The Balanced Business: Building Coastland Tree Works with Spencer Unger

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:36hey there welcome to this episode of epic entrepreneurs i'm bill gillilland your host i am the principal at action coach business growth partners and one of the founders of the ashville business summit but today i've got a very special guest i am happy to have a chat here with spencer can't wait to hear his story spencer from coastland tree works so spencer tell Tell us a little bit about you and your business. And yeah, and we'll take it from there. Yeah, so I'm a certified arborist. I've been working in tree care, which is a big part of agriculture. I've been working in tree care now for 12 years.

1:22I started my career over in Germany, actually. I started actually in landscaping, but quickly had the intentions of moving towards the tree care. And I did an apprenticeship with a pretty large company there in Berlin, Germany, and got several certifications, which are required in Germany, in order to do tree work. So I got a pretty good basis of knowledge right away and skills too. So I really, you know, immediately my passion grew for the industry and I continued working there in Germany, gaining knowledge and experience. And then I always kind of had the vision of, you know, one day starting my own company.

2:13So that was like in my goals from the beginning. and in germany since i'm not a german citizen i was you know living there under a visa and it's it's pretty complicated to start your own business in a foreign country so i figured i'd have a better chance at succeeding with a business in my own country so i moved back to america and um i wanted to first feel out the market here feel out the industry get a get a sense of how things go here so i worked for a couple different companies uh as a full-time production arborist uh when i first moved here and then as soon as i felt ready to to take the dive um you know i i started my own company i just went for it and i started off very small with just myself and minimal amount of equipment um but quickly realized that uh tree work is you know a equipment intensive and labor intensive business in order to grow and and kind of get to a point where i want to be you know i had to make a lot of of quick growth and and purchases and add some workers to the business in order to kind of just keep things rolling.

3:48And, yeah, so basically now three years later, I've had my own business, and we've had quite a bit of growth, and, you know, things are pretty exciting. Yeah, that is exciting. Well, congratulations on making the leap. It's not for everybody, that's for sure. It's way harder than I could have ever imagined. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's different too. I've had several clients who started as a general manager and then became an owner, left, or started a business or maybe even took over the business they were in. And sometimes it just doesn't work. Because they were used to the job. Well, let me ask you this.

4:36If you had to start it over again, I mean, you've been in three years, what would you do differently?

4:45I think from the beginning, I probably would have looked for some other forms of help as far as uh maybe investors or a partner or silent partner type of situation because um doing it all alone it is is rewarding but you know it's extremely challenging and it's you know i've gotten to the point now where it would make much sense for me to look for another partner or investors, you know, like of that type, like high interest investors or something, because I've invested already so much myself. I kind of don't want to share much at this point, right? Yeah, no, it makes sense. I mean, it's, yeah, a lot of people don't understand.

5:45Like, I remember the first time I went in business, one of the, one of the first, in the first business I had, I remember thinking, you know, this is lonely. You know, in fact, what happened to me was my dad became my best friend because he had, he had just retired and he didn't really come. He didn't want to come to work in the business and didn't, didn't work. I'm sure he would have if I'd asked him, but he, uh, you know, but he was always there. He would, but you know, everybody else was, you know, you couldn't. That's kind of exact same situation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My father just retired too, and he's kind of there.

6:19But I didn't really want any help from the beginning. I mean, if he's got experience in business, I would lean on him a little harder. I would have leaned on my dad a little harder than I did in the beginning because he had a lot of knowledge, and I could have used it. And I was too stupid to know that at the time. So that was just me. I was proud and, you know, wanted to do it myself. And, you know, it would have been helpful. I mean, we got through. Everything was fine. We're all good. But, you know, it could have been easier if I just leaned on him for some advice. But or anybody, really. Yeah.

7:00So what have been some of your biggest learnings as an owner and employer? um that owning a company and you know employing people and managing a a company or or uh working in that business are two completely separate entities and and just because you're good at at one thing you know being a good arborist or a good salesperson or um you know a good maintenance man does not mean that you will be good at running a business and they're two you know completely different things and um those two things are kind of very hard to simultaneously you know achieve or or excel it yeah yeah that the more i'm getting involved and The more I immerse myself into this business, the more I realize that I kind of can't wear all the hats.

