Full Transcript for Tracking Numbers for Business Success and Offering Holiday Lighting - Chris Vazzana - BDD Landscaping

did an old business and. Chris Vazzana (05:34.485) No, didn't know anything. I was literally doing business, trying to, you know, we didn't know taxes, how to pay your taxes, just giving it the account and says, you know, this at the end of the year, we don't, we didn't fucking have much money. So we're just like using it just to put back into the business and just trying to grow it. You know what I mean? And just, it was just a hassle for, you know, five years, I think three years in we started, we got our first hardscaping job. It was a small walkway. And that's when it started with that and just started getting more hardscaping jobs after and the business was just steady. And we wanted to just take it to the next level. We would have employees and stuff like that, but we didn't have any systems in place. We didn't have anything. was just, guys would come to the shop with us. We'd tell them what to do. They'd leave. And we didn't really work checking up on stuff. You know what I mean? All the work was great. You know, we'd always communicate with our clients and things like that. Yeah, it was just a day by day. Just didn't have much systems in place and things like that. then like three years ago, Enmanuel (06:20.717) So it was like a day by day. Chris Vazzana (06:30.478) we met our mentor, that's when we met our mentor and it was just, changed the game because it was just that we were just at a standstill. could just never get to that, to that mark. You know, we would always hit like 700 K in sales and that was it. We just plateau and we were just like, you know, we want more James Reed. He's out of Long Island. He's, uh, he goes on Instagram by roads to a hundred mil. You ever seen him? Roads to a hundred Enmanuel (06:42.856) Who is your mentor by the Enmanuel (06:52.433) yes, dude, I love his content. I think he also helps with business overall. Like think I've seen some of his marketing too. Chris Vazzana (06:57.486) Yeah, yeah, Yeah, so I was actually the first person to ever reach out to James before he even did any coaching or anything like that, because I seen one post that he posted was he was in debt for like, 100 and something K from the IRS, and he got himself out of it. And that kind of like stuck with me because you know, we were in debt also at the time. We're not knowing much about business and things like that. And then I just DM to man because I'm just trying to learn because at that time, there wasn't many coaches and things online. It was It wasn't, you know, it wasn't somebody I really want to people didn't want to reach out to because it felt like it was just sketchy. You know what I mean? So when I seen him, it was like real. I messaged them and set up a time in our first meeting that we talked. It was just we hit it off right. We're like the same people. And the second conversation we had, we just dove right into the business, broke everything down numbers. And then now it's just we have a whole system in place. We're creating our own systems. We got Enmanuel (07:33.335) Yeah, Chris Vazzana (07:53.838) Field operations managers, got project managers, laborers, everything, man. So we call them field technicians now. yeah, everyone plays a good crucial part. We got office staff now, we got social media coordinators now. So we're just trying to expand our presence now. It's pretty cool, man, where we came from now to where we're at now. Yeah, it's pretty nuts. Enmanuel (08:16.097) Yeah, mean, from known systems to systems, this is a big difference. so what is it? His name is Reed, you said? Chris Vazzana (08:26.382) Yeah, James Reed. Yeah, he's the man. Shout out to James. Yeah, I always shout him out. Yeah, we actually we actually presented James because of how much he helped us out in business. He basically doubled our business our first year just by cutting things out. For instance, like just having a skid steer. We had a 289 D a bigger, larger skid steer. And he's like, Yeah, why do you use that? And I was never thinking about stuff like that. He's like, you know, did you ever think about the 259 smaller Enmanuel (08:27.649) James Reid. So James, man, that's awesome. And so how Chris Vazzana (08:54.222) And I'm like, no. And he's like, well, what do you do? you know, we do the smaller patios and things like that. And we don't need a big excavator. And just that, he's telling us to go down. did that trade right. Nancy told me that I traded it in, got a 259, saved us $1 a month alone on payments. So he saved us roughly like, what was was like 13, 14, $14, $15 ,000 a year just on that one transaction. There was more stuff that we just broke down in the business and saved us like 60, I think it was like 64 to $70 ,000. He saved us just by just doing little things like that. So he's really good at what he does, man. It just breaks everything down and just it feels like he, he wants to help you. Yeah, he is. He is. He really Enmanuel (09:32.061) Sure. Enmanuel (09:36.621) He's a gangster, 100%. From what I've seen on his content on Instagram, he's a gangster. I he covers everything from operations to marketing, everything. I love the guy's content. I'm big fan of him, actually. And so the system that you guys got from him, were those systems that he was using in his own business at the time, or how did he come up with those? Chris Vazzana (09:47.342) Yeah Yeah, he's the man. He knows what he's doing. Chris Vazzana (09:56.813) Yeah. Yeah. Essentially I follow the same business plan and things like that. You know, he does those affordable patio packages. call them pad. We are the affordable patios. We call them our patio packages. We have four separate patio packages available. When we first started them, they're 15 by 15 and 18 by 18. A 21 by 21 and an 18 by 30 patio. All of our pricing's online. So it's just right to the point. They know what they're going to get for it. All around our showroom that we have, it's all of our patio packages and things like First year

