How AI Helped Save Her Landscaping Business

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Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh!

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Unknown
Oh!

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Speaker 2
Welcome, everybody, to the Blue Collar startup, the podcast. We’re hardware. We work hard. Work. We better start that intro again here. Sorry about that. Welcome, everybody, to the Blue Collar Startup, the podcast where hard work meets big ideas.

00;00;27;26 – 00;00;45;11
Speaker 2
This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the front lines of life and the business of the trades. I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media, and I’m your co-host, Derek Foster, vehicle cleaning systems here in Albany of New York. Well, you know, I got kicked out of the office this afternoon.

00;00;45;11 – 00;01;08;16
Speaker 2
As I was telling you guys, I’m sitting here in my truck, so just bear with me. We’re making a work today, and you’re wearing a fancy shirt. Derek, I don’t I don’t feel like I get to see you in, a button up very often. Yeah. You know, we actually have, so I have this and, you know, I’m trying to get back more involved in, the community and doing some network and networking and grassroots, marketing.

00;01;08;16 – 00;01;31;27
Speaker 2
So the Albany Business Review puts on their event up in, Saratoga every year. So going up to that tonight and then, you know, wrapping up after that. So, long. Yeah. But it’s been a good one. I figured you’re going to tell me that, because you’ve been out in the field with your crews so much recently that they kicked you out of the field, and they’re like, no, you got to get back out and, go back to networking.

00;01;32;00 – 00;01;59;06
Speaker 2
They did for a little while, and then I was back out. And yesterday, that’s a I mean, I like doing that. So, but I think I drive everybody crazy. They just, they don’t. They tell me sometimes, but, you know, they’re nice about it. That’s good, that’s good. Well, I’m excited about our conversation today. I’m going to let the guest obviously tell us, what she does, but, Andrea and Andrea, I apologize her time if I say her last name wrong, but.

00;01;59;06 – 00;02;01;11
Speaker 2
Andrea Palacio.

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Speaker 1
Lazio.

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Speaker 2
Lazio. Okay. I was so close. Andrea, welcome to the show.

00;02;06;03 – 00;02;08;03
Speaker 1
Thank you. Super excited to be here with you guys.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, Andrea, tell the, listeners a little bit about, who we’re going to get in your background and kind of how you got there, but just maybe give us the overview as far as what Cruella’s is and kind of what you guys do on a day to day basis.

00;02;22;04 – 00;02;36;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure. So I help business owners implement I and her business basically sold their business problems. Just automate all the manual repetitive work. Just go through the business, analyze all the systems and just streamline those processes. It’s kind of what we do.

00;02;36;21 – 00;03;06;12
Speaker 2
Amazing. And the story of how you got here is really what we want to talk about today. Because while it sounds like your day to day right now might be a little more on the maybe the technical side, we’ll say, because a lot of that, I’m sure is involving, you know, I and other technical systems. But, the story about how you ended up starting this business, I think is, what our listeners are really going to enjoy, as well as how you use the things that you do on a day to day basis now with crew lists to run your other business.

00;03;06;12 – 00;03;12;08
Speaker 2
So, maybe give us a little bit about your the other side of Andrea.

00;03;12;10 – 00;03;34;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, totally. So. Well, I became an entrepreneur in 2016, started an e-commerce business. We that business allowed us to have all the freedom to travel around the world. We sailed across the Caribbean for four years, and then at some point we were like, okay, we want something bigger. So we ended up moving back to South Florida, where we have been living for 20 something years and start our family.

00;03;34;27 – 00;03;56;13
Speaker 1
And at the same time, we end up selling the e-commerce business, we sell it and we acquire a landscaping company, and we have our kids. And when we do that, we are completely overwhelmed with the amount of just work. I mean, just to put you guys into context, the day that we acquire the company, just five days later, we find that the seller stole money from us.

00;03;56;13 – 00;04;15;12
Speaker 1
He just disappears, does not train us. We don’t need any of the suppliers, any of the clients, absolutely anything. And so does the business starts slowly going down to maybe a month and a half or two months afterwards. We have the manager who was now handling the sales because we don’t really know anything about a landscaping company. Right?

00;04;15;12 – 00;04;33;05
Speaker 1
E-commerce is one thing. Landscaping is a completely different story. And so, he is supposed to be doing the sales. We don’t have any sales coming in, and he just one day walks in and says, hey, you know, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t think, I’m the right person for the job anymore. And he does get.

00;04;33;07 – 00;04;54;13
Speaker 1
Yeah, there’s everybody in the company in a gas station and lets them know, hey, I think this to Draya and her husband. They’re going to fail. So I would suggest that you all go looking for another job. Make the making the story short. We have we go from 70,000 in monthly revenue down to 40,000. We go from 12 employees down to two employees.

00;04;54;16 – 00;05;15;12
Speaker 1
My husband, we buy this company thinking that we’re going to just acquire a bunch of different companies and exit, you know, have a big fancy exit. And we end up where, answering the phones, just all the time emails 24 over seven nonstop with a newborn and a toddler. And my husband is outside, outside doing the labor.

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Speaker 1
And have you been in Florida? It’s hot as hell in summer. And he ends up doing the labor because we cannot afford to lose any more clients because just the acquisition of that business, it was backed by an SBA loan, which meant that our personal everything that we had worked for, right or home, everything was on the line us as collateral.

00;05;35;00 – 00;05;55;13
Speaker 1
So it was definitely one of the hardest times of my life is not the hardest, but, it put us in a situation where we were under significant pressure and we had to just figure out a way out. So we slowly started to say, okay, you know, let’s try Google Ads. Let’s figure that out. We ended up losing, you know, we’ve tried ads before.

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Speaker 1
You know, that first night you probably lose a lot of money before you learn to do it. Right. And so we lost or $11,000 just to figure that out. But slowly we end up just learning and rebuilding the business. And at some point I find that, okay, we’ve we’re kind of a little bit better, but we find ourselves just wearing all the hats in the business, which is what a lot of small business owners do.

00;06;19;19 – 00;06;40;10
Speaker 1
We are the marketing company, we are the admin. We are the customer service. We are absolutely everything in our business. Right. So that’s when I told my husband, you know, I knew what freedom look like. I had been living it for seven years. I that was not an option for me. So I told my husband, either we sell this business or we find a way to automate it and open.

00;06;40;10 – 00;07;00;29
Speaker 1
I, I just kind of had just been released to the public, so I started diving into it, tried hiring someone to help me out with it, and it was a complete failure. Then I tried hiring a second person to just automate as, a lot of a simpler process. And I find that, oh my God, this doesn’t require any coding.

