STA. Barbara Landscaping: One on One with Eric Jasso

Dive deep into the world of landscaping and hardscaping with our latest episode featuring Eric Jasso from Sta Barbara Landscaping! 🌿 From humble beginnings in North Chicago to becoming a powerhouse in the industry, Eric shares invaluable insights into the journey of building and scaling a thriving business.

In this episode, we explore:

🏡 The origins of Sta Barbara Landscaping and its evolution over the years.
🌱 Strategies for growth and maintaining excellence in service.
💡 Key lessons learned and challenges overcome in the landscaping and hardscaping industry.
🔨 Innovative approaches to design and implementation.
💼 The importance of community engagement and client satisfaction.

Tune in as we uncover the secrets behind Sta Barbara Landscaping's success and gain inspiration for your own entrepreneurial endeavors!

Transcript

0:10

What's up guys? Hope everybody's having a wonderful day today. My name is Chris Bowen. I'm the host here at the Level Up the podcast. I've got with me Eric today. Eric runs a landscape business in Chicago, him and his dad. They've got a thriving business there that they're really trying to focus on growing and kind of taking that business and going from a lot of maintenance and kind of move it into the hardscape side of business. So Eric, why don't you introduce yourself and introduce your company? Hey, Curzio, thank you for having me. I'm Eric with Santabarura Landscaping. We're based out of Chicago. My dad started the business in around 2006, 2007. So we've been in business for a while. We do a lot of maintenance. We're trying to transition a bit more into a hardscape industry. But as long as it's an outdoor, we can always help anybody out. man, that's awesome. And so what are you guys kind of doing to grow? What type of plans are you guys implementing? Just really word of mouth or what are you guys doing? Yeah, so right now we're mostly working with referrals. Since we're still small, we don't want to get too much into having a lot of estimates and a lot more in our head that we just can't control ourselves. So right now, we're kind of just keeping it with referrals. But every year, we're trying to implement something where we're able to keep growing and hopefully get our brand out there. Man, that's awesome. Yeah, I think it's important that people not grow too fast, especially when you guys are doing things in house the way you guys are. Cause then you get, you know, months and months out. And I'm sure with the Chicago weather, that's not exactly a great idea. You know, I haven't visited Chicago a whole lot, but I grew up in Colorado and, uh, you know, same thing with the weather there. It's not exactly conducive a lot of the time. Yeah, so that's what we try to avoid, especially right now that we're going to start. It starts with the spring cleanups. Right now we're having really nice weather, surprisingly. But once we start, sometimes it rains, sometimes it snows and it pushes back. So we don't want to grab like all the clients and then have them be like, these guys don't show up. They're not responsible. So we try to keep it at a level where we know that it's an offer. My dad and I and our crew will help us out to keep growing. Yeah, that makes total sense. And so what are you guys doing as you guys are kind of leaning into more hardscape? What are you guys doing to kind of learn the hardscape side of the business? Are you guys doing trainings or what are you guys kind of doing to learn that? Yeah, actually we've been going to a couple seminars or anything that like, you know, like here uses all their seminars We try to attend I've taken a couple courses to help me get a better understanding of we need to get done and just Anything that we actually find that helps us Don't know more about the industry so that we're able to be more professional with our clients and know that we're the experts on this Anything that helps we just kind of attend. We try to make time for it No, that's really cool, man. As far as referrals go, are you guys working with like realtors or other people that are, you know, kind of in the outdoor space? What are you guys kind of doing with that? Yeah, I actually worked with a couple realtors. They'll call us for maintenance cut or they'll call us before pictures and say like, hey, can you get this done for me? Can you clean up the property? And I let them know to let know the new owners that we're obviously in the industry and if they ever want to help contact us even for a one time job, we're able to help them out. Yeah, definitely. And then I assume you guys own a lot of your own equipment, correct? Yeah, we own up basically I would say about 90 percent of it although it's 10 percent we rent but that's for bigger jobs like a bigger bobcats gets gear or something like that's what we rent out So guys that are just getting into business, growing their business, you guys have been around for a while. How did you guys go about starting to accumulate all that equipment? Was it just something that happened over time or did you guys get to the point where like, hey, we just, we're ready to jump in, let's just go buy it or how did that kind of work? We kind of started a little by little, you know, there was times that we were around, like let's say a sock cutter when we had a big job for taking out a lawn and putting in a new lawn. We would run a sock cutter out, but then eventually we started noticing that we were having a lot of. jobs that was replacing lawns and stuff. So we would try to like, from every job, we would try to keep a little profit, but to invest in a future on a machine. And then eventually we got a machine for cutting grass and stuff, the suck cutter, for cutting the grass and stuff, making our life easier. And like that for every single job, I guess you would say every