8:04And I'm trying to, at this point, separate myself from the labor side of the business to just running the business. Yeah, working on the business, not always in it. Yeah, exactly. So what do you think some of the common misconceptions about running a business are? um i'd say number one is that it's easy uh you know a lot of i i spent a long time working as an as an employee and i you know see on that side a lot of the employees think the business owner you know has it easy and that you know basically they're just we're we're the ones the employees are the ones who are running the company but you know the owner or managers are just kind of sitting back and collecting uh money but it's it's an amount immense amount of uh stress for one and also um the work is very intensive and uh it requires a lot of time and when you're an employee you can kind of go home at the end of the day and your day is over uh you may think about what you're going to do tomorrow but ultimately that's up not really up to you and you know that you don't have to worry about it at least and also on your weekends you know your weekend is there but as a business owner um it's kind of like a 24-7 thing and i have to think about not not just tomorrow or, you know, what my plan is, but I have to think about five years down the road.

9:51And I also have to think about, you know, what happened for the past year or two, because it's, you know, what happened in the past is relevant to what will happen in the future. So there's just a whole lot going on, you know, behind the scenes that I think people don't realize. 100%. Yeah, 100%. So what do you attribute your growth to? um i'd say number one is customer relations um you know i i'd say the majority of my business comes from word of mouth uh we do kind of minimal advertising in the beginning i did a lot of maybe more generic type of advertising and magazines and stuff like that but uh the conversion rates that I can't directly see, but I ask here and there where my customers come from.

10:44And most of my customers come from Google, not even paid Google advertising, just a Google page and word of mouth. That's where it comes from. So maintaining those customer relationships and nurturing them. And once you have a customer that customer can easily turn into 10 customers if you, you know, do things right. And that's been very, very important to my growth. 100%. Yeah, obviously, referral is the best kind of business you can get. So, well done there. How do you balance your personal life and the business life? It's challenging. And the way, you know, it's important for me because some, I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs out there don't really balance business and personal life.

11:40They just kind of feel like as a startup entrepreneur, a new entrepreneur, that you have to go through this period where you just work, work, work, work, work, and all you think about is work, and you put any free time you have, go straight into the business. And I'm more of a work-life balanced person. And for me to be functional at work, I need to have personal life and space. So it's been very important to me from the beginning to kind of, you know, make a point that I don't answer phone calls after a certain time of night, that I don't answer phone calls on the weekend unless it's an emergency.

12:25um yeah i tried to really give myself some space from the business and uh you know it's always in the back of my mind and it's kind of hard to turn that off but as far as like being actively working on the business i try to really be like all right it's it's six o 'clock in the evening now it's time to stop till tomorrow or you know it's it's saturday sunday take a break and We'll start again on Monday. And I think that's really been helpful as far as keeping me motivated. Yeah, no, I like it. I don't know about you, but I think all the studies show that the people who think they're being productive working seven days a week, it doesn't work.

13:17I don't think so. No, no. You get way more done when you work, when you're fresh and can work hard. I mean, you know, work hard for smaller periods of time, I think. So when you're hiring employees, what do you look for and how do you foster a positive and productive work environment? Well, one of the big things with my business was to create a different atmosphere because the atmosphere and company cultures that I've run into in the tree industry, and not not to put a bad light on the tree industry but they weren't the atmosphere that that i would want to work in and and i was lucky to have you know a um different experience like working internationally because i worked in germany for this you know almost 10 years and um the company culture and atmosphere in the companies i worked for in germany were way different than here um like the it just was a more friendly more open more um let's say positive like environment uh where here it's for me it's been more kind of like a hard you know just work work work um maybe more a rougher environment and so it was important for me to to create a atmosphere where anybody is welcome um and you know everybody should feel comfortable and it's a friendly environment where the ball where me as the boss is not gonna be yelling at people and grumpy all day and kind of you know like a more open environment where someone had an issue like we can talk about it instead of just this you know really rough environment which i've seen in a lot of tree companies with a lot of yelling and stuff like that so it's been really really important for me when screening employees that they're not just hard workers or capable but they fit they'll fit into the atmosphere that i'm trying to create And so that's been a big thing.

15:38And I think because I'm not just looking for someone who physically can fit the job or mentally fit the job, but that their personality fits my company culture, I've had greater success with employee retainment. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, obviously, if you get somebody who fits the culture and fits the mold and fits in, then obviously they're going to want to be part of that culture for a long time. So, BE EPIC is my tagline, and it's an acronym, sort of. The first two letters are one acronym. So when I was writing a book a few years ago, I wanted to, you know, so I came up with this idea of Epic and it needed to spell something.

