The Plant Movement Podcast
Welcome to The Plant Movement Podcast, the ultimate podcast for entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, and professionals in the ever growing Green Industry. The Plant Movement was founded by Willie Rodriguez and Eddie Gonzalez. This podcast brings you engaging conversations, expert insights, and actionable strategies to navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities in your business. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur, landscaper, garden center or simply passionate about the green industry, this podcast is your go-to resource for inspiration, knowledge, and success stories. LET'S GROW! Directed and Produced by Eddie EVDNT Gonzalez.
The Plant Movement Podcast
Buzzkill | Pest Control, Integrity, and Building a Business that Lasts with Richard Mancias
The Plant Movement Podcast is back in a brand-new studio for a milestone Episode 80, featuring a powerful conversation with Richard Mancias, owner of Buzzkill Pest Control & Fertilization. With over 15 years of experience specializing in outdoor pest control for lawns and ornamentals, Richard shares his journey from starting out at a landscape company in the mid-2000s to building his own business based on honesty, service, and results.
Richard takes us back to the days when fig whitefly devastated South Florida landscapes, forcing homeowners and landscapers to find urgent solutions. He explains how the industry has evolved, the importance of rotating chemicals to prevent resistance, and why knowledge and timing are everything when treating pests like aphids, thrips, and whiteflies.
But this episode goes far beyond pest control. Richard opens up about:
• The importance of doing the little things right and treating every property with care.
• Building strong relationships between landscapers, pest control professionals, and irrigation specialists.
• Why owner-operators bring more passion and accountability than large corporations.
• His philosophy of service: “As long as I keep doing good work, everybody keeps eating.”
We also dive into the realities of running a business—pricing, investing in the right equipment, and the mental battle of overcoming self-doubt. Richard talks about his decision to give up drinking, the clarity it brought him, and how he’s reshaped his life and business with discipline, respect, and a focus on serving others.
For landscapers, business owners, and anyone chasing growth in 2025, this conversation is packed with practical wisdom, raw honesty, and inspiration. Richard’s story is proof that success isn’t about shortcuts, it’s about accountability, relationships, and doing what’s right for the long run.
Tune in and get inspired by Episode 80 of The Plant Movement Podcast.
BuzzKill Insect Control and Fertilization
Call: (305) 484-8620
Email: buzzkillcf@gmail.com
Follow IG: https://www.instagram.com/Buzzkill305
The Plant Movement Podcast
Email: eddie@theplantmovementnetwork.com & willie@theplantmovementnetwork.com
Call: (305) 216-5320
Web: https://www.theplantmovement.com
Follow Us: IG: https://www.instagram.com/theplantmovementpodcast
A's Ornamental Nursery
WE GROW | WE SOURCE | WE DELIVER
Call: (305) 216-5320
Web: https://www.asornamental.com
Follow Us: IG: https://www.instagram.com/asornamentalnursery
The Nursery Growers
Call: 786-522-4942
Email: info@thenurserygrowers.com
IG: www.instagram.com/thenurserygrowers
web: www.thenurserygrowers.com
Plant Logistics Co.
(Delivering Landscape Plant Material Throughout the State of Florida)
Call: (305) 912-3098
Web: https://www.plantlogisticsco.com
Follow Us: IG: https://www.instagram.com/plantlogistics
Directed and Produced by Eddie EVDNT Gonzalez
Disclaimer: The contents of this podcast/youtube video are for informational and entertainment purposes only and do not constitute financial, accounting, or legal advice. I can’t promise that the information shared on my posts is appropriate for you or anyone else. By listening to this podcast/youtube video, you agree to hold me harmless from any ramifications, financial or otherwise, that occur to you as a result of acting on information found in this podcast/youtube video.
Let's go. Let's go.
Willie Rodriguez:What is up guys? Welcome to another episode of the Plant Movement Podcast. Thank you guys for tuning in and listening wherever you're at guys. This episode is special for a bunch of different reasons. One, we have Mr. Richard here from Buzzkill Insect Control and Fertilization. But besides that, this is episode 80. And on top of that being episode 80, if you are watching us on YouTube, we have a new studio for the industry. Something fresh, something different to really kick it up 10, 20 notches from where we were and bring just beauty to the to the, to, you know, to what we do. So with that being said, guys, I want to introduce Mr. Richard to you guys. What he does is insect control outside. So pest control outside. So thank you guys doing landscapings, all the outdoor stuff. You guys need someone that can come through this home point. This is someone that we can appoint to be able to do that type of work for you. And we're going to hear his story today. We're going to hear all about how he got into it, what he's learned and what he touches exactly. So what's up, my bro?
Richard Mancias:Thank you for having
Willie Rodriguez:me. Thank you, bro. Thank you for coming.
Richard Mancias:I didn't see the old studio, but I mean, this is It looks beautiful. It's nice. Thank you. It's really nice.
Willie Rodriguez:Well, we can take you to the old one. No, out with the old. Yeah, out with the old and with the new. No, the old one now is an office for someone else. Of course. So talk to me, bro. Repurpose. Repurpose. You've been doing insect pest control for a while, for 20 years.
Richard Mancias:About 15 years. About 15 years. About 15 years.
Willie Rodriguez:15 years. You got in it by going and working at another landscape company.
Speaker 01:Yep.
Speaker 03:They said, hey, we want to start doing insect control outside. And you're like, hey, I want to jump in.
Speaker 01:They already had the crew, the team, but one of the technicians ended up causing a lot of damage on one of the properties. A lot of
Speaker 03:damage in which way?
Speaker 01:So I guess he must have sprayed the wrong thing. Like a
Speaker 03:roundup on all the plants? Something like that?
Speaker 01:A lot of people don't realize that even the selective herbicides that we put down on the grass to kill those weeds, if you're not careful and you tank mix on top of that mix, you can cause damage to shrubs and all that stuff. And I think that's what happened.
Speaker 03:Oh, wow. Yeah, guys, once you have one tank that has any type of weed kill,
Speaker 01:that is what that tank is married to. That's it. Be careful. Be careful. Oh, wow. I was pushing a weed eater. They came up to me. I was one of the only guys on the crew that spoke English. And they said, hey, Richard, do you want this shot? Do you want an opportunity? And I said, well, what do their paychecks look like? They showed me one of the paychecks, and I said, let's do it. Let's go. And that's it. I haven't looked back. Yeah, the rest is history. So you
Speaker 03:fell in love with it, and this is your niche. Like you said, I don't do inside homes. I don't do none of that. I only stick to the outdoor pests.
Speaker 01:Lawn and ornamental.
Speaker 03:Which is all aphids and thrips and whitefly. Whitefly. And all that type of stuff. Basically what we deal with here. We deal with the same type of stuff here.
Speaker 01:We deal with everything in South Florida. It's crazy. The year that I started, that I decided to do the pest control was the year that the fig whitefly hit South Florida. Okay. Big time. Which was, I want to say 2007, 2008. That
Speaker 03:was when Ficus, the poor The Ficus Benjamina. I did a post on it the other day.
Speaker 01:That's when the Ficus just took a...