00;07;01;00 – 00;07;17;00
Speaker 1
It doesn’t. You know, I can totally do this. This is not as hard as it looks. And I just end up automating the entire business to the point where we’re able to, so traveling again and move to another country with our kids and just kind of like, just be back and forth between South Florida and Colombia.

00;07;17;07 – 00;07;31;08
Speaker 2
So amazing. So much to unpack there, Andrea, that so I, I one question to put it in context. You started the business in 2016, you said, and the.

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Speaker 1
E-commerce.

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Speaker 2
Business, oh, the e-commerce business. When did you start? When did you buy the landscaping company?

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Speaker 1
Were you by the landscaping company in 2023.

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Speaker 2
2023? Okay. So you’ve only you’ve been there for three years. You’ve already gone through all of that stuff. And oh yea, so this is like yeah, yeah, I was thinking about that back in 2016. Like no, no, no.

00;07;52;00 – 00;07;57;05
Speaker 1
It was intense guys. It was intense. I could not live like that one more day.

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Speaker 2
That, Andrea, how did you deal with the shear stress of that? And, and.

00;08;03;29 – 00;08;05;10
Speaker 1
Right. And the other day.

00;08;05;12 – 00;08;07;07
Speaker 2
I mean, it’s saying.

00;08;07;09 – 00;08;33;13
Speaker 1
No, it was it was rough. I cried every other day and especially because, you know, again, you you come from this life of absolute freedom, right? We have been living on a sailboat. When I tell you living, I mean, like we were just hopping island to island kiteboarding when we felt like it, scuba diving when we felt like it, and suddenly like this massive change where we had to sell that business, buy another one and become parents, becoming parents on in its own.

00;08;33;15 – 00;08;54;23
Speaker 1
It’s rough. It’s hard. We had two kids back to back, right? Their only life 13 months apart. And then on top of that, we go through all of that process with the company. And so, so yeah, it was it was so hard. I mean, now now I see it because now I’m like, okay, had I not gone through that, I would not be able to help as many people as I help because I wouldn’t know what I know.

00;08;54;23 – 00;09;19;13
Speaker 1
Right? I wouldn’t feel that. I wouldn’t have felt that pressure, that massive, comfort. And I wouldn’t have to force the to for something else to work. Right. Because, you know, when you’re comfortable, see, when you’re when you’re comfortable, you’re like, you, you kind of adapt. But when you’re in a really crappy situation, you just need to figure out a way out, right?

00;09;19;13 – 00;09;27;14
Speaker 1
It’s it’s so bad that you’re like, there’s no way I can continue living like this. And so that’s really what I think happened to me and to us.

00;09;27;16 – 00;09;44;14
Speaker 2
And almost like going from all that freedom to being trapped in a space where, like, the only way out was through. It’s not like you could quit the business with that SBA loan hanging over. Yeah. And, you know, like you had you had to get through all that adversity and hardship.

00;09;44;16 – 00;10;14;05
Speaker 1
Exactly. It was like there was no other option because we knew that we would lose everything. Like we would lose everything that we had worked for for so many years. So, so at that point, it was just like, all right, we have to figure out a way to get up. And and so for me, I think the hardest thing was just being at home with the kids and, you know, the phone calls, the emails, like all the customers calling to cancel and at the same time, like not seeing my husband the whole day and then just seeing him, a Niger’s muddy, muddy, sweaty, like, smelling like, like I’m sorry.

00;10;14;07 – 00;10;34;11
Speaker 1
Even if this doesn’t, it doesn’t take away you should. Right. So so you’re like, you know, you have to figure out a way out. And and it’s just it’s it’s life, right? We get put through some difficult situations and it’s just how do you come across and and where do you find strength. Right. And and come out the other side.

00;10;34;12 – 00;10;37;02
Speaker 1
It sounds way nicer now than actually going through it.

00;10;37;02 – 00;11;05;23
Speaker 2
Right. And going through it. No, I, I mean, I think almost every small business owner goes through massive hardship and adversity unless they’re extremely lucky. But, you know, those first few years are hard, hard, hard. And I mean, I shouldn’t even say it. It never becomes not hard. I guess there’s always something hard that you have to work on, but hopefully it’s because you’re leveling up and, you’re, you know, going through ceilings that, you’ve never been through before as opposed to just being trapped like you guys were.

00;11;06;00 – 00;11;25;14
Speaker 1
Yeah. I completely agree with you. I think it’s just you come across like you said, you level that level up. Right? So you there come across a problem, like, let’s say a problem level five. If you’re still a level two, like you’re going to suffer, right? If you leveled up, you know, spiritually, mentally and you’re like, maybe you’re a maid, you’re okay with it.

00;11;25;14 – 00;11;45;16
Speaker 1
You know, after last year, we thought that we had everything handled. Without everything, I’ve been fine. And we actually hired a friend that I met back in middle school, 20 years of friendship. Right. He was going to my kid’s birthday party. Then there. And just. We spent so much time together, like my baby showers and all that stuff.

00;11;45;19 – 00;12;03;29
Speaker 1
And we hired him to be our manager, like, okay, you know, we have the automations in place. We have a guy in place. We just need that leadership, and we think he can be that person. So he ended up leading the company for a full year. We started noticing at the end that just numbers started going down and something that isn’t right.

00;12;04;01 – 00;12;22;19
Speaker 1
So we go back to Florida and we end up seeing that he had actually been stealing from us. Like, like we started having conversations with clients and and so just to go back to what you said, right. You’re always facing new challenges. And it’s like, well, now here’s a leadership. You’re not as great of a leader as you thought you were.

00;12;22;19 – 00;12;42;12
Speaker 1
You now you need to level up when it comes to leadership. And so it’s the journey of, of a business owner. It’s and our business is only as good as we are on a personal level. I think that’s kind of what I’ve learned is the more I I grow and the more I invest in myself, in personal development, the better my business does.

00;12;42;15 – 00;12;45;04
Speaker 1
So it’s kind of. Wetteland.

00;12;45;06 – 00;12;54;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. Where are you guys today in comparison to where you were when all of that started to happen to you?

00;12;54;29 – 00;13;15;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. So we are back, at 70,000 per month again. We are back with, now we have ten employees. We have less employees doing the same amount of revenue that we had before. And, I started my own company. So last year, in 2025, I told my husband, I’m like, well, I love you. I love I appreciate the landscaping company, but it’s not my thing.

00;13;15;22 – 00;13;40;17
Speaker 1
I’ve always been very tech curious and I really love looking into systems. I didn’t know this before, but like I majored in management information systems, I didn’t know that was the in between tech and business. That was the thing. So I ended up doing that and I told him I just need to step away and focus on helping other businesses do exactly what I did for our business because it was life changing.

