Ground Etc.
ABI presents Ground Etc, where we talk all things turf care and ground prep. This podcast is for grounds keepers, landscape contractors, and anyone interested in working in the dirt. From the right equipment, to the right crew, to the strategies needed to run a successful business. We talk to experts of the industry about the ground, the work, et cetera!
Ground Etc.
Finding Better Ways for Soil Prep & Turf Maintenance – With ABI Founder Kevin Keigley
It’s Season 2! Episode one is packed with useful info for anyone in ground care work. Scott Holmes sits down with his longtime business partner and ABI’s founder, Kevin Keigley, to talk about how he started his landscaping business, why he started inventing his own equipment, and what tips and tricks he’s learned over the years working in the landscaping industry.
- I'm Scott Holmes and you're listening to "Ground Etc." And this season we are talking all things soil prep and landscape contracting. From the right equipment to the right crew to the strategies needed to run a successful business, we talk to experts in the industry about the ground, the work, et cetera. Today I'm joined by my longtime friend and business partner, Kevin Keigley. And Kevin, when I say long time, I mean a long time. 25 to 27 years in business. Five to 10 years?
- Right.
- Yeah, and how do you?
- Golfing buddies.
- Golfing buddies. Yeah, a lot of scrambles, a lot of blame got passed my way. I don't understand, but no, that's, in fact, we played in a scramble yesterday and.
- Yeah.
- Somebody won.
- Yeah, my team won.
- It wasn't me. So we do a lot of golfing together. So Kevin, today we're gonna be talking about landscape contracting, particularly soil preparation, seabed prep. I mean, I know that's your background. You know, we have a business together, 27 years, ABI Attachments, and we sell everything from ground prep equipment to stand on zero turn laser graders used in a lot of different industries. And we'll probably get to some of that.
- Yeah.
- But before we do, I mean, you have a life before. Like I have a life before ABI. You've got a life before ABI.
- Yeah.
- You were, you were a business entrepreneur long before we started ABI Attachments. And it was really in the soil preparation business and ground preparation business. So tell a little bit about that.
- Well, I always had a desire to own my own business. Dad had his sod farm. He started it from scratch. It ended up 450 acres when he sold it. But when I was a teenager, I used to work in the summers, grading the areas and putting sod in. And I had a team of guys, so I was, had to be a leader early in the game.
- Yeah.
- And I earned enough money. This is hard to believe. I actually earned enough money to put myself through college every year. So you dad paid you.
- It only took about four or $5,000 back then.
- Right, right.
- But I was able to make four or $5,000 as a teenager with my friends going in and putting lawns in with sod. So that's how it all began. And I had a burning desire to own my own business 'cause dad owned his own business.
- Yeah.
- And all my brothers owned their own business. And so yeah, that was a desire of mine.
- Yeah, so what was the first, what was your first step into entrepreneurialism? I mean, where did you get your first start with your first business?
- Okay, well, I went to college and outta college I went to work for an RV company. And I worked for 'em for about three years, four years. And they gave me as much as I wanted to handle, but I noticed the people that were there for a long time weren't being advanced. And it seemed like it was cutthroat. And somebody came in and would do the work for less, and they would hire 'em. And the old guy was being put out. I didn't like that. I wanted to get into business for myself. So that if I achieved efficiencies, and I could get somebody to do the work, I could do less work. And so that was my dream early on.
- So basically you wanted to control your own destiny.
- That's right, that's right.
- You wanted to be your own boss.
- Yeah.
- Be in charge, and succeed or fail.
- Yes, and I thought I could come up with more efficient ways, more better equipment, and just outperform the competition and charge roughly the same amount or more. And customers would like it and be pleased. And I could make big profits.
- Yeah, so, right, so you grew up in an entrepreneurial family. Obviously sod was the foundation.
- Yes.
- So you, you understood grass.
- Yes.
- You understood seed, and you understood soil prep.
- Yeah.
- Was that what led you just to go into that market? Or did you love it? I mean, there's a passion, and then there are, this is what I know how to do.
- Yeah.
- So which way, which way led you into the landscape contracting business?
- Well, I learned real early that laying sod was not gonna be my future very long.
- That's hard work.
- It was. In fact, I'll tell you about one of the jobs when I was in my early 20s, we did 50 semi-loads of sod on one project, and it was quite the job.
- And if anybody's ever seen that happen, that comes in huge roles.
- Yes.
- And you gotta manually.
- Well, no.
- Back in those days.
- Back then, those days they were small rolls. They were 50 to 80 pounds a piece.
- Okay.
- And there was about seven or eight of us, and we laid that whole project, several acres, yeah.
- Yeah, so in other words, that's good till you're about 25, 26.
- Yeah, , and I wasn't gonna stay there.
- Right.
- Very long. But no, I wanted get into seeding contracting business, kind of evolved into that. And so I got us, we got, I rented a tractor.
- Yep.
- And we got a rototiller, and we got a land box, and we had all these different tools, and we went to the jobs and we graded 'em. And I was pretty good at it already 'cause I prepped the soil for sod and knew what I was doing. But we prepped it for seed. Planted the seed, the seed grew, and it was prosperous. We did well.
- So I find it interesting, especially the name of the business, because it was so early in this market. I mean, it was almost pure white space. Almost nobody was doing it.
- Yeah.
- You caught onto the technology, it actually named your company, and it was?
- Well, my first company name, and I don't even know if you remember this, but it was Sod Busters.
- No, I did not.
- I called myself.
- Okay, I learned something new.
- Sod Busters, I was.
- Because you were, you were targeting the sod business.
- That was the sod business, and then when we chose to grow out of that, we bought our first hydroseeder in 1982. We bought it from Finn.