Speaker 03:They took a dump.
Speaker 01:Took a dump, man. Took a dump.
Speaker 03:Everybody was ripping them out.
Speaker 01:We used to do properties on the beach with that company I worked with. And you would see everybody on the beach had a Ficus Benjamina as a privacy hedge for the front of the house. Beautiful. Easy to trim. Tight. Very tight. Tight hedge. And when this hit and we drove down the beach, it was skeletons. You could see straight through. And the people were like, hey, wait a minute. This isn't what I signed up for. And yeah, it was bad. But that was the year that I started doing pesca.
Speaker 03:So what did you do during that time? Did you fight to... Well, no, that was you working at this place.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 03:What did you guys do to like, let's say, what was your strategy to try to get clients in to be able to take care of the problem? Was it all spray?
Speaker 01:No, that was an easy... It was an easy sell because people... Remember, this was brand new. We had never dealt with something like this It was like a pandemic. It was exactly like a pandemic. So people just wanted to hear, I can fix it. They didn't, for the most part, didn't care about the price. When this happened, I remember the company, Bayer, came down because they're the ones that sell merit. They came down and they were giving us price points. Oh, you can sell $7 per linear foot to do a systemic root drench. And we're thinking, well, that's crazy. You know, a hundred foot ficus which would literally take you 20, 30 gallons of product, 700 bucks. Like nobody's going to pay that.
Speaker 03:Oh, it was too much.
Speaker 01:Yeah, it was ridiculous.
Speaker 03:Yeah, but when you look at what it costs to replace the hedge,
Speaker 01:it's a lot cheaper. Of course, of course. But, you know, we found other methods. There's other chemicals that work. Can you guys use
Speaker 03:Criterium or
Speaker 01:no? No, no, no. I don't know if Criterium is labeled for residential. Residential? Yeah.
Speaker 03:Because we can use it.
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 03:And that's a little powder. It's real cheap and we apply it at the bottom of the plant. Yeah. And they'll never have white fly. Oh. Yeah. And we use it, too, on, like, Maburnum Otos. Okay. Maburnum Suspensum. Okay. All of those, it's for aphids and thrip and the white fly.
Speaker 01:And it's a, what is it? It's a powder. It lasts that long? Yeah,
Speaker 03:it turns into, like, a little cake
Speaker 01:on top of the water. Okay. And it just sits there for, like, a
Speaker 03:couple months. Okay. And then you can put more, and you can
Speaker 01:put as you need. Nice, nice. No, we, yeah. And the biggest issue that we're having now is that Everybody fell in love with the imidacloprid. Everybody fell in love with it. So everybody's using it. So now you have a resistance buildup.
Speaker 03:So the white fly, they like it now.
Speaker 01:They love it for them. It's like Cheerios. Yeah, they love it. They love it. It's not as effective. Before, you used to be able to do a systemic root drench, and that drench would last six months, depending on how much of the product you put in your tank. But now, if you get a month, two months, months if you get any control you're lucky so now you
Speaker 03:guys are switching between
Speaker 01:chemicals you have to yeah and a lot of times people don't understand the importance of alternating your products okay they don't know
Speaker 03:but I guess that's not their job
Speaker 01:no job for sure that's for sure for sure
Speaker 03:your job is so you know you set up a maintenance plan yeah and that's it is they never deal with the problem again that's it yeah that's the deal with that so you guys you do you do a lot of landscape outdoor
Speaker 01:yes
Speaker 03:so a landscaper does a beautiful landscape install and they want to maintain it the landlord wants to maintain it or the maintenance crew wants to maintain it you guys come in yep and you offer a what is it like a monthly package yeah how does that work
Speaker 01:it so the way i do it is i don't like contracts i don't like forcing people into stuff so everything i do is a la carte if i come to your house and i tell you or if i come to your job site and i tell you look This is going to be the price to do everything. That doesn't mean you have to do everything. If you want to just do the grass, let me know. We'll make your grass beautiful. If you want to just treat the ficus hedge, let me know. We can keep the ficus hedge beautiful. You have the spirulina whitefly and the phantasma scale. That's what you're
Speaker 03:seeing right
Speaker 01:now? That's what we're seeing right now. What's the phantasma scale? It's very similar to the spirulina whitefly as how it looks on the bottom of the leaf, especially with the coconut palms, but your You've seen it on Eureka's and other palms. You'll see just like some white spots on the bottom of the frond. And when you put it closer, you'll notice that there's no spiral, which is what we were used to with the spiraling whitefly. So there's no spiral. Yeah, no whitefly, but it's the scale. And that's pretty much what we're dealing with. Is that a residue
Speaker 03:or is that a bacteria or what is that? No, it's an insect. It's a scale insect. Similar treatment. What do they do to the plant?
Speaker 01:You can see the bottom of the leaves start turning yellow. Like they'll start just sucking. So scale insects, whiteflies. aphids they do to the plant material what mosquitoes do to us so you know they they hit they hit the you know the leaf they hit the leaflet with the piercing sucking parts and then they suck out the nutrition so then you start to see yellow right where they're at and then they spread like wildfire wow yeah yeah yeah
Speaker 03:so now you need to learn also like you you need to know when they when they multiply oh yeah when you know when all that happens so you know when to spray when to come You know what I mean? All of that. I've learned a lot of that now. We have a grower on site and he'll be like, look, man, this is how we're going to attack it. They have babies at night. They do this at this time. I'm like, for real? He's like, yeah, we're going to get them right now.
Speaker 01:Yeah, but that's the best way to do it. You have to nip it in the bud. There's a science. If it gets out of control, then you're talking big money to fix.
Speaker 03:That's what's interesting because there's a lot of guys that do outdoor pest control. But do they know what's really happening? Do they know the insect? I feel like you've got to be obsessed with the insect.
Speaker 01:You have to.
Speaker 03:and you know how to treat them. Because it's not just go and apply. Because you can go and apply, but you might be applying at the wrong time, the wrong temperature, the wrong rate, the wrong everything. And you have, you know, that's
Speaker 01:why you got to hire a professional. Yeah, exactly. 100%. I agree 100%.
Speaker 03:Yeah. So someone that does landscapes, like those landscape guys that, let's say, buy products from us and from other nurseries, they can reach out to you. Of course. And say, hey, dude, we have this house. I want you to jump on. This is what it is. And then, like, problems, all of that stuff. You got have what do you guys have you have trucks that go and spray
Speaker 01:yeah drench yep right now right now it's just one truck right now it's just me okay i'm getting my my new truck uh i've been lucky enough that i've been in business for a year now with this company congrats uh thank you uh licensed for 15 years so i don't want anybody to think that he's only been in business for a year but in that year i've made a lot of good connections with a lot of good landscapers so i'm now going to be upgrading my truck i ordered it about eight eight weeks ago so it should be here within the next week or so. What is it, like an Azuzu or something? The Azuzu, yeah. That's what I've been waiting for. I plan on probably dropping a tier when I get the truck in my hands. Who'd
Speaker 03:you get it from? TruckMax. TruckMax? Okay. They set it up for you?
