleaner, what did actually cleaner look like? You had a branded shirt, probably some pants, brand new polo shirt, yeah, nice pants, yeah, work boots.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Still want to play the part, even though I'm not in the field, but I have to play that. Yeah, I'm on the side every day watching over the guys. They feel comfortable with that rather than have it kind of like a corporate company. Um, a nice truck. I had an old beat-down Ford F 250 that just looked like shit. So kind of and that actually blew up on me. So that's why I got the truck I do have now. But ha pulling up in a nice truck kind of makes it look like more of like a business that you make money so you can put that money into them. Um I looked into getting like a small Prius before, but then I had this homeowner be like, Oh, I really like your truck. You're pulling up in a construction-looking truck, makes it look like you do these big jobs. If you pulled up in a Prius, I wouldn't hire you. But I was like, Oh wow, okay. So just kind of like those little things of what they see, factoring that in.
SPEAKER_02Very interesting. And then what about your team? So now you've uh how many crews do you have? So I have two crews. Nice. And how are they broken up right now? Um, where do you find these folks? Obviously, we talked about the one individual from earlier, um, but the rest of the guys.
SPEAKER_01So so my one crew, Giovanni, it's actually his two cousin, one of his brothers and his cousin is on the same crew. And then I used to have so they were my first crew for a while. I started to get busy enough. I brought on a second. Here's this guy named Carlos. He worked with me for a couple jobs, and then he actually got offered another job for this other company that his other brother worked at. So he ended up going over there. I said, Hey, do you know anybody? He sent me his other brother. They have like six brothers, so his name's Jaime, and he's rad. He ended up bringing his younger brother and his cousin to work. So I mean it's all kind of like a big family, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. I've never really had to chase down labor guys, which has been nice. I mean, my early years I definitely did. Um, but now it's kind of I've got like this tight circle of guys that I can just call up if somebody wants to leave or whatever.
SPEAKER_02And how do you keep them happy? How do you incentivize them? How do you keep them doing good work?
SPEAKER_01You gotta pay them good. Yeah. Which comes down to having the brand, being able to sell more, pay your guys more. They're happy. I'll bring them lunch every now and then, provide them with cold water. Um, long days, like the other day they worked until like 8 30 at night. Tipped them all $100. Yeah. I mean, it's $300 out of my pocket, but it makes them a lot happier. $100 to them goes a huge long way. So they're gonna want to come and work for me. Um, getting free work boots. I've got them work boots for Christmas. Nice. Keeping them comfortable and new work shirts, hats, making them look good. Kind of just like the little things. Yeah. Um, one of my guys, Jaime, he just had a baby. So my fiance and I went to Target and put together like this baby gift for him. And it was a bunch of stuff that will help him for the next like two months with that. So that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Really trying to be personal with the guys. Yeah. On like a friend side, yeah, but also still have that boss in it. Yeah. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's really cool. And it sounds like so. Giovanni is still with you today.
SPEAKER_01Giovanni is, yeah. He's going on damn two and a half, two and a half years.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Two years.
SPEAKER_02And in this industry, like that's pretty difficult, right?
SPEAKER_01Like guys turn over like that. Yeah. I mean, I know companies that they're having new guys every month. And being able to provide for my own guys and actually kind of build that family aspect of the company really makes them want to show up. And they come from Lake Elsinore every single day. And we'll work in like Torrance or Palo Verde, and it's like a two-hour drive for them. They'll wake up four, leave at 4 30 to the job by seven. They ended up they don't leave until like 5 30 to miss traffic. Yeah. So they work their ass off. Wow. But they'll show up every single day.
SPEAKER_02That is awesome, yeah. And so what's next in the business, right? You're at this stage where it sounds like you have good operations. You're no longer kind of like super deep involved in the weeds, but you have the high-level view. You're doing the bidding, working with owner, uh, homeowners, um, and you're gonna do well on revenue. It sounds like on margin as well this year. You've got like a very, very good foundation, and it seems like the past three years have set you up for this. What is like your vision with the company? Where do you want to go?
SPEAKER_01The goal is always to double every year. Um, but after working with Logan, it's like, okay, again, don't look at the revenue. So if I can hit two mil next year at a 50-60% net, doing basically less work for the same amount or more money, that's kind of what I've really honed in on focusing on. It's not that, hey, I want to go get four crews. If I can have two crews selling the same amount as four, keep the stress level lower, then I'm fine with that. Um, for kind of now, maybe in the long-term future, if I can have a bigger company, 30 trucks, 40 employees, then kind of might look at that side. Yeah. But um, I don't know, just kind of have like a comfortable living. Don't want to be too greedy with it, but if I can be out of the business, the business runs without me. I can go on a fishing trip for a week and I don't get a single phone call and I'm living comfortable, then I'm dealing with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And uh a lot of owners ask this, and uh or um service pros asked this. Outside of Rebolt, obviously Rebolt is like an AI native platform. Your website is uh AI powered, your social media is your reviews, uh, your CRM as well. We have our AI um uh we call it Reba. It pretty much like operates the CRM for you. Outside of our tool, what else are you using AI-wise? And if not anything, that's totally fine. Are you using like ChatGPT, Claude, um these different tools? If so, how are they helping you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I was using ChatGPT and then I actually just switched over to Claude. Um actually yesterday I had it build me a 60-page handbook. Nice for my project manager. Because I just brought him on maybe like almost a month and a half ago.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it built out every single question there would be a checklist of everything that needs to be done for every single service that we do. So that one delegates all of that and takes me out of that side. So if there's ever a question, hey, look in the handbook. You don't need to contact me. Using it for that, um, kind of just pitching ideas for like other sides of marketing, what I can do in the business. It's kind of more for like the back end, like paperwork that I use it for, just to kind of speed things up a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just an idea for your project manager. We can connect that hand you you can connect GPT to the handbook so that they can then go ask questions to GPT and it'll give them answers from the handbook. So then they don't have to sift through the 60 pages of questions.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, really easy. Yeah, you could start like a GPT project or cloud project, upload the file as a source, and then share that project with your uh project manager. Yeah, and then they can just ask questions, it has full context.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah, I'll show you how to do it after that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I'm not too much into like the tech and the chat GPT and all that. It's just kind of like, hey chat, what should I do for this? Exactly.