- Yeah.
- It was a 1500 model, about 1300 gallons. We'd cover a third of an acre.
- Yeah.
- With a spray.
- Yeah, so sod busters, that's new. I hadn't heard that one.
- But no, when we figured out that hydroseed is what we wanted, we went to the name Hydroseed Inc.
- Okay.
- And we even have the phone number 468, 800-468-LAWN.
- Yeah.
- I thought that was a big thing.
- Yeah.
- We put it up on a sign, and the phone will ring off the hook.
- Yeah, yeah, so you actually were able to license in the state of Indiana.
- Yeah.
- The name Hydroseed.
- Yeah.
- Now that would be impossible. I mean 'cause everybody's doing hydro seeding and.
- Well, my son still maintains it.
- Yeah, so what, just real quickly for our listeners, what is hydro seeding? I mean, we may be talking to young men or women who are wanting to get started in the industry.
- Okay. This is a good subject. The industry, I took a deviation from the industry. A lot of the promotion of the hydroseed was let's put the seed in the mulch, pre-germinate it, put it on the ground, it'll come in quickly.
- They still do that.
- They do that.
- Yeah.
- A lot of people think that's where the magic is. I don't agree.
- Yeah.
- I actually have a better way, and I'll tell you where, the big job that I did that changed everything. It was a big project at Notre Dame. They had some dormitories there, and it was five acres. And we did exactly what we were told to do. We prepped the soil, we raked it, we put the seed in the mulch, fertilized their mulch, sprayed it out. And then I came back 10 days later, and lo and behold, I would notice that the maintenance people had driven a truck from one side to the other.
- Right across what you had just done.
- Yeah, and you'd think, well, that'd be a problem. Well, it wasn't a problem. Everywhere he drove the ground was flourishing, starting to pop. And everywhere else it was coming in very weak.
- Hmm.
- So I understood that be if you press in the seed, you'll get quicker germination.
- Sure.
- And my dad agreed with that.
- Yeah.
- He's thought that all along, you know, and he'd been in the.
- Yeah.
- Seeding, he's seeded all his sod fields, so yeah. That was a big revelation.
- Yeah.
- Now I'm gonna tell you, it got better than that because not only when you press the seed in with a drill seeder, a lot of the small pebbles or rocks can be pressed in the ground that never have to be removed. And the cultipacker would create ridges in the ground.
- Yeah.
- So if you put these ridges crossed to the slope, then it would curtail washouts.
- Sure.
- Because it would have to fill each rivet, each groove.
- Yeah.
- Before it would go onto the other one and race down. So we were able to remove less rocks because we were able to press it in. We got better germination and less washouts.
- Yeah.
- And here's another thing, okay? If we had it graded, and it wasn't sprayed right away and it rained, we'd have to come back and reprep it.
- Yeah.
- But if I had it pressed in, I never left the site without pressing it in, and later we would put the mulch over it, okay, and that could be days later.
- Right, so you were taking the seed outta the mulch.
- Yes.
- You were actually drill seeding it.
- Pressing it into the ground.
- You were pressing it into the ground.
- Yes.
- Then coming back with another crew.
- Yes.
- To Hydroseed.
- That's exactly right.
- Okay.
- And then I, then it would, it would help retain moisture. And then, but the beauty is it was green, and people were willing to write the checks. Oh, this is done, looks beautiful. I'll write the check.
- For the Hydroseed mulch. . For the Hydroseed.
- Well, the job was done.
- Yeah.
- And they saw, you know, the finished product. When you pushed the seed out, there's like, well, is it gonna grow? But when you put the green out there with the hydroseed.
- Right, it already looks good.
- Wow, this looks fantastic. I'm out of the dirt and the dust. And they write a check.
- So for our listeners, the mulch does serve a purpose.
- It does.
- I mean, you weren't doing it just for beauty.
- Aesthetic is some of it.
- It is.
- But it did retain moisture, and it helped from erosion.
- Right.
- So all those things were great advantages.
- Yeah.
- And I will say this, in fact, the line that I used in my advertising, we would hydroseed, and I put it on billboards, "One third the cost of sod."
- Yeah.
- So people would see the hydroseed. They'd see it come up, look good, say, wow, you know, I could save all that kinda money.
- Yeah, yeah.
- And it was true.
- Yeah, yeah. So you started that business in what year?
- Ah, well, you know.
- I know things evolve.
- It was probably in '70, I graduated in '75, so I was on my own in probably '79.
- Okay.
- And had a different partner. We partnered for many years together. He went on to build houses, and then we joined up. But that was through the evolving of equipment.
- So Kevin, you know, being your partner, I know that the process was unique. I know that you have taught and educated other landscape contractors on that particular process. But I also know, because it's how I got involved, that it wasn't just the process. That you found inefficiencies and actually design flaws in the equipment.
- Yeah.
- So how did you get into creating your own attachments, your own pieces of equipment?
- Scott, I would get out on the job sites, and these rakes, there was a Roseman rake, a unique rake. I had the rototiller, the box scraper. So I'd go out there, and I'd loosen, and I'd till it under, and then I'd get the box scraper to do leveling. And it would just pack it hard. And I'd almost have to get the rototiller back on to loosen it. And then I'd have a finish rake.
- And that's because,
- So I was constantly moving, hooking and unhooking equipment.
- So why does a box scraper compact? I mean, it's 'cause it's carrying dirt.
- Yes, whenever you carry dirt, it's like having a 1,000 pound roller or a 500 pound roller. That compacts the soil whenever you have it full. And therefore you had to loosen it again.
- So what is the catalyst? What was the job or what was the moment that you said, you know what, there's just nothing here.
- Yeah.