00;13;40;19 – 00;13;45;04
Speaker 2
Life changing. So let’s talk about what you did then. What did it look like? Yeah.

00;13;45;06 – 00;14;04;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, totally. So when we first started, you know, we were handling all the phone calls. Most of our clients were residential clients, which meant that they we had a lot of complaints. We had a lot of people calling on a daily basis, asking when their next service date was all that kind of stuff. And so the first thing that I did, I was like, well, we were losing clients nonstop, right?

00;14;04;19 – 00;14;27;03
Speaker 1
And so the first thing that we did was that automation that I hired someone to do, which was we are going to send an automated email, with a picture of the before and after of the property notes from the crew, letting them know exactly what they need. Let’s say their grass is dry or something like that. They were going to receive an automated team after every single property had been completed.

00;14;27;06 – 00;14;41;22
Speaker 1
After that, they would also receive a text message letting them know, asking them how their service was so we could get feedback. If it was a complaint, it would send them to a form for them to fill out. If there was, something that they were satisfied with, it would take them to post a review on Google.

00;14;41;29 – 00;15;03;00
Speaker 1
And so that was the first thing that we did, and that helped us significantly with that, with the churn. So that was the first thing when I found out that, wow, this doesn’t need any code, I can do this. Then I had envisioned, which was the reason, the reason why I tried hiring that first freelancer. I had this vision of an AI receptionist.

00;15;03;00 – 00;15;21;27
Speaker 1
I would handle all the calls and just kind of send them over to the right person, and just kind of deal with as many problems as possible without having to transfer the call to me. So that was the second thing that I did. I built literally a receptionist that would book the appointments. Most of the calls that we get were because we run Google apps.

00;15;21;27 – 00;15;42;18
Speaker 1
Now I optimizes and manages the Google Ads, which is great because our cost for, our cost of acquisition is significantly lower than what it was before. At the time, it wasn’t like that, but we would get a lot of calls, from Google ads. And so now the I reception is just answer still call and books that appointment directly in the calendar.

00;15;42;18 – 00;16;04;11
Speaker 1
So one of the things that we had noticed is that we were losing a ton of leads because as much as you want to hire humans, like you have people calling maybe after hours while they’re at the bathroom weekends. And so you’re already paying for that leap, right? You’re already spending that money to on on Google ads, like you need to answer that phone call as on non-negotiable, right?

00;16;04;11 – 00;16;25;23
Speaker 1
So our revenue just like kind of went up, just went up like 30% just because we started not not missing any of the calls. And so the I would just pick up the call, and book that appointment for the sales manager to go out and give that quote. As soon as people know that the problem that they’re calling for has been handled, they will not call somebody else.

00;16;25;29 – 00;16;45;25
Speaker 1
But if you don’t answer the phone, they’re going to call your competitor because their problem has still not been solved. Right. So that was the first thing. Second thing when someone called about, hey, once my next service, it’s connected directly to our CRM, so it knows exactly what quotes we had come into a customer when their next services are, what their past services were when we went out to the property.

00;16;45;25 – 00;16;56;04
Speaker 1
So it’s able to answer just any frequently asked questions that people can’t call about. So that was also life changing. Calling. Yeah. That’s a question.

00;16;56;04 – 00;17;19;07
Speaker 2
About that I so this is whenever I hear about AI phone systems, my question is and I mean it with with all respect, I’m I’m really I’m curious. But like do you find that do you like do are people okay knowing that they’re talking to an AI agent like it’s not a real person I like there’s no fallout because of that.

00;17;19;07 – 00;17;39;19
Speaker 1
No, no, there definitely is. It’s not perfect. Okay. So it’s not perfect because you do come across people that don’t want to talk to an AI, right? Yeah. So you have so I found there’s like if you have you have a lot of people that are like just older. They normally don’t realize that they’re talking to AI because they don’t even think that the technology is there.

00;17;39;24 – 00;17;58;21
Speaker 1
Right? So they’re not like they’re not thinking like, oh, this is AI. So they just like, oh, well, thank you so much. You’re so kind. Right. That’s the response. But then you have people that are more aware that AI is a thing. And so a lot of people are okay with it because they would rather than their phone call be answered than not have anybody answer the phone call.

00;17;58;27 – 00;18;17;09
Speaker 1
Right. So what we do now, back then, like we had a time where we just had I answer the phone and we did have a lot of missed opportunities because a lot of people just prefer to speak to humans. Now, we also had a lot of people that were like, totally okay with it. My call is being handled.

00;18;17;09 – 00;18;35;29
Speaker 1
I’m good. Right now. What we try to do is we have, an A system that just answers most of the time. And when he’s not available, we have AI as a backup. Right. And so it’s kind of like it’s not if or an or it’s it’s not in like you can only pick one is like how do you use those tools together.

00;18;36;04 – 00;19;00;14
Speaker 1
Like you have the human aspect which kind of like you have that person bringing the emotional the the strategy, the the hey, let’s connect type of, the feelings and, and value that only we humans can provide. But you also have AI just backing up with anything that’s, you know, repetitive, anything that’s automated. Like for instance, I don’t need to answer the phone to give you when your next service date is right.

00;19;00;14 – 00;19;18;04
Speaker 1
Like, I don’t need I don’t need to be in that phone call. My assistant doesn’t need to be in that phone call. Right? I can give you just the same information in less time. Right. So. So you have a little bit of both. Yeah. That that answer your question.

00;19;18;07 – 00;19;43;14
Speaker 2
No. Definitely does. And it’s because I’m like, you know, I’m I guess I’m old enough at this point now where at almost 50, I like I kind of straddle both lines. Like sometimes I want to talk to a human, but other times I don’t mind if I’m talking to an AI and some of them are really good. So it’s like I almost there to talk to the I but I was wondering if it’s like because I only have my own preferences, you know what I mean?

00;19;43;14 – 00;19;48;20
Speaker 2
To kind of judge by and I wonder, you know, you’re seeing it all the time, obviously, and how that shakes out. Yeah.

00;19;48;22 – 00;20;07;14
Speaker 1
And one of the cool things is that you train your. I just as just like to do whatever you want it to do. In our scenario, I always like to have AI, the give AI the possibility to transfer the call to a human, which means that at any time that you know the person speaking to I, it feels like I.

00;20;07;14 – 00;20;24;24
Speaker 1
It’s not helping them as much as they would want to. I will just they can ask for a human or I can just say, hey, let me just have you speak with our manager and it will just transfer the call directly to our manager. Right. And so then you just kind of like, you don’t deal with the problem anymore, but you’re still like, let’s say receiving 100 phone calls.