time we knew we needed something from every job, just put a little bit of money aside. Even if it's $50, eventually it's gonna accumulate to what you need. That's exactly right. I think that's something that a lot of people don't think about is, you know, when you've got long-term goals, setting that money aside so that you can hit them because it's not just about growing your business. You really have to think about the financial side of it. So for example, I came from pool construction. And so we owned a lot of equipment, dump trailers, trucks, things like that. And I was lucky enough, I had most of our equipment paid off when we ended up closing. But people don't realize the amount of money that it takes to fund all of that equipment. And you got to put a lot of money aside for that. I have a couple of friends that are starting in the industry and they kind of notice that anything they're making now is not really a profit, that it always goes into the business. And we're like, dude, we've been in business for a couple of years now, about 18, 19 years, and we're still like, there's a lot of profit that comes in, but at the same time it goes out. Like it disappears into new equipment that we got to keep keeping up with, you know. I think I didn't really have a paycheck per se. I think when I first started giving myself a paycheck, it was 50K a year, but we were already doing about a million dollars a year in business at that time. And to think that a million dollars, I'm making 50K. The rest is going back into the business. Like people don't quite realize the amount of money that it takes to run a business. You know, you get a lot of the perks, you know, you get your cell phone, you get your vehicle, you know, all those things that get wrapped into business expenses, but you still have other bills. Ha ha ha. people think that owning a business is like you just make a lot of money and you're not making like any uh just you're not making a weekly paycheck you're just making a bunch of money and the money comes easy and it's like oh you're a business owner oh you must be rich because you're a business owner but they don't realize like the hours you got to put in to keep up with the work and stuff and like keeping schedules and it's just crazy it's not easy at all. Yeah, so let's talk about that a little bit. What's your typical week look like? What does a week breakdown look like for you? Awesome since we're a small business, uh, like I said, it's me and my dad running it So Monday through Saturday, we go out with the guys around the field So we only do three days mowing actually so we do mowing on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursdays and then Monday Friday and Saturday we do all our extra so any hardscape any landscape planting and stuff like that It's when we do all our extra stuff. So from let's say on a Monday My dad would actually get up like around 5 6 a.m To go get the trailer because we don't have us a big shop So he has to go to get a trailer from another space that we're renting out So he'll go out get the trailer on me together at the parking lot by 7 from there we'll run to our job site and we work till about 4 or 4.30 and then that's when we head out and that's basically an everyday thing. Since like I said we're a small business I'm the one that after 4.35 that I'm home I come home I do invoices I'll catch up on estimates I'll call reach out to clients email them for. want everybody listening to hear that, that they start at four or five a.m. to go get it. Work till four, so 12 hours later, and then come home and do paperwork and estimates. Ha ha ha. I mean, I'm pretty sure the big companies have someone doing that for them that they could just come from seven to five But even then I know that even the bigger companies I know people that they're working on Saturdays doing estimates or catching up and planes couldn't do so There's always something like I feel like just being an owner. It's just you're always gonna be working I feel like eventually maybe you'll get there. But if you really want to get there you really got to put in dollars You got to put in the hours, especially in the beginning, those guys who don't do anything, it's because they're at a point where they can pay others to do it, where that business cash flows well enough and it's got a good enough profit margin to where they can pay others to do that work for them and then still get a paycheck on the side. Not everybody's that lucky. I mean, a lot of people, they work in their business until they can no longer do it. And that's the way that it is. Um, you know, we all have goals of eventually getting outside of our own business and, you know, being able to go sit on the beach and relax and smoke a cigar with a, you know, a cocktail in our hand, but realistically, you know, that's probably not going to happen for the majority of business owners. And that's, that's just the way that it is. It's going to continue to be that, you know, day in, day out grind. And that's okay. You know, because at the end of the day, you don't have a boss. You are the boss. You get to set, you know, what you want to do and you have a goal that you're working towards and that's, you know, that's what it's about. Right, right. Yes. I mean, it's just, everybody's a little different mindset when it comes to that. Are you guys planning on, you know, is that the end goal is to eventually to have people that work inside your business and you guys kind of work on the business itself rather than in it? Yeah, I guess you could say we, I mean, like I said, I know everybody wants to grow. We do too. We do want to kind of step out the field a bit, but not a hundred percent. We just want someone to help us out more in the field and be able to make the hard decisions on the field. And then if something just, they just can't take