- That works for me. I'm gonna have to create something.
- Yeah.
- What was that moment? Well, the big breakthrough was if I could get a tool to do all the things without hooking and unhooking, that would be a tremendous time saver. I wouldn't have all this space on my trailer wasted. And I could, and the key was, all I had to do was the TR3, Tractor Rake three-in-one.
- Yep.
- All I had to do is change the tilt, and all of a sudden I was ripping the soil deep down to four to six inches, so I could remove that compaction, which is very critical in growing grass. If you have hard compaction, you're not gonna get a root system.
- Right, right.
- So by tilting it back, or the front, the back of the rake up, the scarifiers sticked in the ground deeper. And so I was able to rip everything out.
- Right.
- Then I would tilt it more upright and I had the blade in contact. And so the blade would grab the high spots and push it into the low spots. And then the scarifiers were actually after that blade. That was the most innovative thing I could come up with.
- I know when I joined you.
- Yeah.
- And I started learning. I mean, I didn't know anything about landscaping. My background's music, right? But when I joined you as your partner, I had to learn all the different pieces of equipment out there. Nobody was putting the rippers behind the blade.
- Right.
- They were all putting it in front of the blade.
- Right.
- I thought you were crazy.
- Yeah, I know. A lot of people thought that. But what I found out was that I could move the soil and continue to leave it loose. Because the loosening tools was afterwards. So, and then the real breakthrough is I made this thing indestructibly strong. In fact, there's tools out there that are 25 years old.
- Wonderful.
- And they're still running strong. They just replace the teeth.
- One of the first ones I sold was to a local town here. I won't mention it.
- Yeah.
- But they came back last year, so 26 years later and said we need some new tips and some new rakes.
- And it.
- Same good as it was.
- Same mainframe, yeah, yeah.
- But I build it so strong. It's I-beam and angle iron half inch thick.
- Right.
- So the big thing was all of a sudden as I loosened the soil, I was able to push backwards. So if I had a hole in the corner, and I couldn't pull it in and get the tractor to turn around, I could push it in.
- Yeah.
- Well that was great for low corners, but the real breakthrough was pushing that loose soil right up to the edge within an an an inch or so. And I could see it, and I would stop it, and I'd leave a little mound of dirt right up to the edge. And then I would go back and grab that and pull it away. And wow, I didn't even have to do any hand work. The hand work was within an inch.
- Yeah.
- And that was the breakthrough.
- Yeah.
- I had to eliminate, anytime you can eliminate hand work, it made the job more efficient. So instead of having four or five, it was fun. I would go against competition. They would be putting in the lawn next door. They'd have three or four people, and they would be there all day.
- Yeah.
- I'd show up at noon with my crew and my efficiencies and my equipment, and I was in and out of there in two hours. We had less people, two, three hours max. And we had a fully graded, pressed in seed. On to the next job.
- Yeah, and mathematically, that tells you that you were making more money.
- Yes.
- And you were more profitable.
- And I think in another episode we're gonna talk about how do you make money in this business?
- Right.
- 'Cause most don't.
- Yes, that's true.
- We know that.
- Most do not. Most just barely hang on.
- Yeah.
- Right?
- Yeah.
- And so I'm anxious to talk to you about how did you make money in this landscape contracting business, seed preparation business. But in this episode that, so I'm gonna summarize here. So your background, your experience, your processes, your understanding of seed to soil contact, and then making your own equipment.
- Yeah.
- I mean, that really was the foundation of a successful contracting business.
- I'm gonna tell you a secret, a lot of people don't know this, and people might be amused by this, but I thought there's a tool called a York Rake, and old timers will know it.
- Oh yeah.
- In fact, it's still popular now.
- Even I know what it is, yeah.
- But it's some tines that bend down, and they're very loose.
- Yeah, they kind of float.
- And they use it to try to sift out rock. But it basically packs the ground.
- Yeah.
- There's no loosening. It's not a very good tool. But I thought, well, if I could hook this up to a bobcat and be able to pull rocks around it, there'd be an advantage. So that was one of my attempts.
- Yeah.
- And so it didn't work.
- Yeah.
- So I was frustrated, and I had the hookup at probably 12 inches off the ground hooked up to this. And I said, well, and here's the thing, whenever you're inventing equipment, it's what, you learn what didn't work.
- Yeah.
- And I had a pile of steel 30 feet high in the back.
- I know.
- All the things that we tried that didn't work.
- One of the first things you showed me, right.
- And I can tell you what don't work.
- Yeah.
- Well, this was one of my ideas. And what we did is we took that york rake, and we cut off instead of that big bend that came out there, about six inches out. And I cut it off, and then the rake suddenly dropped down, and we were starting to go in the ground, and we were loosening. And then when I went backwards, it leveled. And that's how the eliminator.
- Yeah.
- Evolved. So then I developed super thick teeth so they wouldn't break. And I put scarifiers on it, and I got a patent on it.
- Yep.
- And we were selling them to dealers like hotcakes. And then I finally sold the patent.
- Sold the patent. And then, that is the very first
- Yeah.
- Attempt, and then you'd mentioned the TR3, that came after, so.
- That came after. But the TR3 was being developed at the same time, but all the attraction was this Eliminator. It was a great name too.
- Well, and a lot of our.
- Eliminate the hand work,
- A lot of our viewers and listeners will know that name.
- Yeah.
- Because when I'm talking about you as my partner or you as the inventor, I always bring up the Eliminator first, and they go, oh my gosh, I've used that. I just saw one at a horse show the other day, and I went, wait a minute. Why are you using that old thing? We got better stuff now, but.
- I have a builder friend, and I gave him one of the originals. It's red. He says, you might wanna bring it back to your shop as a.