00;20;24;26 – 00;20;48;16
Speaker 1
Now we are only having to, like the human is only having to speak with maybe ten. Right, right. 1015, which are the most important ones or the ones where someone really needs that 101 support, but then you have that human just be present in other areas of the business where only they can do work and only they can give value, because I it’s not as valuable there.

00;20;48;21 – 00;21;09;02
Speaker 1
Right. So that’s a competitive advantage when it comes to business is just utilizing your resource and your resources. Yet like time is our most precious one, right? Our most precious resource. Like why would you want to? You’re paying your assistant $15 an hour. Why would you want them answering that phone call or 20 different people just to let them know when their next service date is right?

00;21;09;05 – 00;21;16;06
Speaker 1
Unnecessary. It’s a waste of time and money for the business. So it’s just being like optimizing every single one of those resources.

00;21;16;09 – 00;21;27;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you, friends. Thank you for letting me interrupt to answer that question. So, but, and where are you going next? You are about to start your.

00;21;27;07 – 00;21;51;21
Speaker 1
Yeah. So the other one that we had is I hated calling clients to ask for payments. That was a nightmare for me. It was like, you know, why don’t you just pay? Like we already service your property? Here’s the invoice. Just pay. It’s, you know. So it was a nightmare for me. So I build an eye agent that would call people three different times with a different message based on where they were at with their past.

00;21;51;21 – 00;22;07;02
Speaker 1
You, Bill. Right. So the first one is like, hey, just a kind reminder here. I see that you haven’t processed your payment for the invoice. 12345. You know what’s going on? Do you need me to send it? Hey. Yes? Can you send it? It will send it via text message. Send the link so they can process their payment.

00;22;07;02 – 00;22;24;24
Speaker 1
Right. The second time they call, it’s a little bit. Hey, this is the second time I’m calling, like, what’s going on here? Why haven’t you processed your payment? Let me send you the link so you can send that payment. And then the third one is more like, hey, this is the last time we call, you know, the next one is we’re suspending your service.

00;22;24;24 – 00;22;42;07
Speaker 1
The next one is, you know, we if we have to I don’t know if it’s bertolino the property because it’s a massive bill. I don’t know, whatever it is. Like, I will be able to just kind of send those automated text messages, those phone calls and those emails, which makes just it took a huge load off my back for me for this.

00;22;42;09 – 00;22;43;20
Speaker 1
I hated doing that.

00;22;43;22 – 00;22;45;10
Speaker 2
I also hate doing that.

00;22;45;13 – 00;22;47;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. It sucks.

00;22;47;04 – 00;22;52;26
Speaker 2
That’s why my tax accounts receivable is always completely ridiculous.

00;22;52;28 – 00;23;10;05
Speaker 1
Totally. Okay, so you and a lot of people, it’s not like they have a bad intention majority. I mean, I’ve had a lot of times like two different clients in my life that have had really bad intentions, don’t want to pay, but those are like unicorns, right? You have the majority of the people. They have good intentions.

00;23;10;05 – 00;23;32;27
Speaker 1
They want to pay you. They just don’t remember. They’ve got a lot of things going on, just like we all do. And so just sending them those automated reminders will take, will give you a ton of time back a lot. Just having AI help us scheduling our crews like it now analyzes where the location is every single, the service of each property.

00;23;32;29 – 00;23;52;26
Speaker 1
So that’s that’s only in our business. Right. And having I just know everything about our business. Right. Knows everything about our business. Like you just ask it. Any questions? Like for me on my on now or not? On on my business. Like my my I business. I’ve built a following because I has helped me now edits my videos.

00;23;52;26 – 00;24;16;12
Speaker 1
It publishes automatically to all seven different platforms. It scripts my videos based on my voice, what he knows about me, the systems that he knows I have built for me and for other clients. So I don’t need to spend my time like in those little details. If I have to launch, a new product, it’s going to automatically create the landing page on my website writes the whole thing.

00;24;16;12 – 00;24;37;14
Speaker 1
I just like my whole purpose for a year off for it to do all of my work, but like it create all the drafts for me and I just review, make sure it’s correct, and just fix based on. Instead of me having to spend ten hours to build the whole thing. Right. It just takes, you know, 80% of that work.

00;24;37;14 – 00;24;56;01
Speaker 1
By creating the full draft, I analyze it and just say, hey, just fix a couple of things here and there, and now am my time and time allocated to that specific project is now way small. It’s only 20% of my time, right. So but let’s say for bookings for, my podcast bookings, I told you guys I was going on podcast maybe on a weekly basis.

00;24;56;01 – 00;25;13;04
Speaker 1
So I have an agent that just reaches out to podcast and just says, hey, this is that, I think you’re you’re a great fit. This is a part Andrea’s story. Like, I think it fits great with your focus on what you guys do. And so I’m booked all the time on podcast, because what if I had to be doing that outreach myself?

00;25;13;04 – 00;25;22;01
Speaker 1
I wouldn’t have the time to be sitting down here with you guys, because then I would have to. I would have to be everywhere, or I would have to hire a ton of people to that to do that work for me, you know?

00;25;22;03 – 00;25;29;08
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, so so is I. Was it Kate that originally? Yes. Is Kate a real person or is that your age?

00;25;29;09 – 00;25;33;16
Speaker 1
Kate is my. And this.

00;25;33;18 – 00;25;38;12
Speaker 1
That’s here. He’s my. That’s cool. He’s he’s my human assistant.

00;25;38;15 – 00;25;56;17
Speaker 2
There’s so funny. I had no idea I was actually, I knew that the initial email was probably an eye outreach email because we get a lot of those. Yeah. But then after that, for other communication, I thought there’s a real, real person involved there that’s so fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;25;56;20 – 00;26;14;07
Speaker 1
I, you know, it’s it’s how do you leverage technology to help you do more and help you serve your clients more? Because at the end of the day, the more people you’re able to serve, the more people you impact with your talents and what you’re good at. And really, I mean, you guys have your own craft that you’re really, really good at, right?

00;26;14;07 – 00;26;31;27
Speaker 1
You don’t have to be in the little technical details or the repetitive stuff, or the lack of or the manual stuff, because what you want to be doing is spending as much time as humanly possible doing that one thing. That’s your zone of genius, right? But you guys are really good at. And so that’s ultimately what we try to do with other businesses.

00;26;32;00 – 00;26;35;13
Speaker 2
So.