Speaker 01:They're setting it up, yeah, which is what I like about them because you tell them, oh, I want 100-100 split tanks. I want the storage cabinets.
Speaker 03:And you can finance everything.
Speaker 01:Yeah, everything you finance through them. That's going to be awesome, bro. It's going to be great. What
Speaker 03:have you learned in this past year? Now you, let's say, going on your own versus how things were where you were. Yeah. Because you were at one company doing this for 15, 14 years and now you're doing it on your own.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Well, I've been with a variety of different companies. Okay.
Speaker 03:So what are you doing differently that you've seen or what have you learned that today you're set up so much better than where you were?
Speaker 01:You know, it's different. It's definitely different. When you're on your own, you can actually take the time to diagnose something as opposed to when you're working with a company, like there time crunch. They want you, hey, hurry up. You haven't figured that out yet. What are you waiting for? What's wrong? What's this? What's that? And I can't work that way. I like to take my time to make sure the job gets done right because the last thing you want is a callback. The last thing you want as a landscaper dealing with your customer, the homeowner, is a homeowner saying, hey, you sent this guy over here, but we're still seeing problems. Nothing's changed. And then now you look bad as the point of contact. The homeowner Homeowner themselves, I don't come in contact with, but I treat every situation like if I'm dealing with the homeowner. Because the landscaper is my customer. So most of
Speaker 03:your clients are landscapers?
Speaker 01:Yeah, I have a good amount of landscape customers that I deal with them directly. If a homeowner has a question, call me. No
Speaker 03:problem. Well, they see your truck, it's wrapped,
Speaker 01:you can't hide. Yeah, you can't hide that. But it's a good relationship, man. The relationship between... the landscapers, the lawn and ornamental pest control, even the irrigation guys. It's important. It's key. It's crucial.
Speaker 03:It's crucial. That everybody works
Speaker 01:seamless. Yeah, and not just pointing the fingers because you have irrigation guys that will tell you, oh, no, it's too much water or you're not putting enough water or it needs to be this, it needs to be that. If you can work together and understand the situation like, hey, look, let's turn this zone on. Let's start the system at five in the morning as opposed to three in the morning because three in the morning, that water's sitting in that grass
Speaker 03:too long
Speaker 01:too long and you're gonna get brown patch fungus which we're getting to the season
Speaker 03:yeah
Speaker 01:exactly and we're getting to the season fungus season is almost
Speaker 03:here no bro it's here
Speaker 01:yeah it's yeah we
Speaker 03:have we have rain you know five hours straight yeah dude it's rough man we gotta spray and blow the whole nursery yeah i bet and you know it's rough yeah it's a lot of work to go into i bet i bet so that that what you said bro is so important man you know like think about it you're just doing you know bug control and fertilization making sure that plants are good. You're basically the doctor out there. You're the doctor, but you got to still work with the irrigation guy because you can't go touch his clocks because then he's going to get upset because now it's off of what he put or whatever it may be. So having that point of contact, even to the point where you can build a relationship with them where now, let's say they have it set up through Rainbird or they have it on an app. Now you can tap into the app and now you have access to it. That gives you access to be able to just have more control. You know, having that, let's say brotherhood in a way where There's that trust. Yeah. There's that respect. There's all of those things. And now you can come in and do what you have to do
Speaker 01:as your business partners.
Speaker 03:Basically. Yeah. Basically, you know, and you guys all run your own operations out of your own LLCs or your own S corps or C corps, but you guys can work together
Speaker 01:and you still depend on each other.
Speaker 03:Yeah. No, I've seen that a lot. I've seen that in like we supply different landscapers that the guys that they used to do the hardscape lighting, the guys that they used to do the driveways, the pools, everybody's the same. It's a, it's all the same people. They just bounce from house to house to house because they work very, very well together. And it's one dude that basically put them all together.
Speaker 01:Exactly. Exactly. One bad job can make or break you.
Speaker 03:Yeah.
Speaker 01:You know what I mean?
Speaker 03:No, definitely.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 03:So, so now also you do a fertilization. That's another big thing because landscapers can go and throw fertilizer. You guys can go do all that stuff, but are you doing it correctly or you're applying the right amount? Is it the right fertilizer? Is, does it work for every plant? Like there's a lot that goes into it. And one thing that we teach here is accountability.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Big time.
Speaker 03:So especially when you have clients spending $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 yearly on maintenance for their properties, you want to make sure it's done right and you have to have someone accountable. You have to. You don't want to have it fall on yourself just to make that extra buck right now. It ain't worth it. Trust me. That quick money is gone
Speaker 01:fast and it hurts. It hurts later. Big time. So
Speaker 03:having someone you can have accountable is priceless. So you come in and you can beautify an existing landscaping that maybe is not up to par or it's been a little neglected, you can come in and say, all right, maintenance guys, trim all this back. We're going to fertilize this. I'm going to do this. You're going to do this. And like that, you guys can team up and revive something.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Yeah. I will never go to a property and tell the landscape guys, hey, trim this down. I stay in my lane. I know. I know. But I'm saying, if you
Speaker 03:guys are coming together to make something happen for the client, and let's say they're not, let's say, so clinically coordinated when it comes to how to revive something, because not every landscaper knows how how to revive a plant I agree or what you know we get landscapers that they buy shaded product for the sun
Speaker 01:yeah
Speaker 03:you know and then two weeks later it's sunburned and then it's like hey man no that came from the shade yeah so like us we expect them to know that yeah but that's not how it is it's not how it is what we know or what you know someone else doesn't know and you can't expect anything so that's where education comes in yeah and that's why I'm saying like you can call somebody out and say look man I can't fertilize this you gotta turn it back first let's wait two weeks yeah and then we'll fertilize it because it's not worth
Speaker 01:It's, you know, opening up the trees, letting more sunlight in. You know, customers, you'd be surprised. The majority of homeowners love green, lush grass. Like, that's what they want. And the beauty of Miami is that Every homeowner is competing with their neighbor or the guy down the street. Yeah, they want a nice house. His grass is a little bit greener than mine. What is he doing? Nobody sprays his yard, so why does his look good?
Speaker 03:For me, it's so when your friends come over or the kids' parents come over,
Speaker 01:the house looks crispy. Yeah, and they say, man, I was doing a lady's house a couple of weeks ago, and another lady, the house is in Coral Gate, was walking her dog, and she goes, oh, the landscape looks beautiful. And I'm like, thank you. That's what we do. Yeah, that's what we do.
Speaker 03:What does something like that run on a house like that?
Speaker 01:So it really depends on how much landscape you have. Yeah, everything depends. Because, you know, you have, you know, if I'm using one, let's say I'm using one full tank,
Speaker 03:100 gallons. You try it by tank
Speaker 01:and time. I try to, you know, I know I can do about 20,000 square feet of lawn with my tank, with 100 gallons. With everything that I add into my tank mix, what sets me apart is that not a lot of the other pest control landscape fertilization guys like to invest the money into what they put down on that ground and there's a lot of little additives that you can add into that tank aside from just insect control aside from just fungus control at the same time at the same time you know um when you have fungus in your grass the only thing you want to really make sure you don't do is add nitrogen because the nitrogen will feed that fungus and cause that fungus to explode but You can add nutrients to the grass. You can add manganese or iron, stuff like that. That's not going to enhance that fungus. There's a lot of little things like humic acid. I mean, it's vital. But everything you add costs money. So whereas a standard tank mix, let's just say, might be $50. I'm just throwing that number out there. If you add all the little things that you should be adding, the potassium, the extra this, the extra that, I mean, now you're at about $90, $100 in your tank.