- It's probably not a bad idea. So we've talked about your Eliminator and the TR3. And you know, by now, Kevin, we're 27 years into ABI, and we've got over 50, 60 products. But those are really the cornerstone. But one of the products right now that's really our shining star is, it really isn't an attachment.
- Yeah.
- But it came out of necessity, like all invention does, right?
- Let's talk about our zero turn grading machine that actually allows you to put lasers on it too.
- Yeah.
- It's a very interesting piece of equipment with a lot of patents on it. And go ahead.
- Yeah, well, it all started, we were making tools for baseball.
- Right.
- They were loosening tools. They were, we had drag mats. And so we were, we were addressing, we were beginning to address the baseball industry with pull behinds.
- Right.
- And so we watched, somebody brought me an ad and said, what is this ad? Do you have competition? It looks like somebody knocked you off on your baseball tool. 'cause they were pulling our tool behind them, but they had a different label for it. Well come to find out that this company was actually advertising their pull unit, which was an aerator tool.
- Yeah, I mean that's what they had designed it for.
- Yeah.
- Was just aerating lawns.
- Yeah, and they wanted to create more interest in it and said, well this, you could pull a baseball grooming tool.
- Yeah.
- So I called the owner, I says, what are you doing? Are you knocking me off? Because I actually had a relationship with him.
- Yeah.
- He said, oh, no, no. We just wanted to show more application for it.
- Yeah.
- And I thought about it, and I called him back, and I says, you know, we're in this market. I would love to take your chassis and add features to it, particularly underbelly. And I think we can grow this in the landscape and the baseball market.
- Yeah, because you were seeing landscape application as well.
- Yes, I was.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, and we had a handshake.
- Yeah.
- And that's how we ventured forward with it was I took that chassis, and oh my gosh. I put, it was like the Eliminator, similar scarifier and raking action. And I put it under the underbelly. Now, here was the big breakthrough. I knew this was a lightweight in horsepower compared to bobcats and tractors.
- Right.
- So I knew up front that if I put a rigid connection to the rocker shaft and pressed down in the ground.
- For the blade.
- For the blade, the underbelly blade, that I would stop the unit cold.
- Sure, you'd go flying over the top.
- Yeah, not necessarily that. I'd just lose traction.
- Yeah.
- I would get to a point where I'm pushing dirt, and it would be in the ground, and it would just come to a stop, and my tires would spin, and I'd be done.
- Yeah.
- I couldn't do much work.
- Right.
- So to solve that problem of the unit spinning the tires out because it can't go forward, I put in springs so that when I put down pressure, there would be forgiveness.
- Okay.
- As much as three inches of forgiveness. But I also could control the tension of it. So I would make the springs, and I could select the right amount of tension. So if I want it actually stiffer, I could make it.
- You could actually lock it out.
- I could lock it down. Yes, you're right, and I could lock it out.
- Yeah.
- So I played with a lot of different variations of springs and how many pounds of pressure to put on it. And I came to an ideal amount of pressure, which allowed, and then I also have a tilt in it. So I'm going back to the TR3 again. As I tilted it forward, I was able to scarify, and then I tilted it back I got box action and feathering action.
- Yeah.
- So I was able to basically take some of the techniques I had learned behind the tractor, and we were putting it on this zero turn.
- Yeah.
- Well, what's the value of zero turn? Oh my gosh. we haven't even scratched the surface on the potential for this tool in this market.
- Yeah, I agree, I agree.
- Because I'll tell you what, when people bid jobs, there are so many bidders on jobs that are wide open, big, you know, huge projects that people just sit on a tractor and run it and seed. But when you get jobs that have all these little tight areas, you know, up by the building and sidewalks and tree lawns and all that, all of a sudden, you know, some of the bidders disappear 'cause it takes so much effort to do that. In fact, I'll tell you, when a crew pulls up to a job, and they see wide open areas, they, say, oh man, we love this job. I hope the next one's gonna like it. But when they pull up to that job that all this hand work has to be done, and when I say handwork, they chop it out by hand.
- Right.
- They loosen it with a little hand rototiller. They have to, it is hard work.
- Yeah.
- But this tool changes everything. I'm able to loosen it. I can pull the spoils out. I can press the seed in, and we're just beginning to scratch the surface.
- Yeah.
- In fact, I mean, just this week I worked on another attachment on the back, and I'm really close to, I think by spring we'll have another attachment for pressing seed in.
- Well, in case anybody that's watching or listening is curious. Yes, you are the founder and majority owner of ABI Attachments, which is a much bigger company than your Hydroseed company was. But you still love to be on the tractor. You still love to be out doing the work.
- You know what, I'm gonna tell you something.
- Cause you just put the lawn in a couple days ago.
- A friend of mine had a backyard, he wanted to put the lawn in and I went over and did it. And I was using my tools, and it was actually more fun than my golf.
- Yeah.
- Except the winning part.
- Well, yeah, except beating me. I hear what you have.
- Yeah.
- I see what you're throwing down there. Okay, so yeah. So the the zero turn laser grader, it's kind of funny 'cause you really did have contracting in mind, but you know, sometimes you just go where the door opens, right?
- Yeah.
- And the door opened into sports turf.
- Yes.
- I mean that was, that was an amazing transition. I mean, here you and I are thinking contractor, contractor, and all of a sudden colleges and high schools and major league baseball and major NFL teams are calling going, we could, well Pete, golf installers are using this piece of equipment.
- Yes, they are.
- To laser grade their tee boxes.
- Yeah, you know, it's amazing. I can't tell you how many contractors have called me, owners of businesses. They have a train load of equipment. They got dozers, they got tractors, they got bobcats. They love the Force.