00;26;35;15 – 00;27;06;14
Speaker 2
The to bring it back to the landscaping company for a little bit, what I, what I hear you saying is that you automated a lot of the things that you are doing, like handling phone calls both inbound and outbound, setting up sales appointments, customer follow up. So post job, before afters and then also some of the administrative stuff like chasing invoices and things like that.

00;27;06;17 – 00;27;15;28
Speaker 2
It is there is there things on the operations side specifically that you also automated outside of like maybe scheduling?

00;27;16;01 – 00;27;39;11
Speaker 1
Yeah. So so I don’t work in that business anymore. But my husband, you know, manages everything with, with I. And so what he does is, for instance, he manages all the marketing. What I like, I is really just doing the heavy lifting for everything. He gets a new customer and again, I is going to let him know when it should, where and when it should be scheduled in the service.

00;27;39;13 – 00;28;02;08
Speaker 1
We also track we have dashboards that get automated with like all the numbers to know exactly how much time, our crews are taking to service the property and how much time they should be taking. Right. So so what they’re taking versus what they should be taking, we see that on dashboard. So we have we’re able to keep track of their efficiency score kind of thing.

00;28;02;10 – 00;28;27;05
Speaker 1
What else does the finance as a role we’re able to just see and just have I analyze everything and let us know, like where we’re at? I think that’s pretty much it. Okay. Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. Oh, well, sometimes he has like he I think he mentioned that he has it. I fill out proposals for him which are like he I will go out, look at the map and analyze those properties like he needs to provide a proposal for.

00;28;27;10 – 00;28;33;15
Speaker 1
You will analyze the spacing, what he needs to do, the scope of work, and then just, create the proposal for him. So.

00;28;33;22 – 00;28;49;27
Speaker 2
Okay. So with crew lists is it is crew lists, software that you’ve built or is it more of like a service where you go in and help build agents, customize to businesses.

00;28;50;00 – 00;29;11;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I started as a consultant, which is basically that second option that you mentioned where I go into a business and I just help them. Okay. Just how do we streamline those operations? Right. I’ve been kind of moving towards because I found that I, I’m capped. I can only do so much. Right. I’m still attaching my time to it, which means that I can only serve a limited number of people.

00;29;12;06 – 00;29;33;20
Speaker 1
So I started, a program where I help business owners just kind of like I have packaged up every single system that I’ve built for my own company, and they just access it, and we have weekly calls, and they’re able to just figure out how do they. I guide them on how to how they can implement all those strategies into their business and their, how they can really use I to just move faster.

00;29;33;20 – 00;29;58;29
Speaker 1
Because one of the cool things about AI is really that it helps us be more productive, right? It helps us do more in that same hours. So now instead of like I told my my clients, you know, if you had the same, the same, two resumes on top of your desk, right? And you’re hiring for, I don’t know, marketing manager, but one is uses I, the other one doesn’t.

00;29;59;06 – 00;30;18;09
Speaker 1
The one that uses AI is going to be able to complete, you know, ten different tasks in that same day, whereas the person that’s not using AI doing everything manually is only able to do four tasks per day, maybe even three, like, maybe less like, why would you hire that other person when you’re having them to pay the same thing?

00;30;18;12 – 00;30;42;12
Speaker 1
Like right. You wouldn’t. So the same exact thing happens when you compare a business that is using AI, right? Versus one that isn’t. You’re able to just move faster, you’re able to serve more clients, you’re able to do more for people. And you’re and your team, you’re you’re having people that are not like wasting their time doing this basic data entry.

00;30;42;12 – 00;30;58;26
Speaker 1
Right? You have you’re using AI to use the Chrome extension and use your computer to basically do anything that you can do on your computer. It’s doing it for you, right? So just makes your life much easier and your business move faster.

00;30;58;29 – 00;31;18;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. So with that are the the things that you’ve built for your own company. And then you’re sharing those tools with other business owners. Are you are you using a specific platform, like are you building like cloud and using coachwork and building agents or are you what are you is it in that kind of realm of things?

00;31;18;12 – 00;31;48;11
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s a great question. So everything I do, I do on unlock code like that is where I live, with Claude code. So that’s so the difference between when you’re using just chat like Claude Chad is you’re just using it to brainstorm. You ask questions and answers. Right? Then you have Claude Coachwork where he can do work for you, but it will not build tools for you when you have Claude code, Claude code, if you come across a problem, it will actually build the tools that you need, in order for you to solve that problem.

00;31;48;11 – 00;32;06;13
Speaker 1
And so again, when you give access to Claude code to your computer, Claude code will be able to do anything that you can do on your computer. It could do for you, which is very powerful because you can do you can have agents that again, you have Kate that’s running the podcast, right. You have another agent that’s running my content, right?

00;32;06;14 – 00;32;31;18
Speaker 1
You have another agent that is running. So my my program for business owners that’s hosted on, on the platform called heartbeat. And so it manages my heartbeat platform. It answers to messages when people have questions about how to proceed, how to move forward with I. So so all of that I have built on Claude code. And so instead of like I know that as business owners, we don’t really have the time to just build all those solutions.

00;32;31;18 – 00;32;49;16
Speaker 1
So how do I compress that time, help them still get the benefit out of it so they know how to use AI. They know how to use cloud code. But the technical side, like the big technical systems, I just kind of like package it up, just install it and use it to make their life a lot easier. So yeah, the way I’m thinking about it.

00;32;49;19 – 00;33;10;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well into your point. Like I it’s funny when I have conversations with people about the kinds of things that you’re doing and it’s like, well, they’re yes, some people can use these tools and create their own agents. I’m like, but most people can’t just do it right. Like it’s so having that pre-built here it is. Here’s the tool.

00;33;10;03 – 00;33;14;12
Speaker 2
Now we just have to set it up for you and get you moving forward with it.

00;33;14;14 – 00;33;38;17
Speaker 1
Correct. It’s a whole journey. Like it’s, you know, it’s learning that we no longer type, like, now we just talk to our computer, right? Like, you don’t need to be typing anymore because that back and forth, it takes too much time between when you type and when you read it and when you, retype it and fix it again versus when you’re just speaking to your computer, you’re able to provide more context to AI on everything that you do, right?

00;33;38;23 – 00;34;03;08
Speaker 1
For instance, just building, like a lot of people are, they’re just like, I don’t get this whole hype about AI. Like, this is just, you know, it makes no sense. Well, it makes no sense because you’re speaking to I has no context about, you know, context about your business, doesn’t know the deep details that you would give to your, like, if you were to hire a junior executive and you were to get him, you know, you want him to go out there and do sales for you.