Unknown:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 01:Not a lot of guys want to do that because they're either scared to charge what they should be charging. And, you know, they're scared. People are going to say, no, that's too much money. I can have true green, come do it for 65 bucks, but true green is going to come put 20, 20, 20 down and maybe a little bit of cross-check and you're not going to be happy.
Speaker 03:And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, I've dealt with all those big companies and at the end of the day, when you're, when you're dealing with an owner operator, it's another game, the passion you have and the knowledge you have. withstands any tech.
Speaker 01:Big time.
Speaker 03:I'm sorry not to knock any techs out there. I'm sure there's a lot of very good smart
Speaker 01:ones. I was a tech at one point. Yeah,
Speaker 03:a lot of good smart ones, but it's different when you're risking your future in a different way. It's different when you're tech. It falls on the company and you get fired, you go get another job tomorrow. That's it, yeah. It's different.
Speaker 01:It's definitely 100%. It's different, man. 100%. It's just like, you know. It's your reputation. Yeah. It's your reputation.
Speaker 02:I'm sure it's
Speaker 01:right. Your integrity, your reputation. Yeah. You know, it means something to you. When I pull up to a yard that I started, you know, didn't look as good as it could look. And then I pull up after six months and I see the difference, I feel good. You know, especially with the grass because, like I said, grass is something you can see. You know, when you're treating a damaged lawn, the bounce back is a lot quicker than, you know, a palm that may have some micronutrient deficiencies. You know, royal palms shoot out maybe, what, two or three new fronds per year. you have to wait for those new fronds to come out before you start to see the improvement. So you're talking three, four months before you see any improvement. And you got to hope if that spike had already started while you do the treatment, now you have to wait for that spike to come out and the next one.
Speaker 03:See, this is the thing. So those little things, what I've come to find out and learn is the little things make all the impact. Big time. So you knowing that and you saying that, now you go and say that with whoever you're standing in front of. either the landlord or the homeowner or the guy that contracted you, the landscape company. Dude, it's going to put you on another level, man, because you might save them money and say, hey, look, we can't do it right now. We've got to wait two months. When that front shoots up, call me. Yeah. For real. And you know this because you can make the money today to bang it out and make money for you, but that's not what you're after. You're after doing the right thing and compounding.
Speaker 01:The longevity.
Speaker 03:The compounding positivity. Yeah, that's it. So, man, I really like that. That right there, hands down, is... Yeah,
Speaker 01:I did a... So I have a house on the beach. Very prominent figure. You know, big house, big job. The guy's got Ficus Benjamina all around his house. A guy that I helped out before, he does the pest control for the neighbor. I'm not going to say every one of my customers is a high-end customer, because that's not, you know. But I do have a handful, and I've learned that customers, they like that privacy aspect of it. Like, you know... When I go to service their house, I'm not looking in the windows, even as I walk by to spray. I focus on what, yeah, big time. I focus on what I'm there to do and that's it. And if they let me into that next level, great, you know, no problem.
Speaker 03:How did you get into that prestige top 1% client?
Speaker 01:How did that happen? So I used to work at SiteOne, I was telling you. Working at SiteOne really helped me out because I got to meet a lot of the landscapers that are on, you know, ground zero that are working. And I got to meet a lot of property men that were doing the work before. So he would come in and buy products and I would say, hey, what are you dealing with? Okay, well, use this, try this, do this, do that. And he was getting results. What happened at this place was I applied for an assistant manager position, but they had started out some initiative where they wanted us to call customers that hadn't come in, cold call.
Speaker 03:Okay. Existing customers, but they haven't bought in a while. Correct.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Cold call.
Speaker 03:Okay.
Speaker 01:I've worked in call centers before. I don't like cold callings. I know how I act when people. Yeah, you're busy. I'm busy. I don't want time. Exactly. So I said, no, I'm not going to cold call. That's not part of my job description. That's not what I applied for because of that decision. I got overlooked for the assistant manager position because of that. Okay. So that kind of catapulted me to start my own business. So I said, forget this. And when this gentleman found out that I was starting my own business, he said, when you leave, call me.
Speaker 03:So the reason, the reason he gave you an opportunity is because you came to every time for him.
Speaker 01:Because every, yeah, every time. Yeah. And, um, so
Speaker 03:with no intention for yourself.
Speaker 01:Yeah, no, no, no, never, you know, because you were working somewhere. Yeah. You know, and it's, it's helping, you know, plus at this time in my I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to move up in this company because my customer service is impeccable. My product knowledge is fairly decent. I fit in, you know, and I'm helping these customers. I'm an asset. I thought I was an asset. So I'm helping them just so I can continue moving up this corporate ladder just to find out that corporate said, no, no, no, you didn't want to make outgoing calls. Go back down. You know what I mean? So he looked out and he took a chance, brought me onto this property. And so one of the guys that I would help out does the other side of the other property. So I'm spraying my ficus once a month. He sprays that ficus every seven to 10 days.
Speaker 03:Oh, wow.
Speaker 01:But he's using a, an oil-based product. I'm not sure if you're used, if you've heard of or ever used Bifin XTS. No. So it's just a Bifin product, right? But it's oil-based. Okay. It's 90 something degrees outside. If you're spraying any oil-based product, every 7 to 10 days, you're going to burn the hedge. You're going to burn whatever it is you're
Speaker 03:spraying. It's like putting the tanning oil.
Speaker 01:That's it. Exactly.
Speaker 03:On your skin.
Speaker 01:They don't realize it. Yeah.
Speaker 03:And that was a tech doing it or that was an actual guy?
Speaker 01:That's another owner. Another owner. It's an owner of another company. Yeah. So his property, I guess he had a conversation with his property manager. Mind you, these two houses share one ficus down the middle. Yeah. The rest of the ficus on the property looks great. That one down the middle is struggling. So he got a hold of his property manager who got a hold of the property managers on my side. They had some powwow and they, they, the ones on my side called me for a conference call and they say, well, you know, they're saying they're spraying every seven to 10 days. And I said, listen, it doesn't benefit me to tell you this. It benefits me to tell you, yeah, we need to spray every seven to 10 days because that means I get to
Speaker 03:charge you.
Speaker 01:Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I get to bill you every seven to 10 days, you this dollar amount to do this. I said, but you don't need to do that. Trust me when I tell you what we're doing on our side is the right thing. We don't need the seven to 10 days. And listen, they were ecstatic. The guy who brought me in there, the property manager, he's like the grounds manager. He said, man, they're super happy with you. They are so happy with you. Thank you, Rich. And for me, that's great. Because now I know that The main office believes in me. So I haven't met the owner. I haven't met this gentleman. But I'm sure that if everybody around is happy with the work I'm doing, when they don't speak, when you don't hear anything, that's a good thing. Yeah, that's a good thing. It's when you hear about them every day.