16:29First, I couldn't spell anything, but I came up with the buckets of success. So let me get your thoughts. Just one or two sentences or words about these as they apply to you and your business. So the B in Be Epic is bring the energy. So what are your thoughts on bringing energy? Yeah, I mean, having employees and a culture that is, like, you know, energetic and exciting and I think fresh. Like, when I think energetic, I think of fresh and just different, like a different appearance. um even like as far as a company logo you know like anything like that to me is energetic and exciting yeah i love it okay the e stands for education and obviously you're well educated in the tree industry but there's other kinds of education too what are your thoughts around education yeah i mean education you know is so important knowledge is power and what i tell my employees all the time is that the more knowledgeable and educated you are, the more passionate you're going to be about what you do.

17:48And I think that says everything. I love that. I love that. The more knowledgeable you are, the more passionate. Wow. I never thought about knowledge leading to passion. That's cool. I actually thought about being passionate about something and then wanting to learn, but I think it works both ways. I think that's a great point. All right. The P is for planning. Yeah. Planning, I mean, is without a plan, everything's kind of up in the air. And I mean, with tree work, it's so important because if I don't have a game plan and, you know, have an idea of how long jobs are going to take me or what I need, it's just not going to happen.

18:28So not only that, but it's going to be dangerous. Right. Yeah. The start of every job is, you know, a plan. Right. Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. The I stands for inspiration. Yeah. Inspiration, like that's, you know, when I look at my company and what I want it to be, where I want to grow in the future, I look at, you know, my competitors. You know, the companies that I want to be like, and that's where I get my inspirations. And maybe not just be like them, but maybe inspired to be better than them. Yeah. That's a big thing for me. No, I love it. I love it. There's nothing wrong with a little good competition.

19:18It's going to make you better. It's going to make you better. I love that. And the C stands for commitment. Yeah. Commitment. I mean, I think that a business is really hard and it's up and down. And, you know, you just have to tell yourself that you wanted this for a reason and you can't give up. Like, you just can't give up no matter what. If you've had a bad day, a bad month, that you just have to stay committed and keep going. And if it's not working what you're doing, then you need to change, not just give up. And that's really important. Yeah, I love that. So what's the next big thing for Coastland Tree Works?

20:08At this point, like, you know, we're running one crew, and we definitely want to get to the point where we can start another crew. But that's, you know, going to take more equipment. and, you know, that's probably the point we're at that we need to look into some more equipment and we can start adding in another crew and, you know, trying to take on more jobs. Yeah, no, I love it. Yeah, well, there's ways to ease into it, but it's kind of, you do kind of have to get a whole crew. It's just hard to kind of figure out what comes first at this point, the more crew or the more equipment, you know it's yeah i've found in the challenge yeah i found in most businesses that have a pretty high equipment or capital cost it's kind of a the stair step thing yeah yeah you you get the crew you get you know you can get the crew you can rent the equipment for a while but then you got to buy it eventually and then you know and then yeah so then you get more equipment then you got to get the crew you got to get the business it kind of it works it works though i've seen it i've worked with a lot of people in the in the sort of what i'd call the trades businesses or uh yeah we try to play people with crews and trucks and vans and that sort of thing that's exciting keep growing get another crew i love it and also the more equipment we have it definitely speeds up our efficiency so the more efficient we are the more jobs we can do and and you know the more money we can make so yeah 100 definitely we're at a point where we need more equipment yeah the more people you can serve the more people you can serve the more yeah Yeah, I mean, you just got to get there little by little.

21:51So what's the best way for someone to get in touch with you?

21:57The phone is the easiest way. You know, my phone number is 302-390-1780. Or email is also very convenient. It's just coastlandtree at gmail.com. Got it. CoachLandTree at gmail.com Got it That's cool Well look this has been great Thank you Yeah For being part of this For being part Yeah for being part of our community And being And all you're doing And we know you're going to be Continue to grow And continue to be successful So thanks for that Thank you Yeah Hey and until next time All the best hey thanks for listening to the epic entrepreneurs podcast here's three things that you can do number one remember to subscribe to the podcast it takes very little effort on your part it's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs plus you you guys know how it works the more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you.

23:05Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.