SPEAKER_02It just gives me simple answers, but and look, that's what we're trying to solve here at Rebol, right? Like our vision is to be the AI powered operating system for the trades. And so we want to get to a space where you don't have to create quotes. Like you don't have to go in and like create a bid or go through the quoting browsers. You don't have to go create an invoice. You just go to our AI tool, Reba, and you say, Hey, create me a quote for X, Y, and Z. Uh, make sure it has, you know, um labor costs, make sure you give them a discount, all that sort of stuff. It creates a quote for you, and then you can say, Hey, send it to that client. It'll send it to the client. And we want to make this tool to where you can literally just talk with it and it operates everything. Wow. Yeah. And we're we're getting there. If you log into your right now, your desktop portal, you can do all of that. It's coming to your mobile app shortly. And most of our guys use the mobile app, so they'll be able to start using it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That'll be a huge time saver.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, for sure. Um, awesome. And so let's talk like a little bit on a personal basis. Um, how do you feel your Happiness level is right now in running the business.
SPEAKER_01It is so much better. Like the first two years, even kind of like the end of la middle of last year, it was just I'm working 24-7, not making the money I want to, not making any money really, and kind of just like in the rat race. And that's not what you should be doing as a business owner. So kind of being able to work on like the business side, my personal side. I can take a day if I want and go hang out with my fiance, go see my family back in Florida, and shit gets done on the business side. Um, so the happiness level really went up, my health level really went up because I'm huge into the gym, working out kind of from the surfing side. So working all the time, I had no energy. I wouldn't eat, I'd maybe eat like one meal a day, maybe work out once or twice a week. Now I can get back in the gym. And like I've kind of seen it like on Instagram. If you got a healthy body, healthy mind, kind of everything's good. Business is good.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, personally, I'm if you um while you were, you know, maybe let's talk about like when you were in COVID 2020, uh, would you have believed yourself if you told yourself that you would be at this point today?
SPEAKER_01Not at all. Nope. Because my mom is a teacher, so my parents were huge on college. And I've never been one for school. Started college, got like a semester in, said screw this, I'm not wasting my money. And I told my parents, I was like, hey, if I can make 10K in revenue by X amount of time, I don't have to go. Did that, and then I was like, okay, I made 10K. I'm I don't know, maybe I'll get to like 100K for a business. Never saw hitting 2 million, which is mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_02Wow, that is awesome, man. So wouldn't you wouldn't have believed yourself back then?
SPEAKER_01No, not at all. I mean, I know I could probably get to somewhere, yeah, but hitting two million and seeing how easy it is to grow even past that, yeah, would never think that at all. Why not always saw these big businesses and thought there was like 10 guys behind it, yeah, like putting in all this money, masterminding, you had to go to college for it. Yeah. And then actually sitting back and realizing like just one guy myself, and I can do two to four million dollars a year. Yeah. Kind of insane. Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_02And what is the biggest mistake you've made over the past five years?
SPEAKER_01That's a tough one. I would say the biggest one would not be believing in myself enough. Yeah. Which kind of like really hones in on not trusting myself enough to either push forward on trying to build the business bigger, um, or on like even personal levels. But I've always had that, even in like surfing, I've never believed I was big enough, good enough, um, one of the top guys. So kind of having that on the business side that's really held me down. And getting around like the same like-minded people, that was been the biggest changer. Um, because my friend group's awesome. Nobody else has kind of like the business mindset. So it's all around who you hang out with. Yeah. Getting it with guys like the Blue Collar Business Accelerator, where I have 400 guys I can call on a daily basis and spit ideas with, and they're like, holy shit, dude, you're killing it. I'm killing it, all that. That's really been, really been huge. Yeah, that's awesome, man.
SPEAKER_02And then what about like uh the best decision you've made over the past five years?
SPEAKER_01Going for it and actually just taking the leap of faith because I've always had like fallback plans. Always had, okay, here's my plan A, here's my plan B. And then like two years in, I was like, okay, I can kind of see this business going somewhere. We uh I have to go all in, or else you're not gonna make it. Because if you're going half-assed on something, not putting full attention to it, you're only gonna get so far. And you'll believe you'll start believing yourself that you can't do it or you won't make it, and you have to fall back on your backup plan. So just kind of like going for it, taking the leap of faith, pushing forward, that's been the best thing. Nice.
SPEAKER_02And then lastly, what would you tell somebody if they were starting a trades business today that they should know about the journey?
SPEAKER_01Take it slow and actually enjoy it. Um, don't try to build so quick and focus on the numbers. Yeah. Actually, kind of like sit, take a step back, see what's happening, live your daily life, grind on the business, and like don't fall into like the revenue trap. I'd say that'd be the biggest thing. And focus on systems that work. Yeah, love it, love it. All right, Logan. Well, thank you for the time.
SPEAKER_02This is an awesome podcast. We appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