Speaker 03:No, but that's good. That's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm talking about. It's not about you guys listening, man. It's not about the today. No. It's about the tomorrow and the forever. And relationships and coming through and not looking out for your pockets today is what makes a huge difference in building positive strong relationships
Speaker 01:big time
Speaker 03:you know i lose i told the guy the other day he came to the nursery looked at everything and he's just in shock and i told him i said man you know to get here i've lost twice as much as what i've made and he looks at me yes he's probably still thinking about what i told him yeah because you have to lose to get here or you have to give up or you know give up what let's say what your pocket would want or what someone else would tell you you got to go after
Speaker 01:big time
Speaker 03:to come through for the people
Speaker 01:around you in different ways
Speaker 03:so like i don't know man when it comes to what you do the knowledge that you provide and just being you know the way you are is what helps you stand out amongst everybody else big time back to what you were talking about starting the first year what else have you learned this first year because you're a new business there's a lot of guys listening that are new they're trying to grasp fire information to continue to grow what they got going on other than just making contacts
Speaker 04:yeah
Speaker 03:and having contacts on their list what else have you learned man you jumping in from working out on the field for somebody else learning and seeing the things that you liked and disliked and now you get to implement that into your own thing how's that been
Speaker 01:so i'll do you one better uh before jumping into what i've learned in my first year anybody that is playing with the idea of starting their own business but they're scared to make that jump like do it don't be scared like don't second guess yourself don't you know there's always going to be you know good and bad don't second guess yourself it you feel that strongly about what it is you think you can bring to the table do it because the person you're working for took that leap and look at them now you know and they might not know which usually is the case they might not know half of what you know and and so you can be that much better it took a while for me to Take that leap. You know, like I told you, I've licensed probably two of the bigger local landscape companies down here in South Florida. And then I licensed a pretty big company down in the Keys. And they will never appreciate you as much as you will appreciate yourself once you're doing it for yourself. So, you know, any new business or anybody that's thinking of starting a new business, just do it. Don't fight yourself too much. Sometimes our biggest downfall is ourselves. Like our biggest enemy is ourselves and our negative thinking. And you have to fight that person off. You have to fight yourself in order to achieve what you want to achieve.
Speaker 03:It's a mental battle.
Speaker 01:Big time. The biggest battle you will ever face is going to be that mental battle in your head because your subconscious is going to tell you, man, but what about this? You got to pay that $900 truck. You got to pay your $1,600, $1,700 truck. a mortgage. You got to pay this. You're comfortable at a job that you know 40 hours a week you're going to get that check at the end of the week. So it's scary to leave that and go for a maybe. But that maybe could become the biggest thing that you ever do. In my first year, there's no off button. That's what I've learned. I've worked Saturdays. I've worked Sundays. I do work for another big landscape company that they do a lot of work in Key West. They landscape houses and But communities and stuff like that. And a lot of times, if the builders are still there, they're painting the outside, they're doing final touches, you can't really go spray. So I'll take it upon myself and say, hey, listen, can I go on a Sunday and take care of it? Because nobody's there. The only one out there working is me. And they'll say, it's Sunday, but go for it. No problem. And I'm out there. There is no off button. If a customer calls me at eight o'clock at night because they're worried about something, my phone doesn't stop. They text me all the time. and they call me all the time. No problem. Call me. I'm going to answer because that customer is going to appreciate that.
Speaker 03:What's your responsibility?
Speaker 01:Well, after hours, my responsibilities are done. Well,
Speaker 03:it depends who it
Speaker 01:is. It depends. It depends on how far you want to go and how good you want to do. If you want to be great, you have to answer that call. If you just want to get by, they can wait till tomorrow. For the most part, your customers are going to be okay waiting for tomorrow. But I'm trying to be great. So my calls get answered, you know, If I'm asleep and I don't hear it, hey, sorry. I'll get you first thing in the morning. But for the most part, no, I get messages 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock at nighttime. And if I'm awake, yeah, I'll respond. No problem at all.
Speaker 03:Yeah, me too.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 03:Yeah, that's just how it is, man. Like for me, a lot of these people that I get to still service and I'm still taking care of those accounts, they're my boys, man. Yeah. You know, so if they call me at 9 o'clock at night, it's because there is a problem. Yeah. Because they're not just going to call me at 9 o'clock at night just because. Just because. It's going to be an issue that they think is relative enough to call me at that time. So I have to respect that. Also, one thing that I want to just bring up right now, you know, I don't know where you are mentally when it comes to hiring staff because one day you will have to. Everything that you disliked and the fact that you had to make cold calls and you weren't appreciative that you didn't get that next managerial position and you didn't get to climb, all that happened for a reason, bro. And one of the biggest reasons that I see, you know, just from hearing your story is you're going to be able to impact other kids lives yeah that jump on board with you you know you said you're a father of four your grandfather now think about the impact that you're going to be able to give where even if someone wants to like you say jump jump and just go maybe it's not jump and just go maybe it's jump and go work somewhere where you're appreciated
Speaker 01:sure of course you
Speaker 03:know go jump and work somewhere where now you can make an impact as an employee and now open a whole nother stream you know like there's there's so much more than what we think yeah you know and then going through like let's say that darkness that's why you're go negative mode
Speaker 04:yeah
Speaker 03:your mind goes into what what what can happen because you don't know what's gonna happen so it instantly negative when you can literally have a bright light lit from the second you start if you think that way I know that whoever comes and works with you they're gonna be taught well just by sitting next to you but listening to how you are you can't fake this yeah
Speaker 01:yeah
Speaker 03:it's true you know so like someone can reach out and and get a job even if you're not ready this is gonna grow you man
Speaker 01:yeah
Speaker 03:you're gonna grow because now you're gonna have to be accountable for someone else yeah for the what they're doing the mistake they might make and then how do you how do you treat that
Speaker 01:yeah yeah
Speaker 03:you know yeah
Speaker 01:yeah it's it's scary man because again working at at site one techs come in and out all day these companies come in and out all day i've never
Speaker 03:switched they switch staff
Speaker 01:well they switch staff but they always come in and buy and whatnot okay
Speaker 03:people coming into the stores
Speaker 01:yeah you're selling them these products you know people see hearing what they go through out there you know i had a guy tell me i'm looking to hire somebody but you know i'm gonna start him at $14 an hour. And I'm thinking, $14 an hour to do what? To do pest control and fertilization? I said, man, that's rough. That's rough, bro. Well,
Speaker 03:think about the errors he's going to have.
Speaker 01:I
Speaker 03:was just talking with Eddie right now during lunch. I was like, dude, less than $200 a day, it's hard to live. It's crazy. I'm saying, less than $200 right now, a day as one human, you have to, that needs to be like a minimum.
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 03:Which at $14, you got to work, you know, 14 hours.