00;34;03;08 – 00;34;21;16
Speaker 1
You’re not going to send him the first day without giving him any training, right? You first have you train him, you set clear expectations, and then you get him out to do work for you. The same exact thing happens with AI, right? We have to spend that time training it. But if you don’t know how to train correctly, then it’s just another tool that’s not really doing anything for you.

00;34;21;16 – 00;34;27;06
Speaker 1
Your goal is to hire your AI to do work for you and for your business.

00;34;27;08 – 00;34;29;16
Speaker 2
It’s amazing.

00;34;29;18 – 00;34;30;26
Speaker 1
It’s pretty cool.

00;34;30;29 – 00;34;45;24
Speaker 2
But you know, it should go well. And it’s funny because you’re talking about like, we’re no longer typing, we’re texting. I had a buddy the other day that was making fun of me, and I was like, you, son, about text messaging. And I was like, I really hate text messaging. Like, I have to look at my phone. And Bo, he’s like, Mike.

00;34;45;28 – 00;34;58;03
Speaker 2
He’s like, only peasants actually type. He’s like, he’s like, what do you do? That’s like, you know, he’s like, you got to be talking to it, man. Like just hit the microphone. You don’t have to type anymore. And I was like, oh yeah, I guess.

00;34;58;03 – 00;35;00;18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I guess I’ll fix the noise.

00;35;00;20 – 00;35;22;13
Speaker 2
Yeah. I have these two sides where sometimes I’m an old curmudgeon and I don’t want to adopt new technology, and other times I’m like, right into it and moon with it. But, so, you know, from a Cruella’s standpoint, what do you think is like the bigger barriers that you’re seeing with clients that you’re trying to work with and they’re trying to integrate things that a lot of them don’t understand, right.

00;35;22;13 – 00;35;30;12
Speaker 2
Which I’m sure that’s kind of partly where you come in. But but what are the kind of things that you’re seeing there?

00;35;30;15 – 00;35;35;19
Speaker 1
I think the hardest thing for me is to.

00;35;35;21 – 00;35;59;26
Speaker 1
Like for people to see that there is another option, like, you don’t have to be stuck in your business doing everything in your business. And for them to believe me, because a lot of people think like, oh, this is just the way I’ve been doing business for 40 years, there’s no better way. And so they don’t see, like, I wish I could show people like the way I work, I don’t work, I just direct the AI to do everything for me.

00;35;59;26 – 00;36;20;28
Speaker 1
Right? Like, I don’t remember the last time I actually searched through a website or filled out a form myself. I don’t do any of that. But you don’t. But the the thing with us, humans is like like we are we’re we’re just patterns. And our patterns are like habits, right? So it’s what you’re used to doing, like you said, you know, you’ve been used to typing your whole life for 30 years, whatever.

00;36;21;01 – 00;36;38;23
Speaker 1
40 years, I don’t know. Right. So for you, it’s like, I don’t I don’t like, how am I going to talk to a computer? And naturally, when you have to do something, your first instinct is just to type something. Yeah, we have to create those new habits where now you don’t have to type anymore. Now you’re like, oh, wait, I just remembered I don’t have to type anymore.

00;36;38;23 – 00;36;59;24
Speaker 1
Not let me to speak to my computer. Right. But it’s creating and building those habits. And so the same thing happens when you’re about to fill out a form or do any kind of research. It’s like, wait, I don’t have to do this myself. So you’ve at first you have to stop yourself from doing the thing. Then you do it and then you know, it’s going to go like that for maybe two weeks, three weeks until it becomes second nature that you’re talking to your computer.

00;36;59;25 – 00;37;19;28
Speaker 1
You’re deploying it to use the Chrome extension to do work on your behalf. You’re deploying your computer to just create those pitch stacks, just those presentations, that word document, that agreement for you. Like when I have a new client, my AI creates the agreement and sends it to them automatically for signature. Right? Like I am not having to do all those things.

00;37;19;28 – 00;37;44;03
Speaker 1
But the reason why I could do that for me is because it’s trained on my services, my offer, my pricing, my ideal clients. If it’s not training that, then there’s no value to the outcome that it’s giving me because and you guys have probably heard that right? Garbage in, garbage out. Right. It’s oh yeah. So so that’s really the key is training right to know everything about us.

00;37;44;05 – 00;37;45;03
Speaker 2
How long does that take.

00;37;45;03 – 00;38;17;01
Speaker 1
Typically a long time. So great question there. So you know I’ve had for instance on my voice I’ve had I keep training my eye on on my voice on how to sound like me. So you I, I, I encourage people to will always have just give as much information to I that you have already created. Let’s say if you’ve written a book, if you’ve created content before, if you’re reading, blogs, right, just feeding all that to I and I can start analyzing it and, and look for your patterns.

00;38;17;01 – 00;38;33;24
Speaker 1
Because at the end of the day, you’re very easy to clone. Like, if I spy, just, you know, the life. If I spend 20 years with you, Derek, I already know what jokes you make, what makes you angry, you know, makes you say, well, what if you use for works you don’t use? Right? Where? If I just met you, I don’t really know much about you.

00;38;33;24 – 00;38;55;12
Speaker 1
Like, everything that you’re giving to me is completely new, right? Have you come out with jokes? I’m like, oh, my God, this guy’s so funny. And so I would appreciate everything more than if I live with you. Like maybe your wife for 40 something years, right? So the same thing happens to AI is like, let’s have I analyzed everything that you’ve created, everything that you have done, and how do we then after that, we just have.

00;38;55;12 – 00;39;10;28
Speaker 1
Okay. Now I interview me to love to ask me, like, what am I like, what are you missing? For you to have full context of like, who I am, what I do understand, all my patterns, the words I use, what I don’t use, and the only way for you to do that is through just literally talking to your computer.

00;39;10;28 – 00;39;28;09
Speaker 1
Because if you try to type all of that, you’re going to take ages and forever. So to answer your question, and it’s hours and hours like I’ve had a guy asking me a hundred questions. So and every question I’m just like blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Like you guys have probably noticed that I talk a lot like it’s been for you, for my name’s I haven’t stopped talking.

00;39;28;09 – 00;39;33;07
Speaker 2
So hey, we love it on podcast when the guest talks a lot. So yeah.

00;39;33;09 – 00;39;45;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. So that’s kind of the same thing that you’re trying to do is just talk a bunch to AI. So it starts looking at your patterns and the words that you use and what you don’t say. And that’s kind of what you’re looking for.

00;39;45;05 – 00;40;12;16
Speaker 2
What advice do you give to business owners like myself who I don’t want to I’m not going to go as far as to say, control freak, maybe recovering control freak, but like really hard to let things go sometimes and really uncomfortable with the idea that something is just happening without me checking in on it and making sure that it got done.