- Yeah, yeah.
- They love our zero turn grading.
- By the way, that's the first time we named, told 'em what the name was. It is called.
- We call it the Force.
- The Z23, yep.
- Z23 Force. But they loved it because it finishes so exactly. I mean, we can hook the laser, put a laser beam over a surface, and it will grade within an eighth of an inch.
- Well, that's one thing we didn't mention is that you and
- That was my next invention.
- That was your next invention.
- After I put the belly underneath it.
- Right.
- Then I got to putting the laser on it.
- Well, it's because baseball was asking for it.
- Yes.
- They were going, my gosh, we're paying three to $4,000 a diamond.
- Yeah.
- To have guys come in once or twice a year and re-laser grade our fields. Well, you you took an infield groomer.
- Yeah.
- A very innovative one.
- Yeah.
- And added a feature that nobody had.
- Right.
- And it really did light that industry up. And it's no wonder that that just became the wide open path for us with sports turf.
- You know, Chuck White.
- Yeah, USA Softball.
- He was a great relationship. And we've gone after the top people.
- Yeah.
- He's at Oklahoma City with the girls college softball.
- Well, he was. He's now retired from now. He's not there now.
- But at the time. And he was the one that actually helped us take it to the next stage. And when I say next stage, this is, nobody else can do this. We actually have a nail drag that's on the, I swap out and put a nail drag underneath on the underbelly. And I'm able to control the nail drag to an exact height on the field.
- Yeah.
- Well, if there's a little area that's soft, here's what happens on fields. When you have a low spot, and it gets soft. If you don't have laser grading, you go down in that low spot, and you dig some out.
- Yeah.
- So the lowers get lower, and the highs, well probably are crusty, and they get higher.
- Yeah.
- But when you're able to put a nail drag on a laser, it never goes down in that low spot
- With the ability to compress and release.
- Well, it does on its own.
- I know, but.
- And, but you're able, and what's nice is you don't have to take the finished material off of it.
- Yeah.
- I probably should have the right word for that. I'm thinking of what that is.
- What do they call that? The uh?
- Hmm, conditioner.
- Conditioner, thank you.
- See on a typical baseball field, they'll have conditioner on the field. It might be as much as a quarter of an inch. So if you wanna do a laser grading, you have to remove the conditioner and do the laser grading and put the conditioner back on. Well, this changed everything because you're able to nail drag through the conditioner.
- Yeah.
- So if there's a low spot, it doesn't go down that low spot. If it's a high spot, it'll cut it and you can actually smooth out the conditioner all while laser grading.
- That's crazy.
- So Chuck would start laser grading every night. I says, are you kidding me? In fact, it's a funny story. He actually had one of his people drove into the barn, and the laser, he didn't take it off, and he ruined it. And he called me, he says, you need to overnight me another laser receiver.
- Yeah.
- Because I gotta laser tomorrow.
- Yeah.
- And he was in a panic. I mean, here he just laser graded it yesterday. And he was in a panic 'cause he uses the laser grader that much. And I think as more and more people become accustomed to it and are not afraid of the laser, the laser's, your friend.
- Yeah.
- And it can do amazing, amazing finishes. And what's the point? Okay, the point is, when you get proper drainage off the field, which is 0.5% to, you know, some stadiums are absolutely level, and some have a little bit of slope, then the water will run off, and you play the game.
- Right.
- If you have basically a puddle, and it, all that effort is trying to remove that puddle of water.
- Yeah.
- And so you, you don't get play games.
- Yeah, yeah.
- So more playing time when you have them, no depressions and all the water drains off.
- Yeah, well, like you and I do, we've rabbit trailed here. I mean, we've gotten off the topic of landscape contractors onto sports turf, but that's what we do. I mean, we're passionate about all that we do. Let's bring it back to your life as a contractor. I mean, you know, we now introduced ABI and some of our equipment, which is a big part of that story. Let's get back and just ask you some personal questions about your landscaping/contracting business. Let me ask you this question. What was one of the hardest lessons that you learned while being a landscape contractor?
- Well, if I was gonna approach a customer, I think in the beginning I would tell customers as rosy of a picture as I could. Oh, the grass is gonna come in quickly. You're not gonna have any problems.
- Right.
- And maybe a couple years later, I found out the more facts, the more real I would tell the customer about the experience, the more they trusted me.
- Yeah.
- So I said, well, if we're gonna be planting the grass in the spring or early summer, you will have weeds. And it was like, what? I said, you will have weeds, and we're gonna, those are gonna to, crab grass will come in. It'll die out in the fall. We'll come and overseed it. And I would explain options. Now you can let this stay dirt and weedy, and then we have to till it in the fall, or we can go for it right now. And everybody chose to do it. And then I would bake in a price to come in and actually do the overseeding, which is the best for the customer overall.
- Yeah.
- So they didn't have the dirt to deal with. The grass would come up, and if we were fortunate enough, we didn't get the heat wave in the summer, then the grass came in beautiful.
- Yeah.
- And it would choke the grass, the weeds out.
- Right.
- But in the event that we would have drought, but just being honest with the customer.
- Transparency.
- Yes, and so I didn't get that call. Oh, I got a weed in it. I said, you know, if I told 'em up front, and I said, if it washes out, we'll take care of it. Probably the other biggest thing was, and not everybody does this, but I wanted to stand by my work, okay? I wanted every job that I did to be a show place. So I went back and fertilized it twice. I'd do the installation, I came back in 30 days and I fertilized it. And I came back in another 45 days and fertilized it again. So my lawns were robust. They were green. And I used signage. So if there was a subdivision that we're putting lawns in, I wanted mine to be a show place.
- Yeah.