Speaker 01:I was talking to another technician. I said, bro, this guy came in today and he was like oh I gotta start somebody I'm gonna start him at 14 and the guy looks at me and goes well this guy pays me 12 and I said wow man I have a helper right now on my truck that he just helps me pull the spray hose he puts the flags out for me I start him at 15 but he's young he lives with his parents he's good but he doesn't do any of the spraying he doesn't do none of that stuff
Speaker 03:he doesn't have the high risk
Speaker 01:he doesn't have any of that stuff he just helped me pull this 300 foot hose and put the flags before I spray the grass. I'm at the point now where I'm going to be bringing in somebody. My son does AC work. He's an AC tech. I put him through the AC school when I realized college wasn't for him.
Speaker 03:Make him a blue collar, baby.
Speaker 01:Yeah, because AC work is always going to be there,
Speaker 03:right? Especially in Florida.
Speaker 01:Exactly. But now he's in a position where he's not happy what he's doing. I want him to start his own business.
Speaker 03:Why is he not happy with where he's working
Speaker 01:at? Yeah, yeah. He's not happy with that. I mean, again, when it's corporate world, there's a lot of hoops that you have to hop through you know i know
Speaker 03:but that that's put on a pedestal bro
Speaker 01:yeah well you know
Speaker 03:think about american dream is you go work at a big corporation and that's where they got it wrong the white picket fence that's where they got it wrong bro
Speaker 01:that's where they got it wrong so i want him to start his own business so i told him i said listen come work with me This is what I can pay you. Since you know AC work, create your business. Create your business cards. Create your shirts. Get yourself going. But work with me so you're making money while you're building your business. And I think that's going to help me out a lot.
Speaker 03:Does he have bills and stuff? How old is he?
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah. No, he's 23 years old. He lives in an efficiency up in Broward. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. No, he's… He's
Speaker 03:got his own thing rolling already.
Speaker 01:Yeah, and he's the one that made me a grandfather. Oh, okay. He has a daughter. Yeah. It's very important. You know what I mean? We were talking outside about how kids change us. And it's true. Kids make you
Speaker 03:a man.
Speaker 01:They make you a man. And every kid after that makes you a little bit better. My son was my first. And I probably wasn't the best number one parent. I did the best that I could. But with every kid, you learn a little bit.
Speaker 03:It makes you more responsible. It does. And then it also teaches you how to sacrifice.
Speaker 01:Big time.
Speaker 03:Big time. Yeah. Because sacrifice. You're no longer first. Yeah, yeah. And you should never be first. Yeah, yeah. Like, let's get that right. Yeah. You know, we're here. We're put on it to serve. Yeah. If you follow, you know, if you follow Jesus, we're here to serve others.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 03:So we're, you know, it is. But kids for me have taught me discipline. They've taught me that I am last on the list, bro.
Speaker 01:Yeah, big time. You know, as long as everybody's eating, I'm happy. And I take that into the business too. Because if the landscaper brings me onto their property and I do a good job, that customer is going to be happy with that landscaper and give them more work so that landscaper keeps eating they brought me to that table so now I get to eat from that table and if as long as I keep doing good work everybody keeps eating everybody gets to eat to me that's very important
Speaker 03:you are you're a part of something that's bigger than yourself big time And when you realize that, then that's when work becomes a way to give back. Yeah. A way to bless others. Yeah. For real, man. No, I love helping landscapers. That's what it's all about, man.
Speaker 01:I
Speaker 03:love it. It's not about you and what you're going to make. It's about the impact you can make and leave. Just like when you get employees, dude, you can change their lives.
Speaker 01:Yeah. For real. No, you were talking about the fertilizing. And so it's easy for a landscaper to get a fertilizer license. All you have to do is take your best management practice course, University of Florida, if any I know you probably know about the IFAS office right there on, what is it, 187th and 288th Street. Any landscaper can go there, take this class. It's a BMP class. They have it in English and in Spanish. You take the class, you take the test, and you get your fertilization license. So now you can have fertilizer on your truck, you know, as long as you're within the, you know, not the blackout periods and you're fine. you're good to go. And, and I'll tell landscapers that like, Hey man, go get this license. That's another avenue of revenue for you because now you can charge for fertilizing, you know, fertilizing. I do it. I don't mind doing it. It's part of what I do, but my favorite thing about what I do is the spring, like seeing the results of the spray. You know, the granular fertilizer is really maintaining the beauty of a plant, but fixing it, getting it to that point is where I thrive. So I'll tell the landscapers, look, go get this license, which other guys in this industry that do what I do won't do that. They want all of it. No, no, no. I'll fertilize. I'll do this. No, no, no, no. You want to fertilize? You've been doing it. Keep doing it. But do this that way. If an inspector stops you, you're safe. You're legit. You're legit. You don't have any problems. Take this class. Go do this. And they love it because it's rare that you come across somebody like that. You know, that's going to point you in the right direction of how to do stuff the right way yourself.
Speaker 03:Well, all of that is what I was talking about. Compounding positivity. You know, you go doing that today over here and tomorrow and every single day you do that. And by time 10 years go by times 365 days. Oh yeah. You have done, you have made an impact three, four, 5,000 times in 10 years. And what do you think is going to happen?
Speaker 01:Yeah. And I do it because it wasn't done for me. So
Speaker 03:that's, that's something like a gen, like something that you want to break and you
Speaker 01:want to. Yeah. There's one guy out there that, that, that I appreciate. I mean, there's a bunch of guys that I work with that I appreciate, but there's a gentleman out there, Douglas pest control. Very good. And when I was working for all these different companies, No matter what company I worked for, he would answer the phone. Hey, Doug, another buddy of mine, Martinez Spray Service. Fred, what is this? What is that? And those two guys always answered the phone for me.
Speaker 03:They always helped you
Speaker 01:out. Always helped me out. They were always on their own. They owned their own businesses. To this day, they still own their own businesses. But they always answered the phone. They always answered the phone, gave me solid advice. So I do the same thing for... for all my buddies that do what I do. There's a few guys out there that if they call me, I won't answer the phone. And there's a few guys out there. That's all
Speaker 03:reputation.
Speaker 01:It's reputation. But there's guys out there that when I left site one, where I was the guy giving them advice because I was getting paid to do that. Once I left, that's it. Their whole demeanor changed when it came to Richard. Now Richard wasn't the nice guy at the store that was giving them advice. Now Richard's competition. Now he's competition. And there's so much work out here like There's more work. than any one man company can handle. There's plenty,
Speaker 03:bro.
Speaker 01:Plenty. There's enough for
Speaker 03:everybody. And what you do is what guides you to have either more work or less work. That's it. What do you see for the future of the industry when it comes to pest control? What issues do you see or what things do you see when it comes to technology,
Speaker 01:staffing? A lot has happened in the past two years with a lot of big companies. You have big companies like... I don't want to plug nobody. What about big companies? Well, you have like One Two Tree. You have Plant Healthcare. You have Eastern Exterminators. Those are the three bigger companies, Power Exterminators.
Speaker 03:Plant Healthcare got purchased. I heard they got purchased. That's
Speaker 01:exactly where I'm going. Plant Healthcare got purchased by the same company that purchased Eastern Exterminators. And somebody told me that that same company purchased Power Exterminators.