00;40;12;16 – 00;40;36;10
Speaker 2
You know, those kinds of things. Like because it sounds like, first of all, what you’re talking about sounds amazing. First of all, from small. Yeah. So many things I do on a day to day basis that I hate. And I would love to automate. But at the same time, like, I’m also uncomfortable with me not being the one that’s doing those things sometimes and knowing the button got pushed.

00;40;36;10 – 00;40;43;12
Speaker 2
And no, I totally get it. But yeah. So like what? What do you say to people like me that have that issue?

00;40;43;15 – 00;41;02;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that’s a huge issue among entrepreneurs like you. It’s not just you. In fact, you know, I think I started learning how to be a better leader when I started, when I learned how to use AI. And the reason for it is because I learned that, hey, how can I expect. Because sometimes I’m just like, that’s common sense.

00;41;02;21 – 00;41;19;08
Speaker 1
Like, how do you not know that? Right? You got 20 talk to a human employee. You’re like, that’s cool in the sense, like, you should know that. I should expect you to already have this perfectly delivered. When you start training AI again, you realize that, like, oh, it’s not I. It’s me. I didn’t do a good job, right?

00;41;19;10 – 00;41;44;23
Speaker 1
So I learned through AI to be a much better leader, to set clear expectations, to train people much better, and to understand that people need to get the step by step process that I would like. If I’m trying to get a 20 year old to do exactly what I am doing today, I need to break it down like easy, stupid, simple, in a step by step process that they’re able to easily understand, digest, and replicate, right?

00;41;44;25 – 00;42;00;14
Speaker 1
If I’m not doing that, I am not as good of a leader as I think I am, right, because somebody else can do it right. So number one is just understanding the,

00;42;00;16 – 00;42;23;15
Speaker 1
Time is the most really the most important resource. And we just wasted so much and we think that nobody could do it as good as we do. But when you look back, like I just last week, I lost my grandma and it was. Yeah, thank you. It was in that moment. I was like, I thought I was, you know, I was like, oh, I love working.

00;42;23;15 – 00;42;40;24
Speaker 1
I just want to do I have this goals. I have to make this money, I have to do this, I have to do. And when you’re sitting there and you’re looking at the funeral car and you see there, there her name across that car, and you just realize you’re like, I’m not even thinking about work. I don’t care how much money I’ve made.

00;42;41;01 – 00;42;58;27
Speaker 1
I could give two craps about all the to do things or the lists of tattoos that I had in my list, because it doesn’t matter at that moment. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. It’s what you’re thinking about is how much. How many times do I hug her? How many times did I actually spend with that person that I love the most?

00;42;58;28 – 00;43;28;24
Speaker 1
Did they know that I love them as much as I did? And guess what? I could have spent just two minutes out of my day just to look at her, just to tell her how much I loved her and I did it. Why? Because I was so focused that my $2 and my every day things I want to do, and I have a guy working for me, I can’t imagine most people, they’re doing that same exact thing, but with their kids, with their partners, because that’s just like what we get used to doing, right?

00;43;28;24 – 00;43;46;02
Speaker 1
We get used to doing that. But we don’t realize that the time. But like, it’s so short, it’s it’s that little gap between when we’re born and when we die. And we have no idea how big or how small that gap is. Right. And so again, it comes back to realizing that time is so short, like, how are you spending it?

00;43;46;02 – 00;44;11;08
Speaker 1
Like, how are you giving that time? And if it’s your business, what areas of your business are you choosing to give that time to? Right, because it’s not as valuable if you’re giving it to create a spreadsheet. Whereas if you’re maybe leading a team to do it to improve and to level up. Right. And so the second thing that I experience as well is well, with my I have multiple coaches in my life.

00;44;11;11 – 00;44;32;03
Speaker 1
And one of the things that he said, it’s like, okay, you need to lead people. I play stupid when people come to me and ask me questions. And the reason for that is because I need to give them that opportunity to improve, like there’s no way they can improve. So for instance, in my on Instagram, like we do a lot of, like a lot of leads come to me just on Instagram.

00;44;32;03 – 00;44;50;09
Speaker 1
Right? And so my executive assistant, I don’t handle any of my DMs. And so one of the one day I just opened my DMs and I saw that he was he had been messaging it was like a sales, a sales wasn’t a sales call. It was a sales Instagram message. Right. And so my initial instinct was like, let me take over.

00;44;50;09 – 00;45;22;26
Speaker 1
I know I can do better than this. I know I can close it, but if I did that, I’m taking away the opportunity for him to learn and for him to be able to do ten more sales for me in the future. Right? He needs to lose those first 2 or 3 sales for him to be able to get me 1020 for the future, if I never give, if I never give him the opportunity to learn, I’m taking away that from him and it’s just going to affect me more, because then I would be the only one that can sell, versus if I can have 1 or 5 people doing the selling for me, right.

00;45;22;26 – 00;45;37;26
Speaker 1
And the same applies to if you’re having I do work for you, right. You need to. That’s the only way you can replicate your work and what you do. And you can impact more people, which is ultimately how you grow your business, make more money and and just serve others. Right.

00;45;37;26 – 00;45;57;17
Speaker 2
So so I that this will be the last question, but, but I I’m hearing what you’re saying and I’m wondering, have you gotten to a place now that you are able to let go and not think about it? Or are you like me in that you think about it for the next three days and worry about it?

00;45;57;19 – 00;45;58;20
Speaker 2
You know, I mean, you.

00;45;58;27 – 00;46;18;05
Speaker 1
Know, I do think about it, like, I’ll tell you when I think about it, when I think about, it’s like when when someone either my eye makes a mistake or my, my human makes a mistake, my employees would say it pisses me off. Like, I get really angry. I get really angry. I get really frustrated. But I’m like, okay, calm down.

00;46;18;05 – 00;46;35;19
Speaker 1
Don’t take it out on them because, you know, it’s the way it’s the process. Trust the process. You know, it hurts like, because your business is your baby, your your clients are your babies, right? You’ve been it. You’ve been you’ve been taking them every step of the way. You want them to feel happy with the business, to feel satisfied.

00;46;35;19 – 00;46;37;24
Speaker 1
But.

00;46;37;26 – 00;47;05;23
Speaker 1
I can’t do it all. Like if I, if I, if I wanted to do it all by myself, I know I’m never going to grow, you know, so it’s like I have to I have to either choose not to grow as fast or as much as I want, or I have to choose to allow to delegate and to stop being the control freak that I naturally am, because there’s no other way and you will never be able to grow.