we sold 15 of them. This was three years ago when I told you I met them. That's when we started it. Sold 15, those packages, first year. Second year it was 30. And this year it's a little bit slower because the economy is kind of hurting a little bit. A lot of people in our industry are hurting for work and things like that. So I could see a little downfall when it comes to that. So we're roughly around 30 that we sold this year as well. We wanted to hit 50. So I think next year we'll be able to hit that mark with our patio packages. But before with our pricing to do those kind of patios, I was basically double in price and I wasn't even tracking days or anything like that. So, you know, these patio packages are roughly one to two business days that we're doing. We break everything down in our business to once one single working day. So we break down our overhead, our assets, our labor, everything like that. So everything is broken down to one single business day. So I knew those numbers. that I can hit and then hit at a higher volume instead of doing that package for double I can only get like maybe five to six of those patios I'm doing 30 for you know 30 to 40 50 of these patio packages so Enmanuel (11:33.399) So what does that entail that you would have to drop price in order to get more volume or to be more competitive? Chris Vazzana (11:38.702) Yeah, to get more volume, yeah. But you gotta know your numbers also. You can't just drop your price. Like I knew exactly what my numbers needed to be and I knew the profit that I'm gonna make in that single working day and these guys needed finish this in that one business day. So as long as they complete that in that one business day, I know what I'm gonna hit. Everything is paid, my overhead's paid for that day and all that. So if I'm doing those once a day for 22, you we broke everything down that we work 22 working days per month. 198 working days per year. As long as I'm hitting, as long as I have work flowing every single day, that's how I'm priced out, I'm gonna hit my mark and that's what I need to be doing. It's because I'm hitting, I'm hitting my revenue mark where I need to be to get my money back in those 198 working days. So I'm not pricing out 365 days because the patio season's only eight, nine months. Enmanuel (12:18.155) Who that is? Enmanuel (12:34.263) is very true. That's very, wow, you guys have a very strategic approach. I've actually never even heard of anybody saying the number of working days within the season for that. So, so when Chris Vazzana (12:35.884) You know what I'm saying? Chris Vazzana (12:44.098) Yeah, yep. And that's what we're tracking right now. Like I could pull up, you know, how many working days we already have hits from March to right now. I can tell you exactly how many working days we work. Enmanuel (12:54.445) When you mentioned that you guys sold 30 of those patio packages, it was within that span of March to maybe what? Maybe March is a simpler? Chris

Vazzana (13:00.654) Yeah, 198 working days. And that's not even our, yeah, that's not even our custom, our custom work. You know what mean? It's not even our custom work at all. So we still do those. So we have one crew. We have one crew doing our patio packages and landscaping work, smaller side, you know, they're not the A team. The A team is basically our custom work, cuts, things like that, that know what they're doing. They're the A team. They're pushing all the bigger jobs that are roughly like five days to 20 days. You know, we're just on a job that Enmanuel (13:09.495) Do you guys, so do you guys do that as well? Chris Vazzana (13:29.774) three weeks, you know, but we're always moving people around where we need to. Enmanuel (13:34.893) Yeah, 100 % I'm with a team of that size, yeah, for sure. But dude, that explains a lot to me. That actually answers the question that I was gonna ask you, which was I know that James really pushes those patio packages where you don't even need a design. It's very simple, know, it's a 10 by 10, you don't need a design. It's the same thing every single time. All you need is the lead. You know exactly how much you're gonna spend on it. So it's very repeatable. You just made me realize that too. Chris Vazzana (13:53.858) Yep, exactly. Chris Vazzana (13:59.374) Yeah, and that's what's good about this showroom that we have, a 2 ,500 square foot showroom of all pavers beyond this point right here. This is just our little office area. And basically on the outside is all of our outdoor kitchens. We have a putting green, pergola, and then everything on the floor is all pavers. So once somebody walks in here, they know how much this patio package is gonna be, or if they want custom work, once they come in here, they're already sold on us. Because they see it on the ground, they see us, they You know, the webs, you know, we have the website laid out and everything. So we're very transparent in what we do. And it's been, it's been really good. It's really good. And I can say we track everything. So I even know how many leads we got from the showroom and how much money I generated. So it's, it's paying off because we pay a little, you we pay price, you know, we pay like $4 ,500 a month just for our show alone. Enmanuel (14:51.277) showroom and office like you you have that where you are right now it's a small section of that showroom that you guys use as the office. Chris Vazzana (14:56.716) Yep, yep. Yeah, we have it split with a fence. Let's see, you can see the fence behind me. It goes around this way. And beyond that point is our showroom, you know, fire pit. We have everything in there, lighting. Enmanuel (15:02.421) nice nice and do you guys also store tools and materials there too? Chris Vazzana (15:10.508) No, we don't sell any materials out of here. We usually go through like SiteOne. What's Enmanuel (15:12.703) No, no, I'll store it. Do you guys store materials there? Like maybe like a little mini skit steer,

things like Chris Vazzana (15:17.806) Oh no, we have our, so about eight minutes away from our main office that we have, our headquarters, is our shop. So it's a roughly 60 foot by a hundred feet shop, know, sits on maybe two acres, roughly. So we got all our trailers there, our trucks there. That's where all the guys go there in the morning. We have a warehouse coordinator, so he's there every morning, making sure the guys, you know, if they need anything, he has everything in order for those guys. Enmanuel (15:47.169) awesome. And how does that work by the way Chris? Is that like, I know that you mentioned it's two acres, but it's I would imagine it's not all open space. So when you guys bought over that land, that space, did you guys have to build your own shade structures so that things don't get as wet like delicate? Chris Vazzana (15:47.224) So basically I don't even need, I don't even need, what's Chris Vazzana (16:04.686) No, so right now we're just renting. We've been renting for the last five, six years of this place, I wanna say. Yeah, about six years. And right now we're looking for land. We got big plans on what we wanna do. So we're looking for roughly like 25 to 50 acres of wooded stuff because we have some big plans on what we wanna do with our Christmas business as well. And what we wanna do for our community. So I kind of want 25 to 50 acres for a shop. Maybe my house, put like five acres. I wanna build a house on there as Enmanuel (16:11.504) Mm Enmanuel (16:22.249) a of weeks. Chris Vazzana (16:34.382) My brother already built on 25 acres too. So I want something, you know, that I can build on, have the shop as well. And then probably still have this showroom because literally there's 26 ,000 cars that drive by here on a daily basis. There's a community college across the street. So there's a lot of high traffic. There's a high traffic area. We're in the front too. So we got the main area that people can see. So we light it up on Christmas and everything like that. So we consider this like a big So it's just, so we're looking at it like a marketing thing, 4 ,500 a month, how much, 26 ,000 cars drive by here, it's kind of like a billboard. A billboard is roughly $2 ,500 a month. So you get two of those, there you go. There's your advertising. Enmanuel (17:17.729) Yeah, and you guys get to personalize it for different seasons. You you throw different things on there, you know, maybe some lights that gives that. So I love that, that, that branding play there. I definitely want to talk about two things that you mentioned there, which is branding and the Christmas lights. But I do have a question before we get to that. So the showroom that you guys have, very, very unique touch. don't, I don't know many other hard capers that do have showrooms. So let me ask you this. When you set up, Chris Vazzana (17:42.51) There's not. Enmanuel (17:45.971) you know an in -person meeting let's say that somebody books on your website or they find