- So they, well, who's doing that one? And I could point, well, that was one of mine or that was one of mine.
- Yeah.
- And that would sell the neighborhood. And you know, I'm not selling, being in this industry, you're not selling vacuum cleaners.
- Right.
- You can drive around and find out who needs a lawn.
- Right.
- It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
- Right, right.
- And you could drop something in the mail or on the doorstep.
- On the doorstep.
- And they'd get a quote, and, you know, I was usually able to point out a lawn we had put by, put in nearby, and they probably had watched it. And when they found out I put it in, it was a no brainer.
- Yeah, so transparency and reputation
- Yes.
- Were big for you.
- Yes, yeah. In fact, I could tell you that I had a builder that I did, and I said, I'm gonna stand behind it. And we put the lawn in. It was, this was a large lawn, an acre. And it washed out severely. I mean, it was just one of those rains. And within a week I was back there, and I did the whole job over. And I'm telling you, I never lost that customer from that day forward for 20 years, we had a relationship and all because I stood behind it.
- Yeah.
- And I couldn't, no amount of advertising will ever give you that kind of loyalty.
- No, no.
- And I just believe, if you're gonna be in the industry stand behind it. You don't wanna be in the contest of them saying, well, it didn't come in. It's your fault.
- Right.
- Whatever, I always felt I'm gonna stand behind it no matter what.
- Yeah, so I know that you got a lot of your education on seed bed prep and seeding from your dad, teenager. But as you started your own businesses, I mean, your dad couldn't have taught you everything. So what do you wish you would've known when you started that you learned within the first couple years?
- Well, I mentioned it earlier, and that was to have trustworthiness. People could trust me, and I stood behind my jobs.
- Yeah.
- And what I found out is when I didn't have a guarantee, I'd be confronted by, if we had anything not coming in properly, then what was the proper amount to charge to come back. And then I would also be accused of, well, maybe you didn't do it right. Maybe you didn't put enough seed down. Maybe your process is flawed. And, you know, all that back and forth bickering. And I was losing a customer, and he was gonna be my next salesman to sell his neighbor.
- Oh, to referrals, right?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- So I says, you know, I just gotta stand behind this no matter what.
- Yeah.
- And figure out what price I have to charge, and it's still gonna be way less than the cost of sod, which is, that's all they're trying to compare to. Cost of sod.
- Right.
- How much money they're saving. And then there was other added benefits for hydroseed because I could put different seed mixes in hydroseed and seeding contracting that they couldn't do in the sod farm because sod requires pretty much all bluegrass to have a root zone system strong enough to roll it up.
- Yeah, yeah.
- And I was able to put fescues and different mixes in for shade, for lack of water.
- Yeah.
- And so by mixing the seed up, I could customize a seed mixture for any application.
- So if I were a young man or woman wanting to get into the landscape business, I'm listening or watching this podcast going, you know, I've just started. I would be saying, but sounds like you're doing three times the work for the same amount of money. How did you make any money at this? And we won't get into the mathematical, but what is your answer to that simple question?
- Okay, you better be good at what you do.
- Yeah.
- And I take that to ABI Attachments too.
- Yeah.
- Because a lot of times we sell a tool, and we have a 30-day money back guarantee. And if I didn't know that they were gonna be impressed by it and exceed their expectation, we'd be foolish to do it.
- Yeah.
- Same thing with the lawns.
- Right.
- If these lawns weren't coming in properly, and I had to go back to satisfy 'em, you know, I would lose my shirt.
- Yeah.
- But most of 'em came in great. And if the weather, inclement weather caused wash outs, they needed a fix.
- Yeah.
- Why not build that in your cost?
- Right.
- And yes, maybe I could be 50% higher than the other guy, but the other guy says, you're on your own.
- Yeah.
- You know, if they don't come up, I'm gonna charge you to come back and do it, maybe a double again.
- So you weren't afraid of being the highest price 'cause you had the best value proposition.
- Yes, but it was way under sod.
- Yeah.
- Third of the cost of sod, even with my warranty.
- Right, right, right. That's great.
- Yeah.
- So being in the landscape business for a lot of years prior to ABI, you've done thousands, probably tens of thousands of jobs. What's one of your favorite jobs that you've ever done?
- The one, the job that I did, and it was back in the 80s, early 90s that probably created the most growth in our company, was we did mobile home parks. They were big.
- Yeah.
- Especially in our community where we're the RV capital of the world.
- Right, right.
- But these mobile home parks were so tight, they're 10 feet apart, all these little intricate small areas. And so I had to, I was only able to do like three or four in a day, you know, of these small, I wasn't making any money at all. And so when I made the Eliminator and able to do all the hand work, 'cause you'd have to hand work.
- With the skid steer.
- All around the concrete edges with a skid steer, that was a huge breakthrough in that. And I was able to do 20 units, 20 lawns a day as opposed to three or four.
- Yeah.
- And it was a huge breakthrough. And there wasn't, I remember going way up as high as Grand Rapids to do work.
- Yeah.
- Because nobody could do it as efficiently as we could.
- Right, right, right. So the mobile home parks was the best job because you learned efficiencies and it got you started with innovation of tools.
- Yeah.
- That's, no brainer. So on the opposite side, there's gotta be a nightmare. I mean, I've been around you long enough. You know, I was helping you start ABI while you were still knee deep in the Hydroseed, so I heard your stories of horror stories. Gimme one of your worst, worst stories.
- I don't think I ever told you this story, but when I was working for an RV company right out of college, and I was contemplating going into business for myself, actually in the sod business, I remember that we, we're laying sod on a job, and it was over Thanksgiving weekend, and we didn't finish the job, and there was 300 yards of sod left. And so we had to work the full day on Monday.
- Yep.