00;47;05;25 – 00;47;32;07
Speaker 1
I don’t know do. How many $10 million companies do you know that are only one, a single person like a solopreneur? You don’t write, you don’t like 5 million. You still don’t like. It’s very hard. You need to learn to delegate like weather. Forget about it. If it’s I, a human, it’s the same exact limiting belief that we have to let go of thinking that we are the only ones that can do it.

00;47;32;09 – 00;47;52;02
Speaker 1
Like my coach has the saying, and it’s 80% done by somebody, 80% done by somebody else is better than 100% done by you. Right. And it’s because again, you’re still if you were to do it on your own, it’s your time that goes away. You can spend that time doing the things that are high value, high revenue activities.

00;47;52;09 – 00;48;14;11
Speaker 1
Focus on that, and then you have your people or your eyes doing the things that anybody can do that are easier to replicate. Mistakes will happen. Yes, 100%. But like, how do we you can train your employees and say, here’s the thing. Also. It’s like, no, like only new mistakes, right? So okay, we made that mistake. Yeah. It cost us a ton of money.

00;48;14;11 – 00;48;30;08
Speaker 1
Yeah it sucks, but let’s hope let’s make that the next one. Just a completely new, new mistake. Not the same one. Right. And the same thing would verify okay. So I made this mistake. Well, now I trained it. I’m like, hey, how do we prevent this from happening ever again? So, like, you don’t ever make the same mistakes.

00;48;30;08 – 00;48;34;26
Speaker 1
Now, will I make another mistake? Sure. But it’s going to be a different one. Not the same one.

00;48;34;28 – 00;49;06;03
Speaker 2
I like that, only new mistakes. Yeah, and it sounds like a bit of a spiritual practice. And letting go of and being able to delegate like a, you know, like. Yeah, it’s a tough one. I mean, I know Derek and I have talked about it over the years. I like it is a hard one. I and like recently, I’m trying really hard to delegate and then not get involved, which is also very hard because I’m, somebody else said it and I think it was on this show, but I’m not sure.

00;49;06;03 – 00;49;27;22
Speaker 2
But, we’re like, you have to stop being the easy button for your team because that’s like, literally I had to have that conversation with one of our team members today because they’re asking me to do something. And I was like, no, I’m like, you’re fully capable of doing it. Like, I know you’re coming to me because you think I’m going to get a different result, and maybe I will, but you need to learn how to do this.

00;49;27;25 – 00;49;28;19
Speaker 2
It’s yeah.

00;49;28;22 – 00;49;47;02
Speaker 1
It’s challenging. It’s the easy way. I completely agree with you on it. It reminds me of, though sometimes I look at my husband and how he manages the landscaping company and they call him all the time. I’m like, why do they call you for the basic? The most basic things. I’m like, you need to stop being available for the most basic things because people are the only.

00;49;47;02 – 00;50;09;08
Speaker 1
And think about it like I think about it. You know, I’m again, I’m a huge control freak. I’ve learned to improve. But before, when we have the e-commerce business, like one of the biggest issues are we had us as a couple. We’re 100% related to how we worked in the business, and I would do things for my husband because I just thought that I would do them better than him.

00;50;09;08 – 00;50;24;06
Speaker 1
And I’m like, let me just do it. I’ll do it myself, right? But again, I took that opportunity from him for him to learn on how to do it right. So then I got pissed. I’m like, why aren’t doing this? Well, because you always come in and do it for me, and you always come in and you and you don’t let me do it.

00;50;24;11 – 00;50;42;29
Speaker 1
Right. So. So if you think about it, the same thing happens with your employees. You’re like, well, I know that you can do it. I don’t want to make the mistake because I think that you can do it better. So they’re just gonna take a step back and let you do it so that you they don’t have to deal with the issue of like, oh, let me face my fears.

00;50;42;29 – 00;51;01;24
Speaker 1
I don’t know how to do it. Like, you’re going. You mentioned it earlier in this and in the call. We always have new levels. New levels. Right. Like you set up a new level. You you come across a new challenge and you problem that you need to face and you need to step up your game. It doesn’t mean that you’re not scared of doing it because you.

00;51;01;24 – 00;51;21;22
Speaker 1
So when you have the problem, you’re like, oh man, like this sucks. You’re scared, you’re nervous, but you still you have no other option because you’re the entrepreneur. Like there’s nobody above you. I can do this for you. Right? So that’s what we do as entrepreneurs. We always take that step, that we take that leap of faith regardless of what the outcome is.

00;51;21;23 – 00;51;40;07
Speaker 1
We just know that there’s another way we have to do it. We have to step up with not because nobody else will. And so when we do it for our employees, we’re taking away that opportunity from them to do the same thing that we do, because we know that we’re above them. Right? So it’s rough, but it’s it’s still many.

00;51;40;10 – 00;52;04;13
Speaker 2
New levels, new devils. That might be my new favorite saying, I love that. That is that is amazing. I know we got to wrap it up, Andrea, I can’t say thank you enough for coming on the show. I really enjoyed this conversation. If people want to learn more about crew lists, they want to, learn how to get involved, connect with you, how to find you guys.

00;52;04;16 – 00;52;29;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, they can find me on Instagram. And that’s where I’m most active. And, like, just my first name. Last name Andrea Palacio. You can send me a DM with the word stage 26. I have, what is it? A quest that I send you guys, and you fill that out and it tells you exactly what stage of business you’re in and how you can use AI and implement it in your business to help you just level up your business so it’s totally free.

00;52;29;17 – 00;52;38;15
Speaker 1
It gets you like it’s it’s really good. It’s really like it gives you all the details. Yeah, yeah, it’s really good. It’s really good. So yeah, definitely go and do that.

00;52;38;18 – 00;52;40;14
Speaker 2
Well thanks again. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

00;52;40;14 – 00;52;43;21
Speaker 1
Thank you Michael thank you. Yeah yeah guys.

00;52;43;23 – 00;53;06;05
Speaker 2
And thanks everybody of course for listening. You can find this episode and all of our episodes on Blue Collar startup Audio. Of course podcasts are on Apple Spotify. Rumble YouTube. My, I actually just told me that we need more, Apple podcast reviews. It’s affecting one of our rankings, everybody. So please go to Apple Podcast, give us a five star review.

00;53;06;07 – 00;53;09;09
Speaker 2
And you’ll hear from us next week. Thanks, everybody.

00;53;09;11 – 00;53;37;09
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;53;37;09 – 00;53;50;08
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;53;50;11 – 00;53;59;14
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh!

00;53;59;16 – 00;54;00;24
Unknown
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