you know know hardscape are near me or patio install near me they find you it's the first visit of them coming to your showroom or you guys coming out to their homes to give them an estimate Chris Vazzana (18:02.412) No, so basically we just go, we go out to their home, so they'll call here. After our office gets off the phone with them, our office is sending a video to them, introducing myself, if it's for my lead, because I do the landscaping side of the business, leads. My brother does all the hardscaping side of the business leads. So if it's a patio, the office right after the phone call and the consultation set up, they're gonna send a video to that client. And it's basically an introduction, My name is Rich or Chris with Black Diamond Design Landscaping. Thank you so much for joining our company. This is what you're gonna expect when we come out to your consultation. If you have any questions, just please jot them down before we arrive. We look forward to it, blah, blah, blah. See you soon. So now they're already seeing our face. And then once we get to the consultation and we get everything that we need, measurements, whatnot, we leave office. We contact the office and say, hey, we just completed that consultation. She sends another video saying thank you so much. For the consultation, I really appreciate you. It's gonna take us about two to three business days to complete your estimate. If you do have any questions, you can contact our office, blah, blah, blah, so they're seeing our face again. And in that consultation, we basically have a playbook. In this playbook, it's all about our company or core values, what we have to offer, frequently asked questions, it even has a picture of our patio base, what's underneath our patio, has our office staff meet the team. So now we're just forming a relationship with them. and we're building trust with them right off the bat. So we give them to every single client that we go to. And if they have any questions, they could just look at the frequently asked questions. If it doesn't answer them, they could just give the office call. Now, after we send that video to them and they want to move forward with it, and we say, great, awesome, they can either come in the office, check out pavers, pick out their material before the contract, you know, get sent out to them. And then we also send them another video, man, after saying thank you so much for joining as you're part of the family now, blah, blah, blah. So it's just basically we're just forming, know, we have great structure with our company it feels like right now and it's great. We love it. A lot of people are like, yeah, blown away by all the stuff that we do because it kind of sets us apart from our competition. Enmanuel (20:06.089) think it's a beautiful thing. Enmanuel (20:13.665) Yeah, I think it's a beautiful flow man. mean, holy shit. I mean you're talking making a personal right off the bat and so these videos that you guys are sending on to the customer or these just be a text or do you guys use a specific tool for Chris Vazzana (20:24.962) Yeah, so we use Google Voice. Google Voice is myself, my brother, and the office. They're in it. So if those two are busy and I see it, if it's a client that I could just answer, I could answer it. If it's not, the office is mainly just answering it, but I could always see what's going on. So if they have question that the office can't answer, I'm going to answer it, or I'll just message her and say, let's say this the client, blah, blah, blah. So we're always checking it out with the Google Voice. They either send it through text, and then she sends it through email as Enmanuel (20:56.801) Wow, dude, that's awesome. And is it recorded every single time, fresh, mentioning their name? Or is it just like one video? Chris Vazzana (21:02.602) No, no, that would be hard. Yeah, it's basically just me standing up in the showroom introducing ourselves and things like that so they can see it all. So when we're there, go over the playbook. I'm also telling them that we have a showroom over here and they are all like, my God, I didn't know that. We'll have to stop by, blah, blah, check it out. So we're building trust and we're building rapport with them every single time. Enmanuel (21:26.835) is freaking awesome, bro. I love that. that's something that I know that a lot of landscapers don't do. And I love what you guys are doing. It's like building the trust. Without the trust, you really don't have a lead. You really don't have a quality. Chris Vazzana (21:29.196) Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Chris Vazzana (21:39.49) Yeah, exactly. And I still build, do you ever hear of Loom? It's like a kind of like what we're doing. It's kind of like what we're doing here. So basically when I set my estimates up, it's on a presentation and I put it into a PDF. And then basically it's just like the same thing on our playbook. It basically runs down and then it runs through, you know, if there's any drawings or anything like that for the project on that slideshow. And then I'll blow that Enmanuel (21:45.877) Yeah, Lume video. Yeah, where you can record your screen and talk to. Chris Vazzana (22:09.068) and I'll put my face on it and I'll basically go over exactly what that job is going to entail me talking to the client. know, with with Loom, you can see who's seeing the estimates. You know, if you see the client, you could see if the client's looking at the video or whatnot, how many times they're looking at it, are they watching the whole thing, blah, blah, blah. So when you're email them and say, hey, you know, did you get the estimate, blah, blah, because I have the estimate in there as PDF and all of that for them as well. So I know when they're looking at it, instead of just sending an email out and be like, let's freaking hope for the best. I'm setting myself up hopefully for success and it's been working out really well doing that because I just