- And again, we're trying to build a business up, so I can go out on my own, but we can't just, you know, we've gotta get some income, some people knowing about us.
- Yeah.
- So five o'clock came, and we ran out to the job site, me and my partner, and we started laying that sod. Well, it starts snowing, and I'll bet we had two or three inches of snow before we were done. But we were out there laying sod, and we were soaked to the bone.
- Oh, I bet.
- Frozen, and I think that was a good test for us. If we weren't able to get through that, and perseverance. I will say anybody that's gonna be in the business, you're gonna have to persevere to get through. There are gonna be obstacles in your way. They're going, just like this sod job.
- Yeah.
- And you have to overcome it all. You know, there might be a cashflow problem or whatever, but you have to persevere.
- Wouldn't that be a true statement to any business owner?
- That's what I, yes.
- I think I don't care what business you're in.
- Yeah.
- If you don't have guts.
- If you can't take adversity.
- And you can't take adversity.
- And rise above it.
- Yeah.
- You shouldn't be a business owner.
- You shouldn't be a business owner.
- No.
- It's not for the faint of heart.
- It's not.
- It's not.
- You do what you had to do.
- Yeah.
- And you know, from that, we did other jobs and shortly after, I went on my own, and he stayed in the business working his full-time job for another year. And then we weaned him off of it, and we were both in it full-time.
- Yeah.
- So that was early 20s, but that had to be the most difficult and yeah.
- Yeah, so you're at the, how do I say this without saying you're old, you're at the end of your landscaping career. I mean, you're still knee deep in ABI, but, you know, you don't do much seed contracting anymore. Your son has carried on that.
- Yeah, in fact I helped him put a ball field in just last week.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- It was fun.
- But as we have some business owners who are still very active and maybe have some young men and women who are wanting to maybe get into this business, what excites you about the future of landscape contracting and seed preparation?
- Yeah. It seems like the industry's going the wrong direction in my mind. It seems like the bobcats are getting bigger, the tractors are getting bigger and that's great for those big jobs. But these jobs, or most of the jobs where all this little finesse work has to be done, and there are a lot of big city areas that they have such small footprint of lawns to put in, they can't get a tractor into the backyard. They need something to get through a four foot gate.
- Yeah.
- Or a five foot gate.
- Right.
- So what, I see the future, and here's the problem with equipment getting bigger. It costs more, it costs more to fix it. But here's a real I see glitch in this equipment going bigger. When you have to get those to the job site, and you have to have a trailer pull, a truck pulling a trailer over 10,000 pounds, all of a sudden you need a CDL driver.
- Yeah.
- And you might say, well, I don't need it. I'm sending the guy out. Well, you're gonna be fine until you have an accident.
- Yeah.
- And when you have an accident, and they check the driving record of the person driving it, and find out that he was overloaded, you might as well hand your keys to the attorney.
- Yeah, for the whole business.
- For the business. Because you're gonna lose that.
- Yeah.
- Because you were in violation of the law.
- Yeah.
- So I would like to see equipment, and with our lightweight Force, and it does so much work, we've actually thought to the future, and we are now developing a mini loader.
- Yeah.
- That will compliment the Force. So my dream and vision is with our mini loader that will put spoils up into a truck and in the back of a trailer, dump trailer, that this is the answer.
- Yeah.
- So you can get the tools out to the job site, never exceeding the 10,000 pound limit, and do the work, do it efficiently, and do everything that the big equipment does for a fraction of the cost of it, a fraction to operate.
- Right.
- A fraction to repair it, and eliminate people.
- Yeah.
- And here's the key when you actually have equipment that helps to eliminate people. You don't have to worry about them not showing up. You don't have to worry about them getting sicker. And because you have fewer people, you can pay them maybe the highest rate in the industry, and they'll produce money for you because instead of getting $100 an hour, you can charge $200 an hour because of the efficiencies of the tool.
- Right.
- And it all comes to the bottom line.
- Yeah, yeah, so this does not surprise me that your vision and excitement for the future really is around equipment.
- Yeah.
- I mean, that's really, that's your heartbeat. It truly is. I mean, here you and I have basically retired from ABI.
- Yeah.
- That lasted a year and a half for you.
- Yeah.
- You've got an office, and you're brainstorming and developing, like you said, the minis that were coming out. I mean, it's just part of your DNA.
- Yeah.
- So I have no doubt that, you know, your excitement about the future for contractors is really in efficiency and equipment in those type. So I just wanna maybe wrap up this episode talking a little bit more about the Force by ABI and the Z23, because all these products are gonna fall into the Force name. But the Z23 is our cornerstone. The one that we started with, the zero turn laser grader. Don't have to put laser on it, but it's a zero turn grading machine. Let's talk about more what that can do for the contractor. I mean, we've got all the attachments. I mean, I think our baseball market is saturated as far as.
- Yeah.
- Things that we can do with it. It is what it is, and it's the best in the world. I know you're still working on attachments for the Z23 that helps the contractor.
- Yes.
- So let's talk a little bit more about what the Z23 can do for the contract seeding contractor.
- Well, it can rip the ground. You eliminate the compaction in the ground.
- Yep.
- You can move soil around and create grades and swales and push dirt around. One of the best features of the Z23 is the ability to be right on top of your grading blade. And what that allows you to do is you can push the soil up and you have a bird's eye view of what's going on under there and push soil up to a low spot and next to a concrete and then come up alongside it and feather it right along the edge. So we have, you know, I can loosen, I can move soil around from a high spot to a low spot. I can do the edge work, and it doesn't stop there. You can put a spreader on there. You can spread fertilizer. You can spread seed. We have all kinds of attachments on the back. The one that I think is the overlooked the most that I just, I love it is I have a little scoop bucket on the back that I can actually pick up material, move it around. It's about 300 pound capacity, but it probably takes the place of three wheelbarrows.