Speaker 03:Okay, so this is a private equity firm?
Speaker 01:This is a big, yeah. Like a big
Speaker 03:group?
Speaker 01:Big group, yeah. So
Speaker 03:that's common.
Speaker 01:Yeah. And then you have another company that bought 123, which is another big company. And what's been happening is a good thing for people like me. It's been a trickle down. When these big corporations come in and buy, they don't care if the customer's grass looks good. They care about that margin. Are we making 50%, 60% margin? We're not. This is where I was telling you, okay, don't put this product in there. Don't put this in there. When you go do this yard, just stick to the basics and that's it. The customers start to see the decline, you know, and.
Speaker 03:Oh man, my mind's going, my mind's going. They are going to be, they'll run the middle class market, dude.
Speaker 01:Oh
Speaker 03:yeah. Those people will run the middle class market. So if you guys are in a middle class market doing what you're doing, spraying or anything like that, it's going to be easier for you to climb up higher because the people at the top, they know what type of service they're getting from who. Yeah. And it's going to be easier for you to stand out and be become higher in the niche and touch that top three percent earner you know portfolio yeah because you're that hands-on
Speaker 01:yeah it's different man big time it's
Speaker 03:a
Speaker 01:big big time they're taking that that true green sorry man they're taking that true green model the majority of customers that come to me from a true green all have the same story oh i had the little ticket on my door that they were here, but my ring camera didn't go off. So they didn't do nothing. All they did was put the tag on the door. Sure, it's only 50 bucks a spray. Or
Speaker 03:let's say they spray. Let's say they spray something. It might not be applied properly.
Speaker 01:Oh, big time.
Speaker 03:You know, are they going to circle back around? Did the guy that applied last time, did he check to see if, you know, next 30 days, if it worked? Yeah, and usually it's not even the same guy. Yeah,
Speaker 01:it's not. They rotate. I know why they rotate their technicians on these properties because they don't want these technicians technicians to build up a following from these customers. You know, if I'm a technician at a company and I've been spraying your house for a year straight and you're happy with my work and I tell you, hey, I'm starting my own business, you're going to be inclined to say, hey, well, Richard, sign me up. I'm going to stay with you. So to avoid that, to go against that, they just rotate technicians. And now they don't want the relationships. They don't want you building a rapport with your customers. So
Speaker 03:that's one of the biggest things you're seeing now in the future now
Speaker 01:and i think it's going to be great for for the technicians like myself because as long as we keep that as long as we stay true to to what we do you know every good technician out there is a technician because they love what they do you know they enjoy seeing the green plants they enjoy seeing the trees they they enjoy seeing all that stuff as long as we don't lose sight of that We're going to excel in what we do. You'll stand out. Big time.
Speaker 03:Yeah. You can't be scared of what's going on. You got to pivot and be confident and move strongly. Yeah. Change with the change. Yeah. Change with the change. So that's the biggest thing you're seeing.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Yeah. Big time, right? That's been the news that has kind of rocked my side of the industry lately is all those buyouts, man. And we're seeing that a lot. My buddy Patrick, he owns Trimscape, now just sold that pretty decent sized land company to another big landscape company. So a lot of buyouts. There's a
Speaker 03:lot of non-competes too, like a three-year period.
Speaker 01:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 03:Where if you do get bought out, because I know a few people that have already been bought out, they're getting good money, man. They're getting a few million dollars, two, three, four million dollars, but you can't go back into the field. You can't even touch the industry for three years. So it basically kills a lot of opportunity. You can go into the industry, but through a different stream. You can't go direct with what you were doing. You can't build that competition with them out of respect. But I see a lot of opportunity, man. I see a lot of opportunity for people like yourselves to really grab a hold of different clients. Because as these, let's say, plant healthcare, they buy plants here. I know them very, very well. They're not there anymore. That hands-on service might not be the same. Staff is going to probably change. The guy that's been there for 15 years is not going to be there anymore. After two, three years, because they're going to squeeze them like they squeezed you. And that's going to give opportunity for people like yourselves to go out and really grab a hold of a lot of those clients
Speaker 01:and be happy. And it's happening already. Yeah. Customers are calling, the landscapers. Hey, I need you to come look at this house. They were using such and such. They're not happy. And I'll go to the house and I'll say, man, this is crazy. How did they let it get this bad? It doesn't make any sense when you think about the reputations that they had. I only knew one of the owners of Plant Healthcare. I knew Ian. I know Ian.
Speaker 03:That's the one I know.
Speaker 01:Ian tried to get me to go to Plant Healthcare. Any big company, the only company that didn't give me an opportunity was 123 and when I met with Mark the owner well the former owner 123 he didn't give me the opportunity because I had a tattoo on my neck which blew my mind because at that point I was already licensed to do them you're talking 12 years ago you know I was already licensed and he bypassed me
Speaker 03:and he told
Speaker 01:you that yeah he didn't tell me but his next guy in charge told me he said hey Richard look uh Mark didn't like the fact that you had a tattoo on your neck and I said okay no problem I'm not going to say, oh, but, but no problem. I, you know, and I think I told you this, I'm going through right now, tattoo removal for the same tattoo. Yeah. And it's, it's a process, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's an uncomfortable process. You know, it doesn't feel good, but walls build when you go to a customer and the first thing they see is a tattoo on your neck. You know, that's the first thing they look at is that they judge, they judge you by unfortunately they judge. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. Once I start talking and educating the customer, the tattoo by itself starts to fade away. But it's that initial wall that I have to crawl over to get to that point. With
Speaker 03:every client.
Speaker 01:With every client. This is part
Speaker 02:of your
Speaker 01:evolution. No, no, no, you're good.
Speaker 02:Yeah, this is part of your evolution. This is your past, now you're becoming the man that you are today. So that removal, yeah. And if you feel you need to do it. It's fading away of the past or whatever. Not that it's a problem, but some people see it as a bad thing, even though It's
Speaker 01:art. It's your art. It's your piece. It's your life. Which is why I don't get upset when I deal with that because I can't expect everybody to think like I think. Before I started my business, I made a lot of changes in my life just because I knew how important those changes were going to be for the growth of my company. Like I was telling you, I used to have a music studio in my house. Invested a lot of money into that music studio. I like Jordans. Since I started my business, I've reestablished my collection. But before I started the business, I sold off like maybe 10 pairs of Jordans that I had that were brand new in the box. I sold off my entire studio. My wife was an avid Coca-Cola drinker. I mean, for breakfast, lunch, dinner, never failed. Coca-Cola. I don't think she touched a bottle of water unless it was handed to me. I love beer. Beer to me tastes good. People that say, oh, beer tastes like crab. I don't know. I don't know. I love it. Right. But in order for her to quit drinking Coke, I made a deal with her. I said, look, you quit drinking soda. Now quit drinking beer. Let's do it. So she said, okay. Cause she didn't think I could do it. I've never been, you know, the type that I needed to drink a beer every day. I can't, you know, but when I would go into that studio, man, oh man, crack open a box, you know, a hole easy. Luckily for me, I've never had an addictive personality. So I've always been able to, you know, just if I needed to let something go, I could let it go. I've been sober for about a year. Okay.