started doing that this year and I love Enmanuel (22:39.648) Yeah. Enmanuel (22:46.285) Yeah, and it makes a lot more sense. mean, imagine somebody send you like, like, let's say like, you know, imagine somebody send you a long ass fucking document and it's, you know, 20 pages and it's all financial mumbo jumbo that you don't understand. Like you're not going to look through that shit, but you have a video of the guys breaking it down. He's taking the fluff out. Personal because you're looking at the guy that's actually going to be, you know, operating this thing for you. It just does a shit ton of trust. And I can imagine you can see where you guys close more and separate yourselves more than your competitors, man. 100%. Chris Vazzana (23:08.599) Yeah! Chris Vazzana (23:13.74) Yeah, and that's what we're tracking too is our closing costs as well, or our closing rate. So we'll see what that's gonna look like at the end of the year. So far so good, especially with this loom, I'm landing a lot more with this stuff. And then obviously when we're on the job site, I'm always taking photos and stuff like that too, and good angles and things like that. Because if we do land the job, we use company cam, I'm sure you heard of that. And company cam is unbelievable. We started using that last year during Christmas and it rolled into this year. The guys love it, that's why I don't have to go on the job sites in the mornings. The project managers introduce themselves, they say, hey, do know what you're doing? We literally give them a project folder with a whole description, how much material, things like that they're gonna need before they leave the shop, the design, everything. Also the photos and everything are on company cams, so when they get there they know exactly what they're doing, what to do. We're always on a phone call too if we need to be there, but usually I'm run to the job sites in the mornings. If it's a fresh job and I'm introducing the project managers to it, but if I'm not there, then the project managers know exactly what's going on and what needs to be Enmanuel (24:20.525) Dude, that's awesome. And who manages that aspect of it as far as giving all the information to the project manager or to the foreman? Who does Chris Vazzana (24:29.464) So the office staff creates the project folder. So it's basically, it's just like a little three ring binder and it basically has the project address, the name of how many days you need to complete the project. When you open it up, it has instructions of what to do and what to cover and what not to miss, what to hit, things like that. It also has tracking too. So anything that they purchase, they're tracking all of our daily expenses. They're tracking all of our how long the guys are on the job sites for, know, when they're clocking in, when they're clocking out. So at the end of that job, I know exactly how much I'm spending, how much expenses I'm spending. So if they did a project last week, on Monday, my brother and I go over those project folders and I go over all the numbers, making sure that we're materials, if we're hitting our labor, if we're hitting our overhead, if everything is on track for success. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but if it doesn't work out, we're adjusting right then and there. We're not waiting until the end of the year to be like, shit, we need to adjust for next season. We already know, so we're already adjusting everything. So each week we're always monitoring our numbers. Enmanuel (25:39.829) love that bro and in fact I'm actually reading a book, I'm sure you've heard of it too, the EOS system. The guy mentioned there, he mentioned you can't run a company based off the P &L. Like you can't just wait, you know, three months to see, okay, how did we do? You know, it's like, no, because if you're not fixing things right now, the P &L is gonna be shit. So why wait three months for the surprise when you know shit is happening that's wrong right now, just fix it, correct it. Chris Vazzana (25:59.394) Yeah, exactly. Chris Vazzana (26:04.973) Exactly. Exactly. And I know there's apps and things like that that they can do it right on their app and things like that. But some of our guys break their phones. I have other Spanish guys that don't know what they're doing, blah, blah, blah. And my other project managers, that's why I love having it on paper, because they're jotting it down when they get a receipt, they're putting it down up fuel for 125 bucks this time. They keep all the receipts on that project folder. So I'm making sure that all of the receipts match everything that they already written down. So I'm always double checking all of their work too as well. And it's been working out awesome and the share of doing that. basically. Enmanuel (26:38.753) That's a good way to keep them accountable too. Chris Vazzana (26:42.178) Yeah, so it's like I was, I'll go back to what I was saying before is our office staff, Annalisa, she creates all the project folders and then myself or Rich will create the company cam, make sure that's all done. so basically it's like a folder like this. So this is a project, this is a job that we're going to be doing on Monday, on Tuesday actually. So it basically has a checklist on the top left corner, need sign contract, make company cam, make project folder. make expense sheet for this folder. So tomorrow she'll be making a project folder for this and she'll have an expense sheet in there. And also in the project folder it has a checklist for my project managers, making sure that they run it through to job site with their client, making sure that they're happy, making sure there's no tools left behind, make sure the driveway's swept, make sure the trailer's organized. So they're just checking it off and at the end on that checklist they have to sign their name and date it. Because if something does fall into those project managers will get reprimanded or get a check

mark or whatnot if they haven't done their job. we're always tracking. Like I said, we're tracking everything. Enmanuel (27:47.789) Dude, that is fucking beautiful, bro. That is like a fucking impeccable system. And I'm actually a fan of the printed paper because I did have somebody on the podcast, although I was a huge fan of it because they were using Google Drive and they had like, they're gonna start getting tablets for people, which I think is gonna be freaking cool. But it's like, shit, don't know who, you I might get an older guy that doesn't know how to use it. But either way, you guys just organize and you guys have the SOPs, you guys take out the complexity out of it. Chris Vazzana (28:10.894) Exactly. Enmanuel (28:15.975) And it just reminded me like, like what you just, everything you just said is like, it's like kind of like a game. Like you set your own game, your own system, like kind of like how when you were in the field. Chris Vazzana (28:23.928) We're contractors, dude, we're dump, we're contractors, we're dumb. You know what I'm saying? We're dumb. Like, dumb it down and you'll be all right. So we just dumb everything down and it's fucking working out perfect. Enmanuel (28:36.189) freaking awesome bro it