care of, obviously call us and we were able to run out to them and be like, all right, we'll take care of what's going on. But I feel like for the next couple of years, we still want to be in the field, but at the same time, step back a little. I've always found that's the hardest positions to hire for is the guys that can make decisions in the field enough that they feel confident in those decisions where they're not constantly calling you to say, Hey, Eric. I've ran into this, what do I do? What do I do now? Because that's almost more annoying than being out in the field yourself and having to make those decisions. Because if you're out in the field, you get to make them regardless. Now you're just having somebody bother you about it. I feel like that's the hard part is hiring the right people for the right positions. And speaking of that, how do you guys go about hiring? So we actually put out an ad in Indeed, and we've had a couple good workers come in. But we also, it's more of a word of mouth thing. So we'll ask our guys, hey, do you know anyone that's interested to work for the season? And they'll try to bring someone in that they know. Or they'll be like, I know someone, but they're just trying to work in a couple of days or a couple of weeks. And since we're staying a little busy with all the hardscape stuff, we'll be like, all right, let them know that we're hiring. If they wanna work one day, I'll hire them for one day. They're working a day, two days. We could figure out a schedule so that they're able to work and we're able to pull our work ahead. Yeah, that's, I've always found that the best employees came from referral from current employees. That's what I've always found. I struggled with indeed a little bit, um, because they match you with a lot of people and then, you know, you'll find that people lie on their resumes a lot. A lot. we've had that where I'll say that they had so many years of experience and then we'll tell them, right, come up down. Let's see what you can do. And then we'll be like, you know how to trim and they'll be like, yeah. And then when they get the machine, they're like, how do you turn this on? This one's different. We're like, bro, like all of them, like the same. not that different, I promise you. One trigger is not that different from the other to where you don't know how to turn it on. Yeah, so that's one of the things I realized that is just like, okay, like we got to pay a little more attention. I put them on the field to the test. See if you really know what you're talking about or you just Google something and be like, all right, this is what I know how to do. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I used to go through and question people and be like, okay, well, if you run into this scenario, you know, what do you do? And, you know, the guys that freeze up in those questions, it's like, okay, clearly you don't have the experience that you said that you did because I'm running you through a fairly basic scenario that's going to happen a lot in the field. And if you don't know how to answer that, something's not adding up here. Great. Yeah, that's always the most fun apparently. Hiring. It is, it is, absolutely. And then, so what does a typical season in Chicago look like? What's a season look like for you guys? How long is it? let's say many people start here in March 15. We usually don't start till like the first week of April, but from April, the first week of April to the last week of April, they call spring cleanups. So clean up all the leaves that stayed from the fall and stuff. And then from May all the way to about October is when you do your regular mowing, our regular maintenance, weekly maintenance and stuff. And then again, in November, we start with our fall cleanups again, trying to clean out all the leaves that are falling and stuff. And then from there, early March depending on Chicago's weather. Small renewal. Yeah. Okay, so you guys just no removal as well then. Yeah, we do small removal. We don't have a lot of clients. We try to keep that very minimum. We try to keep the clients that come in. If they want us to do small removal, they gotta give us a year-round contract. Yeah, I've definitely done that before. That is not easy work. Especially when you have to get out there with a shovel. It sucks. Ha ha ha! getting out there like at three in the morning, four in the morning, when we have to start cleaning up and then the guys don't answer, it's a little bit stressful that we're calling on me like, yo, like, it's no, I know it's late as hell, but there's nothing we could do. Yeah, it's just part of it. I mean, I had a, so growing up, I had a buddy whose brother-in-law owned a landscape company in Colorado. And that was their big wintertime thing is they did snow removal. So I remember several times going out, he'd pay us like 20 bucks, that's it, to go out for the day and shovel snow at apartment complexes and put down salt. And man, you want to talk about some hard work. That is some hard work. Yeah. The money is good in snoring mode, but I feel like if I already think the main end side of this industry is crazy, just keeping up with snoring mode is just a lot worse because like us as the owners, we try to stay watching like once it's not going to stop, how much snores are going to come. So even if we say let's go to sleep for two hours, our brains just constantly thinking it's snowing, it's snowing. Don't forget, don't fall asleep. You have contracts that you need to get done and stuff. Yeah, I can imagine that's a little bit stressful. I can imagine that's a little bit stressful saying, can I go to sleep tonight? I don't know if I can actually sleep tonight because I may have to go to work or I may have to call somebody, you know, and then you have to remind yourself, wake up like every 30 minutes or every hour