From mowing lawns to multi millionaire with Bryan Clayton

Speaker: 00:00:04

Welcome to the Success Inspired Podcast, a business and personal development podcast to help you accomplish more in life and realize your true potential.

Speaker: 00:00:13

And now here is your host Vit Muller

Vit Muller: 00:00:16

Hello, everybody.

Vit Muller: 00:00:17

Welcome to another episode of the Success Inspired Podcast.

Vit Muller: 00:00:20

I'm your host Vit.

Vit Muller: 00:00:21

And my guest today is a CEO and co-founder of Green Pal, which is an online marketplace that connects homeowners with local lawn care professionals.

Vit Muller: 00:00:31

Green pal has been called the Uber for lawn care by Entrepreneur magazine and has over 200,000 active users complete in thousands of transactions per day.

Vit Muller: 00:00:40

My guest is a passionate entrepreneur, if keen interest in small business growth marketing and bootstrapping businesses from zero revenue to profitability and exit.

Vit Muller: 00:00:51

Please welcome to the show, Bryan Clayton.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:01

Thanks for having me on.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:01

Great to be here.

Vit Muller: 00:01:02

Great to have you on the show Brian , great to have you on the show.

Vit Muller: 00:01:05

Now, how did he get into business?

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:07

I was actually dragged into entrepreneurship, kicking and screaming by my father on a hot summer day.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:14

He said, get off your butt.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:15

You've got a job to do.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:16

You're going to go mow the neighbor's yard.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:18

Made me go cut the neighbor's grass.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:20

And luckily he did, because something about that just stuck with me.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:24

I, I mowed the neighbor's lawn and I got paid like.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:26

20 bucks.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:27

And the first thing I did after that was I went back to my old desktop machine and printed off a bunch of flyers and pass them out all over the neighborhood.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:36

And by the end of that first summer, I had like 12 customers and I just said something about running my own little business, make as much money as I wanted to make stuck with me.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:44

I stuck with that little lawnmowing business, all through high school.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:47

And then I put myself through college mowing yards.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:49

And when I graduated college, I had to make a decision.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:51

Was I going to go into the job market and basically.

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:54

So you take a pay cut or was I going to stick with this lawn mowing business?

Bryan Clayton: 00:01:57

Didn't really want to be a lawn guy my entire life, but I thought, what the hell?

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:01

Let's just see where, how far I can take.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:03

It grew that little by little, over about 15 years into one of the largest landscaping companies in the state of Tennessee, where I live.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:10

Got it over 150 employees over $10 million a year in revenue.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:15

And in 2013, I was able to navigate that business all the way to acquisition from one of the largest landscaping businesses in the United States.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:22

So growing that business, just me and a push mower to me, and 150 people, I learned a lot how to grow a business from scratch and the hard way through just through trial and error.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:32

And and, and then I, I sold it and retired.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:35

I took some time off and I realized something about myself.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:39

business is the thing that lends a purpose to my life.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:42

It is the thing that causes me to, to have, have value and have passion.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:47

And I was missing that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:48

And I thought, okay, well, I got to get back in the game.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:51

I got to, I got to get back working on a project.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:54

And so this, this idea for the business I'm working on now, green pal was pretty straightforward for me.

Bryan Clayton: 00:02:59

I was kind of solving my own problem.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:01

I thought an app needs to exist to make this whole thing easier, like Uber was doing, Lyft was doing and, and Airbnb and and recruited two co-founders.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:10

And we went to work and we've been at this business for eight years.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:14

Got it over 200,000 people using our app doing $20 million a year in revenue.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:18

And so we're kind of an eight year overnight success.

Vit Muller: 00:03:21

That's amazing.

Vit Muller: 00:03:22

I just go back to the initial part.

Vit Muller: 00:03:24

How old were you when your dad told you to go in little more low in a mall, a lawn?

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:29

No, I was like 14.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:33

I was like 14 years old.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:35

and, and it wasn't negotiable.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:36

This w we were not, I was not living in a democracy.

Vit Muller: 00:03:41

One of the best lessons that father skin can give to the kids to show them to, to.

Vit Muller: 00:03:46

To appreciate money and and not get things easy.

Vit Muller: 00:03:50

Right.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:51

I agree.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:51

I don't have kids, but if I did, I would definitely use the same playbook teaching your children.