just reminded me there too like I'm sure you when you were on the field and you were like perfecting the way that you do you know a patio so it's like okay let's look at let's look at what you know what quarter minus we're gonna use what membrane we're gonna use you know underneath we start placing the papers like you look at it like start to finish and the same thing you're doing in your business but it's just not like on the field it's on the business itself how things are done within the business you can like lay it you know layer by layer by layer by layer and then there's no room for error Chris Vazzana (28:49.176) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Chris Vazzana (28:59.66) Yeah. Yeah. Chris Vazzana (29:04.526) Yep. Yeah, and I always get some guys too on like Instagram and saying like pick up a shovel, blah, blah, blah, do this, you should be on the job site. Dude, if I'm on the job site, I'm not creating this stuff in the office to expand my business because I have a different outlook of where I want to be in life and in my business too. you know, creating we're trying to create something, you know, we're trying to create a fucking five to $10 million business around here, just for you know, just for our hardscaping side or patio side. Christmas, same thing. We wanna hit another five to eight million just for Christmas lights as well. So we wanna be like $20 million company in the next five years. And that's what we're aiming for. So it's good. I couldn't do that. No, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Enmanuel (29:40.639) And I love that, bro. And if you were in the field, you would not be able to fucking do that. You would not. Like, yes, you know, you would run the respect of those guys that look down on you. Like, he's not a real landscaper. Look at him with his nice shoes on, with his nice shirt on, know, no stains on it. And they're like, you're a big bro. Exactly. Chris Vazzana (29:56.366) But they never seen me. Yeah, but they never seen me when I started in 2010 and busted my ass for 12 years. You know what I mean? They never seen that. Or 10 years. And then the last three, I've been in the last three, I've been in the office creating all the systems and stuff so it can work. Because we'd never had a system. So now that we do, I can't just leave. Because everything in the office is going to, they're going to be calling me. What do I do here? What do I do? So I'm always making sure the office is running, the office is paying bills, the office is getting stuff. Or else, you know. Enmanuel (30:04.865) Yeah, yeah. Chris Vazzana (30:26.2) Those guys won't be able to get a paycheck, if you know what I mean. Like I run the paycheck, you I still do payroll and everything. I won't give that up. Maybe eventually, but right now I like to see those numbers and I like to make sure everything's running good. Enmanuel (30:26.602) Thank Enmanuel (30:38.445) I it, man. I love it. And like you said, people don't see the hard work. People assume that you're just one of these little influencers, but you're a legit dude. And I can tell. you chose to build a business instead of a job. And I don't blame you for that. That's what business is all about, to be able to scale and give us the financial freedom that we're looking for. And I'm sure you're passionate. You did it for years. You were passionate about hardscapes. It's not like you're not passionate about it. You're just putting the people in the right place now to be able to scale the business. That's all. Chris Vazzana (30:46.99) Appreciate Chris Vazzana (31:04.354) Yeah, that's what it is, is putting the right people in the right spots. know, putting the right people in the right positions for you to succeed. You're gonna catch some guys, you'll find out that they're not in the right position, move them somewhere else. And if it doesn't work out, get rid of them. Because they're just gonna hold you down, they're gonna hanker down your business. You gotta find the right people. And right now we do have the right people and you just gotta treat them right. You have to treat them right. You respect them, you get on the job site, say they're doing a good job, appreciate you. You know, give them a little extra money if you have to. Bring water, food. Help them out. You know what I mean? They need help, help them. That's what it's all Enmanuel (31:35.861) Yeah, show me care. Yeah, 1000%. And I love that you guys do that too. Chris Vazzana (31:41.548) Yeah, we got a little bit. There's this one thing that we got from James. It's called a scorecard. And essentially on on Mondays, we go through everything from the previous week. So you know, website clicks, if jobs were completed on time. So essentially, if I'm on vacation, right, and I'm on

a deserted island, and somebody brought me this piece of paper, and I was looking at it, and I just had to go look right down this list. And I seen everything was okay. I'll just give it back to him say, All right, awesome. Everything's working. Everything's running smooth looks good just by looking at that piece of So James gave me that, it's called the scorecard. It's the things unbelievable. I love it. I do it every week. So I make sure everything, know, have a pulse on your company and you'll be all Enmanuel (32:20.673) Yo, I freaking love it. All these, that's funny because that same book I was just talking about EOS, it mentions the scorecard. It mentions a lot of the same things. So that's awesome. I think he might, might, might've even be aligning himself with some of those EOS factors as well. So that's pretty cool. And Chris, let's get into it, man. I'm super curious about this topic here. Talk to me about Christmas lights, man. Talk to me about Christmas lights, because I know you guys are about to add another stream of income, or you guys have been doing it, but you guys are going to go to more this year. So talk to me about that. Chris Vazzana (32:50.274) Yeah. How? Yeah, how I knew it worked. James got us into it. And essentially, it was like, what was it? November? I want to see like October, middle of October. He was like, Yo, you gonna do Christmas lights this year? I'm like, I think I'm do it next year. He's like, you better fucking do it this year. I'm like, you think so? He's like, dude, fucking do it this year. I'm like, all right, fuck it. So once I dropped the phone, bang, I started getting on it started, started creating stuff. Enmanuel (33:11.649) Ha ha ha Chris Vazzana (33:19.086) Created a logo. You know, it's it's basically holiday lighting by Black Diamond has our logo with A Christmas tree hat on our Christmas or Santa hat on it blah blah blah with some lights So it kind of separates it just from the regular pillars that we have and kind of Brandon that Got back at the logo created pricing list and things like that Basically all of our past clients telling that we're getting into Christmas lighting, know, can you reach out blah blah blah? Fast forward, I landed 19 accounts for $48 ,900. Mind you, the year prior we had a commercial snow plowing account for roughly $54 ,000, which is five month contract, right? Five months, 54K. Didn't make shit off of that because that eats through the profits during the winter months, trough salt, blah, blah, Now for Christmas, like I said, that's $48 ,900 we made in Rev. Three weeks, we netted $17 ,800. Right then and there, I said Christmas lighting is where it's at. We need to focus on this. This was our first year, it was in 2022 of November. And then last year of 2023, probably around, what was it? July, August, August, July. Somebody came to us, big name, the Christmas guys. He came in, Captain Matt, he calls himself Captain Matt, Matt. And he sat down in our office, gave us a