Speaker 03:Congrats. Thank you. Thank you. God bless you.
Speaker 01:Thank you. And she's been without soda for a year. At least I think so. I think so. She's got a
Speaker 03:hidden
Speaker 01:stash. I think so. I think so.
Speaker 03:Listen, I know it's tough. I had a buddy back in the day. His girl did not want him to drink. She was pregnant. So he would call me and be like, Hey bro, can you buy me cigarettes and beer? And I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll sell you. I'm like, dude, are you there? You're at this point. I'm sorry, bro. I can't do this, bro. What do you mean? Cause he couldn't have it on the, on the debit card. Yeah. I'm like, bro, I'm not going to do this, bro. I'm going to have to call somebody else.
Speaker 01:No, for me, it was easy, man. Because like I said, I've been doing this for so long. I licensed some landscapers. I have a landscaper out there that he'll deny it forever. And that's what it is. But he owes me about $20,000, $30,000. He'll never admit to it. And that's fine. That's between him and the Lord. You know what I mean? I've been dealt a lot of bad hands. So I said, you know what? I'm not doing that no more. So I said, I'm going to quit drinking. The studio music was... a big part of my life. You know, like what you were saying with the tattoos and stuff, like it was a big part of my life. Your
Speaker 03:journey, your past.
Speaker 01:I enjoyed it. It was a past time, but it was something I enjoyed doing. You know, I have a, there is a large underground hip hop scene in Miami. And, you know, I have a lot of love for a lot of those guys that do it and still do it. They're making big moves and it's great. But I came to a point where I said, all right, that's it. I'm done. You know, so I let go of music. I let go of beer. When I say beer, I say alcohol because alcohol never really drew my attention. Beer was the one that I would always gravitate to. Alcohol, none of that stuff. And then I took the step and it's probably the best decision I ever made because the mental clarity of being sober and You know, the ability to wake up, even though I've always been the type, if I go to sleep at 2 in the morning drunk, I'm still waking up at 5 in the morning to go to work. Just because I saw my dad do it,
Speaker 03:you know. Generational curses, baby. That's it. You're breaking them. That's it. You're not going to show that to your kids.
Speaker 01:I don't feel that no more. Like, I don't have that sluggish morning where it's like, oh, my gosh, and I had all that beer. I shouldn't have did this. I shouldn't have. That's gone. Like, it's just.
Speaker 03:You wake up ready.
Speaker 01:Ready to go. Ready to go make this money. Like, I tell my wife, you I used to enjoy, I used to look forward to the weekends to getting hammered. Yeah, big time. Now I look forward to getting those deposit slips. Now I look forward to getting those checks.
Speaker 03:And coming through for people. And coming through for people.
Speaker 01:Being able to tell her, oh, let's go out to eat. Come on. My wife loves Samurai. That's her place. She loves Samurai. Well, the
Speaker 03:triple, man. The triple. Big time. You have to. The triple used to be 36 bucks.
Speaker 01:You have to. Yeah, not no more. We were talking about that the other day. Not no more. That triple has doubled. Yeah. That We were talking
Speaker 03:about that the other
Speaker 01:day. Yeah, and I just got my coupon because my birthday is now in August. My birthday is now in August, so I just got my coupon.
Speaker 03:Listen, if you live in Miami, you know about the birthday coupon.
Speaker 01:Yeah, her birthday is in July, so she just spent hers.
Speaker 03:I know, but you got to buy a meal to get a meal for
Speaker 01:free. Yeah, yeah. No, no. But, hey, it comes in clutch when you have all these kids.
Speaker 03:Oh, bro, yeah, you go with the whole family, it's $300, $400.
Speaker 01:Listen, my kids don't want chicken tenders. No, no, no. My kids want... a meal.
Speaker 03:They want the triple daddy. I want the lobster on the side.
Speaker 01:Well, I'm lucky they haven't gone for the lobster yet, but my little one, the shrimp and the steak, oh, and she's eight years old.
Speaker 03:No, but that's good, man. I have a son that's seven and twin girls that are six. I don't want them to eat from the kid menu because the food is just frozen garbage. Eat from the appetizers because the appetizer, you get a whole quesadilla. You get something really good. You get chicken wings. Order something like that. And I'm for that. They order whatever the heck they want.
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 03:Man, that's crazy, bro. Dude, thank you. You have anything else you want to say?
Speaker 01:Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate you bringing me on here. I don't know if you were going to be plugging the business info, but everything
Speaker 03:will be there.
Speaker 01:Yeah, if any landscaper out there, if you're having any issues and any of your properties, just give me a call.
Speaker 03:Or you see an issue.
Speaker 01:Yeah, just give me a call. If you're not sure of an issue, give me a call. I don't try to go in there and get to the customer. I deal directly with landscaper I keep it at their comfort level. You bring me on. How do you want me to attack it? What do you want me to do? And that's how I do it. Don't be afraid if you want to call me just for a question. Shoot me a picture. My phone number, I'm sure, will be attached here. So shoot me a picture. Text me a picture. Hey, Richard. Saw you on the podcast. Yeah. Can you tell me what this might be? What the issue is? What can I do to treat it? Is there something I can do? Or do I have to have you come in? Whatever the case may be, don't be afraid.
Speaker 03:One of the biggest things is I see you as an asset when it comes to a landscaper that does doesn't have someone like you in their portfolio where now you guys can pull them out like a sword, right? Because we're ninjas out here, right? Dugging it out. So now you can be confident and tell the landlord or whoever it is that you're dealing with, you can tell them, hey, look, these plants we don't need to remove. Let me call my boy. He's awesome. He's a doctor. He's very known in what he does. And let him come over here, let him see what it is, and let's see what makes more sense. And I'm telling you, when you do things like that, guys, it stands you out. Everyone's trying to figure out, how do I get in the 20% of market share that's left? Because that's really what's going on right now because the economy is just sucking everything out of everybody oh
Speaker 01:man
Speaker 03:yeah it's rough out here so how do you touch that market share standing out and being different and looking out when you look out for someone else's pockets that's normally how god blesses you and he fills up yours yep so man dude god bless you my bro god bless you thank you bro thank you guys for tuning in and listening if you made it to the end of the episode you already know you can be sitting here too on this side all right come and pour your heart out into the mics we've talked about finding lack and fulfilling with abundance this is what 2025 is is a year of respect. We said it in the last episode of 2024, and we're bringing it to the table, guys. We're going to hold ourselves accountable. We're going to hold you accountable. We're going to hold this guy, Mr. Richard, accountable, and we're going to make an impact. All right, guys? God bless you. Let's go. Stay strong, 2025. Let's
Speaker 00:go. Minds to elevate, thrive, and demonstrate. Plant in a movement. Sow the seeds. Educate to flourish. Building up the team. Our network with purpose. Industry is green. Only scratch the surface. No, this call is deep. Nobody going to work us. Yeah, we chasing greatness. Trying to give the code. Moving up with patience. Foundation stone. Doing what it takes. We're here to break the Let's go.