to check the weather and make sure that you're still good. Like that's, that's not easy. we had a couple of events where like the weather app, the news, everybody was just like, there's going to be like two to five inches. And we were just checking on the, on the weather app. Just, we couldn't sleep just checking on it. And then the hours passed by the next morning by like 10 AM, there's nothing on the ground because it just disappeared. It just went away. So we were like, great. We didn't even sleep and we didn't even have to go out. That's the way it is in Texas. Usually we don't have anything that sticks. It all just kind of melts away. Um, Colorado is quite a bit different. Colorado sticks a lot. Um, Texas, it just gets icy and nobody knows how to do anything. Yeah, no, and what I said, I feel like it's sometimes worse. Yeah, they just shut the state down here. So in terms of marketing, what are you guys kind of doing outside of just relationship building with different realtors and homeowners and things like that? What are you guys doing for other marketing? Uh, so right now, before we start the season, we start calling in the guys and I have them, uh, distribute flyers in the area that I'm trying to target. Uh, usually it's areas that I have most of my clients in that I want to keep growing in that area. And then, uh, when we do like, let's say a hardscape job, I have flyers that, uh, we put out in that same block. So we'll just let all like clients in there like, Hey, like we're in that area. sorry for being loud and if our trucks are in the way but always you're always welcome to come into the property make sure you want to see what we're doing and if you need an estimate feel free to come by you can always stop by. Yeah, I worked for a hardscape company for a little while and that was one of the best tools that we had was if we were doing a job in a neighborhood, we'd go knock on, we'd choose five people's doors to go knock on in that neighborhood and just say, hey, I just wanted to let you know we're getting ready to start a job. I apologize ahead of time if there's any sort of inconveniences to you, if somebody parks in front of your driveway, anything like that, you have any sort of complaint. Here's my card. Please reach out to me. I will make it right for you. And you'd be shocked at how many referrals you get. Just over that. We've had one time I stopped one of our trucks in front of a driver. It was just like a quick stop just so that we could load one of our machines on the, on the trailer. And we, we had a neighbor come out like super mad and I was just like, I'll be here like two more minutes. I mean, just please give me a chance. I'm like, it's the easiest way for me to load up. I don't want to like cross with my, my men all the way to the other side. And then she wasn't so happy about it, but she's like, just make sure you clean up. So we loaded and we cleaned up for her. And then I went, I just went to the store and I got her a $25 gift card for Starbucks. I'm like here, I'm like, sorry for the troubles. She was super happy. She was she didn't expect it and we actually got like a couple referrals from that just from Yeah, absolutely. When you're go out of your way to be kind to people, it goes a really long way. And it's something that's so easy that so many people neglect to do. And just, you know, making sure not only are you taking care of the client, but you're taking care of their neighbors too, because they got to deal with it also. It sucks to deal with it in your backyard, but it sucks just as bad when it's your neighbor's backyard as well. think this person worked from home. So we were pretty good with the machines. It was a little annoying for her. So I felt bad that I still used her driveway. But after the gift card, she was like super happy. And a couple months later, she actually called me to do another small hardscape job for her. And the first thing she said was, thank you so much for the coffee. I appreciate it. I didn't expect you to do that. You didn't need to. And I just felt like that was like a good way to get another time, you know? No, it absolutely is. And it's, you know, it's something so little that goes such a long way with people. And that's a good lesson for everybody out there too. You know, um, that's a good way to go get referral business. It's, you know, it probably costs $15, you know, and that's it. sometimes people will come out mad, and I know you're stressed or something, but always just go out of your way. That's something I've learned throughout the years that I'm stressed, but whoever's in their house, I'm bothering them when they're in the comfort of their home. So I just need to learn to chill down a little and be like, hey, I'm sorry. Let me know how I can make it right for you. Even if you're not working for them, I mean, honestly, if they ask you for like a thousand dollar discount, that's a whole different story. You know, some people, job, right? Right. Yeah. Just, just do something small about your way. Like just be nice, be respectful and they'll appreciate it in the long run. Well cool man, I appreciate you hopping on here today with me. For those listening, if we've got anybody in the Chicago area, how can they get a hold of you? So right now the only thing I'm running on social media is Instagram so you can find me at sta. Just reach out to me through the ends or something and I'll be happy to help And do you guys have a website or a cell phone number people can call? No website at the moment, that's something I'm trying to do hopefully next year, but a cell phone number you can reach me at 773-266-5624 or 259-1842. Awesome, Eric and man, it's been a pleasure today. I hope you have a wonderful day and for everybody listening, we appreciate you guys listening. Yep, thank you Chris, thank you for having me. Absolutely.