nice proposal, said, you he said, I'm gonna fall in love with his partner. He wants, he's seen what we were doing, he knows what we're about. because I've talked to him throughout the years with landscape lighting and things like that. And he helped us out the year prior with Christmas stuff because I ran low on bulbs. He has a whole big inventory. So he ran us over some, helped us out. So I was very much appreciative. I knew what he did in the business. He was like, he's 16 years, he was 14 years in the business at the time we met last year. So fast forward to that meeting, we had a few more. Chris Vazzana (35:35.214) came up with an agreement, because he was having a fall out. We jumped right into it with him. We took all of his clients, basically bought his business out. He's still running it with us because we needed to know his formulas. We brought his office staff in as well because we didn't know anything. You know, you had over 230 clients that we had to service. Basically all of the garbage, we have all of our stuff in garbage bags and things like that. So everything was thrown in our shop, basically piles of just garbage bags all over the place. He had a system in his warehouse at the So he had to just take it all out because he was leaving. So we're all scrambling, trying to create systems and stuff like that because it was late because we have to start installing in October. We started installing in October. Things were a little iffy, know. He was always optimistic and always like, yeah, we're on time. We're going to be okay. And he was making me like, shit, because we have to get all of these accounts done by Thanksgiving. We nailed Thanksgiving and then we did another 100 ,000 plus after Thanksgiving of all add -ons. So last year we did around $750 ,000 worth of landscape lighting or holiday lighting. Yeah, we did 750K last year. You want me to tell you how much we Enmanuel (36:53.646) if you don't mind the audience knowing. Chris Vazzana (36:57.228) We netted 250K in four weeks. No, in two months, three months, three months, October, November, and December. Enmanuel (37:06.445) Holy shit, they're talking about what like 70 70k a month. Holy shit, and that's just oh my god Nuts Let me ask you how does it work? Do you guys install it yourselves or do you sub it out or how does that work? Chris Vazzana (37:12.126) Net, net, net. Just the Christmas lights. Our goal this year is that we're Chris Vazzana (37:23.756) Yeah, so the client purchases the lights through us. They're their lights. We install the lights. And then after January, the second week of January, we start taking down and we store those lights for that client. And then the next year, the price drops a little bit because they were already purchased. the price drops around roughly in half. We figured it out roughly. if the job's, so let's say a job's four grand for you this year. Next year, it's going to be around two grand. But we're storing your lights. You don't have to

worry about anything. We're storing everything. If at any point you don't want to use us, take your lights back. See you later. We don't have, you're not in the contract. We're not in a buying agreement. Most companies around here are three years in agreement. We don't just install, we call them gutter slammers. We don't just hit the gutters and whatnot. We do gutters. We do tree branch wraps. We do large decorations. We have a large, we have a big account for, The MVP arena, it's basically a big arena in our area and they're huge. So they do, they use a lot of our large decorations too. Large decor is where it's at too. That was Matt brought it into us. Yeah. So that was already our, yeah. And then it's all ours now. So all of this stuff that we purchased through him the first year were, you know, came up with an agreement this year, you know, to keep him around. Cause we, you know, we worked out a three year agreement together, non Enmanuel (38:30.163) How did you land that Enmanuel (38:35.083) Also, it was already under him. He Chris Vazzana (38:48.846) You know, he can't take clients back whenever with three years. So this is our second year together. Everything's been running great. We already started talking about Christmas last few weeks. We've had the radio in here because we do a lot of big stuff with the radio. We're going to be on 17 billboards this year because our goal is to hit a million dollars this year. So we're going to push really hard this season. Radio just left last, you know, yesterday. So, you know, we spent roughly like $30 ,000 on marketing and This year we're gonna go even more to hit this goal. So I think we're gonna be there. We have the staff now because our staff knows what they're doing. We have a 4 ,500 square foot warehouse that's only, it's like 12 minutes from our headquarters here, our showroom. And then it's only like five minutes from our shop. So we have our headquarters, our shop where we have all of our hardscaping and our patios and stuff. And then all of our Christmas stuff is in its own separate thing. 4 ,500 square feet of space that we have just for our Christmas lights. We've had a warehouse manager in there since February getting everything lined up. So now this season, when these guys show up, everything's gonna be lined up. We have all racks and everything like that. We're using an app called Sortly. So he's basically every day is just making sure all inventories checks. So I could go right on this computer right now and see how much inventory this customer has because he's checking all of that stuff right now. So when the time comes, we know exactly what's gonna be where. He'll be able to pull those, put them in a separate location. When those crews show up, they're gonna take that, leave. When they leave, he sets up for next week, or for the next day. And then when those crews come back for that day, they're gonna put them somewhere else where he puts it away. So it's just gonna be boom, boom,