- Yeah.
- And you can move material around the yard. Well, what's the importance of that? I can't tell you how many times I go by a neighborhood, and I see landscape companies actually hand shoveling bark into a wheelbarrow, taking it up to the, landscaping around the perimeter of the house and repeating that process, all labor intensive work. Three people taking forever.
- Yeah.
- Guess what? If you have the material dumped in the road or on a hard surface, I can scoop that up with hardly making any mark on the surface, and I've moved as much as 40 yards. It was like two truckloads, huge semi-loads. Well, large dump trucks in two hours.
- Yeah.
- And when I say pinpoint, I could pick this up, move it to a spot and dump it. And as fast as I would come back and put the next one, that guy was working hard to spread it.
- Yeah.
- So here we have two people spreading and moving it, and I'm not making, I'm like a feather over the lawn. So with this little scoop behind the force, I'm able to pick up as much as 300 pounds and move it around on the property. And when I look at the labor that is being done by doing all that by hand, and actually going up hills.
- Yeah.
- You know, because the house might set up on, they are working really hard. Yeah, and I could just place it, and I've done it on our own business.
- Yeah.
- We moved 40 yards of bark, and they did it about an hour and a half.
- Yeah.
- Again, as fast as people could rake it out, I was putting it and placing it.
- Yeah.
- So I think the landscaper that maybe even is into seed prep, this tool for that purpose alone.
- Yeah.
- To move bark, to move stone. And I have an edger.
- Yeah, that's incredible to watch.
- Yes. In fact, I actually, my neighbor has a vineyard.
- Yeah.
- And I just for fun went, took the Force down there with the edger.
- Yeah.
- And instead of rolling it in, you can reverse it and roll it out. So when I went up and down between the rows of the vineyard and the vines.
- Yeah.
- And I just cut a nice clean distinct edge in it, rolled it in. Now a landscaper would could go back after that and place the edging in.
- Right.
- And then remove the spoils, all that without having a wheelbarrow. Because I have a mobile wheelbarrow that's a light footprint that can put three times the volume that you can do with a manual wheelbarrow.
- And light footprint, light footprint's a big thing.
- It's everything.
- It's everything.
- I mean, it was, he just couldn't believe that I was able to roll that sod crisp clean edge. And then Pete Denny did it too.
- Yeah, right.
- Where he went in his, I don't know if it's his lawn or a customer's, but it just, it just took, I don't know, less than 30 minutes to edge the whole lawn.
- Yeah, and the flower beds.
- Yes. And golf courses could actually use this around green, sand traps.
- And sand traps, right.
- And give a nice clean, distinct edge. That separates an average lawn, in fact an average ball field.
- Yeah.
- From having to, from just a bad field is a good field or bad whatever. It makes a big difference is when you can cut clean edges.
- Right.
- On the edges of the grass.
- Right, well.
- Distinct edges.
- It affects the way the ball plays everything.
- Yes.
- I mean, it's not just aesthetics, it's actually the way the game's played.
- Yes.
- It's a big deal. And that's one of those attachments that you made for sports turf that went, oh, a light bulb went on. Wait a minute, I can use this in contracting, you know?
- Yeah, and let me just tell you a little about inventing that, the disc edger, okay? Because I got a patent on this too.
- Right, right.
- Okay? So I put the disc out front, and I thought, well, I want to be able to see it. I can go down a line, and well, this will be great. Beautiful control. Well, guess what? I started to go down the line, and I had to make a movement. Well, when I moved it and made a move, and it was out in front of me, it was a jaunt.
- Yeah.
- It moved right away an inch. Well, that was the worst line you could ever make.
- Right.
- So I couldn't make adjustments. And so I came up with the idea, and usually Nate, our engineer, knows I have a new idea 'cause I meet him at the door when he comes in.
- Right, right, right.
- Well that morning I was, I was there at seven o'clock when he came in at eight o'clock, I was ready to show him. So I move the disc even with the back tire. So get this, when I wanna make a movement, and I'm not making that line, I can move the front and the disc never goes sideways.
- Right.
- It just changes direction, and I can nail that line right on the money.
- Right.
- And that was a big breakthrough is the positioning where to put the disk. There are so many breakthroughs we've had on this equipment.
- Oh no doubt.
- That people don't understand the value of it.
- Right.
- But I could go on and on all day.
- Right, right.
- About little things that have made a difference, and we've gotten patents on 'em.
- Yeah, well.
- And it keeps a lot of people away.
- Obviously I asked the question, what excites you? And it's very obvious that that does.
- New ideas excite me.
- Yes, I know.
- And I can't wait to show people and get their reactions. And you know, I've been at some of the major league's fields New York.
- Yeah.
- I've been at Williamsport.
- Yeah.
- I've been at Oklahoma City. What a career.
- Yeah, yeah.
- It's been. It's been thrilling to be at those places. And in fact, my wife went with me one time, and she was in the dugout FaceTiming with the grandkids.
- Yeah.
- And a moment I'll cherish forever.
- Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that's all we have for today. Kevin, we're gonna have you back for another episode, and in that episode we're gonna talk more about the strategic business of landscape contracting, how to win bids, how to make money, make sure that you are providing an excellent service while making a profit.
- Yeah.
- You can provide an excellent service and go bankrupt.
- That's right.
- So you gotta have the balance there, right?
- I agree.
- So if you want to follow and listen to that episode, you know, follow our YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform, and make sure you watch it and don't miss out on it. Thanks for being here, and thanks for listening.
- [Kevin] Thank you.