boom, boom. Last year we didn't have that, like I said. Remember I said there was just thrown in our shop. We had to get bigger storage units and everything for all our wreaths and everything. Now all our wreaths are hung up, marked. So now it all is It's gonna be known where it's at. Pull it, see you later. Efficiency's gonna be crazy this year. So that net 250 last year will be like three, four. Enmanuel (40:47.244) Holy shit. Enmanuel (40:53.077) And that's assuming that you made the same amount that you sold last year. But this year you guys are ramping up the marketing, meaning that, holy shit, holy shit. Chris Vazzana (41:00.602) Yeah, we're gonna try pushing hard. We're gonna try pushing hard. And Christmas lighting is literally, the Christmas margins, man, they're like 50, 60%, dude. If you're getting into Christmas lighting, you're gonna love it. But you gotta get in it for the long haul. All these other people around our area are doing it for cheap, man. Like, we don't like those people. Like, you're gonna go with us. We have, it's called, we're basically creating it now. It's gonna be like Santa's Workshop or. headquarters or what not like when we answer the phone I how what's your favorite color like that type you know giving them the good app you know basically just creating a system so we're trying to create some cool stuff around here with that when it comes to this year so I don't know much yet because we're still in the talks about it but it's gonna be big so on social media you'll you'll start seeing a lot more of it on social media and things like that I'll start creating Enmanuel (41:48.365) And I know, yeah, I saw you guys' story today. think you guys, that's how I needed to mention this in this podcast, which was you guys were talking in the office like, know, it's time to get Christmas lights going. And I was like, holy shit, but it's fucking, you know, it's July. What are these guys talking about? But you guys have got a whole operation I didn't know about. Chris Vazzana (42:01.58) Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's why we're, we're the most, I'm not going to lie. We're the most expensive around here, but we were the best. We're literally the best. So we, we give them value. The guys show up with, we got, they all look the same. We play Christmas music. They're, they have to play Christmas music. Once they get to the job sites, they're turning the music on. we have, we have cups with hot chocolate kits. had column. Enmanuel (42:12.683) you provide the most value for that price. Chris Vazzana (42:30.86) with candy canes so any kids they see they have to give it to them. They give some if somebody comes out they're giving them some people love when they show up when we show up because basically they see this and they just they fall in love they're like my god they're playing Christmas music. I was like yo we should get all the guys to dress like elves this year how do you think it would go they're like nah we can't. Imagine those guys on their roofs looking like an elf. Enmanuel (42:42.037) Yeah. Enmanuel (42:47.201) YAY! Enmanuel (42:52.353) You should do it. You should enforce it. Chris Vazzana (42:54.862) I might do it to one of my project managers. If I gave him a little bit more money, he'll probably pull the trigger. Enmanuel (43:01.389) Dude, that's freaking awesome. And how do you, what do you guys reuse? Like, how do you guys leverage all those accounts? Like the landscape lighting, do you guys use the same trucks that you guys would use for landscaping and hardscape? And do you guys use the trailers or how does that work? Chris Vazzana (43:15.534) Yep. Yeah. Yeah, so we took on his, we bought his trailer. It's a big one. But we don't like to use the trailers because we do a lot of them and they're doing high volume. They're doing 10 to 15 accounts a day, each crew. We're gonna get three crews this season. Let's try to our goal. Enmanuel (43:32.973) So how come you're not just using one thriller with a lot of stuff in it if you're going to do a high volume? Chris Vazzana (43:37.132) Because we're in tight spots. Some of these accounts that we have are small properties on the road, they can't pull in because the trailer's gonna be sticking out, they're gonna be on the road, it's unsafe. So I like having our trucks available, because they're just one tons and things like that. So they throw the ladders in there and everything that they need. It's been working out. Last year we got lucky, because there was really no snow. So I would love, our goal is to get box trucks. Cause I could kind of utilize those as well for hardscaping. You know how that goes in landscaping and putting plants in them things like that. And then I have the bigger trucks to haul material and things. So we're still in the talks about it, like what trucks are going to work best. Um, we do have to rent a lift. we're thinking about even buying a lift now because, know, it costs around $18 ,000 for us to purchase or rent a lift for those three months, four months. So I think it's safe if we just, you know, let's just purchase it outright, but we'll see. Enmanuel (44:13.239) True. Enmanuel (44:33.837) Yeah, because you're enough in the long run. if you're gonna, you know, instead of spending that $18 ,000 next year and the year after, if you buy it once, you just use it whenever you need it. So that's a great point. That's a great point. Chris Vazzana (44:43.754) Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So it's good. It's good. Enmanuel (44:47.617) Holy shit, and so let me get your take on this too, Chris. And I do want to be respectful of your time here. know we got, you guys probably have a couple of things going on. I have a client here. Gotcha. I have a client here in New Jersey, South Jersey. He's doing 70K a month with just landscape lighting. So, so you telling me that you made. Chris Vazzana (44:57.312) No problem, got a few more minutes. Chris Vazzana (45:08.63) wow. Enmanuel (45:13.069) close

to like 70, 80K almost, you know, during those three months of Christmas lights. Is there, can that model survive if you're just, somebody doesn't have hardscape experience, they don't have long care landscape experience, they want to just do lighting. Can that model survive? Chris Vazzana (45:32.654) if they do landscape lighting and Christmas or just landscape lighting? Christmas too? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Those 50, 60 % margins are going to carry you during the winter months. if you're crushing it during the summer months for landscape lighting, that's pretty good right now for landscape lighting. 70K? Is he netting 70K or is that revenue? That's gross. What's he by himself? Enmanuel (45:35.115) Yeah. And Christmas. Enmanuel (45:56.18) No, no, no, that's gross. That's gross. It's just him and one other guy literally. And he has a day job and then he leaves at night Chris Vazzana (46:03.094) Yeah, you should. If his long is, it's hard to, it's hard to say because I don't know his numbers. I don't know his overhead. I don't know what his assets are. I don't know anything about his business. You know, I don't know how much, you know, I just don't know his overhead. So if he knows his numbers really well and it works out, like I know my numbers really well. I know it's good. You know, what works out what's not going to work out. Once he knows that and his overhead and all of that, he could break it all down and know if he's going to survive or not. If he's got good systems in place and he's consistent with everything and he's doing the right thing, yeah, could succeed for sure. Especially during Christmas, man, if you're crushing Enmanuel (46:41.293) Holy shit, you're getting me excited because there's not a lot of guys around me that fucking do Christmas lights. So you never know. Never know what might happen. Holy shit. Chris Vazzana (46:48.526) It's it's crazy, man. Get into it. It's nuts. It's freaking nuts. As long as you're not afraid of heights. can't jump on a roof. I can't do it. I won't do Enmanuel (46:57.645) They can't take any of those roofing claims. I know that's a big business too as well, especially over, you know, Central America and all that, Southern America. Chris Vazzana (47:08.142) Yeah, I had to get a new yeah, I had to get a basically a separate, separate insurance policy just for the Christmas lights too. And I tried like four different, four different five different people, my company that I use for since the last 10 years wouldn't even cover Enmanuel (47:23.627) Really? Why is it? Because of the danger. Chris Vazzana (47:25.59) Yeah, so it's hard to find it. It's hard to find it because nobody wants you on a roof. You know what mean? It's winter, you got snow, no one wants to cover you. No one wants to. No one wants to take that on. So we had somebody take us on. So it's pretty good. They just gave us a good rate. So we're excited. So that's already enforced. So I'm happy about that. We're ready to Enmanuel (47:47.29) That's freaking awesome. And you guys are gonna crush it this year too. Definitely, I can definitely see you guys breaking a million. And then Chris, I do wanna get you closer to us here. Just for the smaller landscapers that are listening to us that are looking up at you, they're watching your content, they're like, holy shit, I wanna be at Chris's level one day, have my own shop, have my own. Chris Vazzana (47:53.719) Yeah, I hope. Enmanuel (48:06.081) be able to make these moves that an entrepreneur moves, not just the ABC landscaping. So what advice would you give to somebody like that, that's smaller and that's looking up at you? How can they get to your level one Chris Vazzana (48:19.37) I would just say just be consistent, treat your guys right, have the right systems in place, and treat your clients right. If something happens to your clients and they want something fixed, just do it. If it's not going to cost you much, just do it. Don't let them complain. Make sure you have the right people in place and you'll succeed. As long as you just keep your head down and hustle every single day, you'll be all Enmanuel (48:45.129) And what would you say to a guy that is in business, he's at a similar level to you, but his systems are not in place. They are just breaking even even though he has a solid team and they have solid work coming in, but they just cannot be profitable. What advice would you give to a guy like Chris Vazzana (48:59.15) So I would say surround yourself with good people. Network yourself. Call bigger builders in the area. Call up bigger people that want to talk to you. Call up mentors. Follow people who are inspirational. That's going to help you. You have to find people that's going to be on your side. And with those people on your side and that's willing to help you and you do the right stuff, you'll get to the next level, for Enmanuel (49:26.519) freaking love it. Chris, is some gold from Nuggets there. I hope the audience enjoyed it. And if they want to get in contact with you, whether it's for coaching or just a random question or if it's a client in your area, how can they get in contact with you? How can they reach you? Chris Vazzana (49:38.712) So it's yeah, so it's at BDD Landscaping on all our social media handles everywhere. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, you name it, you'll get ahold of me. I'm the one running all of the accounts. You'll be talking to me personally. So DM us now. wait, can I plug this? Can I plug this? I gotta plug this too. October 24th, roughly, I'm dropping our social media course. This course is gonna. Enmanuel (49:54.871) Boom. There it is guys. DM him now if you guys have any Chris Vazzana (50:07.65) be nothing like anybody else's. It's not telling you how to do business. I'm gonna have some bonus content in there with business stuff, so don't worry, it's gonna go over some overhead and things like that and what to do and what not to do, how to help you grow a little bit. There's gonna be some branding techniques in there as well, but mainly it's gonna be teaching you how to film on the job site to get your content a little bit better so clients can reach you or you can get more following on your Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or whatnot. I'm gonna be teaching you how to edit directly on the job site with just an iPhone. It's gonna be a good time. Can't wait. See you guys then. We're on October 24th. Let's fucking Enmanuel (50:45.303) to order to inform guys you guys heard it let's fucking go do not miss the opportunity to create worldwide talented content like Chris does I mean you guys have what 10k 11k so what you're doing is working and your account is growing daily so Chris Vazzana (50:56.876) Yeah, it's slowly right now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just basically trying new things every day. If your content isn't working and you're posting the same shit, it's because your content shit. And I'll admit to it too, some of my content was a flop. I don't delete it. I just keep it up. But you got to learn from all of, you you're always making sure that you're watching your insight, making sure who's sharing what, who's commenting on what, what numbers are working. And then basically once you have a viral hit or something that's working, Create content around that idea and just hammer down. Post consistently once, one, three, four, five times a day, however you want, but at least post once a day. Enmanuel (51:37.739) at least once a day. Guys, there it is. I hope you guys got some value out of this. Reach out to Chris if you need anything. If you're a client that's listening to this, you're in Troy, you're in the New York area, reach out to Chris and all my landscapers that watch this that are smaller want to get bigger. Stay tuned for that social media course. It's to be a game changer. But Chris, I really appreciate coming on, brother. You're an amazing guy. Keep grinding. You and your brother are doing amazing things and I look forward to seeing your empire keep on growing. Chris Vazzana (51:56.64) Let's Chris Vazzana (52:05.198) Appreciate you, man. You keep doing the same thing, man. You're doing good things too. So you're helping people grow their brand and grow their business. So you keep at it too and we'll stay in touch, man. I appreciate you. Thanks for having Enmanuel (52:08.855) Yes, sir. Enmanuel (52:14.993) 1000 % brother, you were amazing guest. Take care brother.