Bryan Clayton: 00:03:57

I do have nit nephews and I try to teach them this as well, teaching them the value of, of, of a job well done and the satisfaction that comes with that and the satisfaction of creating something.

Bryan Clayton: 00:04:07

Thing yourself and creating something just through your own effort and your own hard work.

Bryan Clayton: 00:04:11

There's no way to shortcut that you have to go through that to build that character.

Bryan Clayton: 00:04:16

And that's why you see a lot of, a lot of people that, that inherit money or come into money easy or too fast.

Bryan Clayton: 00:04:21

They ended up squandering it cause they, they haven't gone through that, that, that character development of, of building something from scratch.

Bryan Clayton: 00:04:27

I think it's, I think making your kids start a little business might be one of the best things you can do for them.

Bryan Clayton: 00:04:31

I know it was one of the best things my dad did for me.

Vit Muller: 00:04:34

Absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:04:35

If I may share from my own experience when I was a kid, one of the best experience was Oh, one of the best lessons I got is from my dad in terms of rewards for my grades.

Vit Muller: 00:04:45

So he would reward me for grades.

Vit Muller: 00:04:47

So in Czech Republic, our grade system is different.

Vit Muller: 00:04:50

we work off numbers.

Vit Muller: 00:04:51

So from one to five, it's like an elementary in school.

Vit Muller: 00:04:56

And so one, one being like, top, top.

Vit Muller: 00:04:58

you got the best, best, best grade pass mark on a, on an exam and five, you really screw it up and then you've got a face in the middle, right.

Vit Muller: 00:05:05

And then you got twos and fours.

Vit Muller: 00:05:07

And so what he did, he's basically in Czech money.

Vit Muller: 00:05:10

He said, I'm going to give you a Czech 10 Crowns, which is, that you can buy, I don't know, maybe a half a beer.

Vit Muller: 00:05:16

so I'm going to give you a CZK 10 for 1.

Vit Muller: 00:05:19

I'm going to give CZK 5 if you, if you got mark mark 2 , if you get marked three, well, that's in the middle.

Vit Muller: 00:05:27

So you get nothing.

Bryan Clayton: 00:05:30

I like where this is going

Vit Muller: 00:05:31

If you get 4, I'm going to take away CZK 5 and if you get 5 the worst, right then I'm going to deduct 10.

Bryan Clayton: 00:05:39

I like that.

Vit Muller: 00:05:41

That applies to real world.

Vit Muller: 00:05:43

It's just.

Vit Muller: 00:05:44

The best

Vit Muller: 00:05:45

lesson I could ever, ever, ever, ever learned, because in businesses, I mean, you make money, you lose money.

Vit Muller: 00:05:50

It's sometimes you you're flat.

Vit Muller: 00:05:52

You're not making any money.

Vit Muller: 00:05:53

And so she's teaches anybody that taught me well, that taught me is that that I need to, , I need to need to put an effort to, to make money.

Vit Muller: 00:06:02

And if I don't put an effort that bites back.

SIP: 00:06:05

Well if you don't put an effort.

Bryan Clayton: 00:06:08

Absolutely.

Bryan Clayton: 00:06:08

That's like that directly correlates to what it's like running a business if, if a lot of your success or failure correlates with your efforts and your sacrifice

Bryan Clayton: 00:06:23

And so, yeah, I like that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:06:24

If I have kids, I may, I may have to steal that system.

Vit Muller: 00:06:27

So tell me about tell me about growing up.

Vit Muller: 00:06:29

So as you were a teenager, you, you sort of.

Vit Muller: 00:06:31

You got hooked on this lawn mowing thing you started lawnmowing around and it was instantly an addictive thing for you because I guess was that the

Bryan Clayton: 00:06:44

Yeah, I was definitely financially motivated in the early days.

Bryan Clayton: 00:06:47

And I think as time went on, I think I kind of had a chip on my shoulder to be honest.

Bryan Clayton: 00:06:51

I really wanted to make something of myself.

Bryan Clayton: 00:06:54

I really wanted to improve my, my, my station in life and I business as the way to do that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:01

I wasn't particularly good at anything else.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:03

I wasn't a really good at sports and, or, and I, and I wasn't the smartest guy.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:07

It wasn't the.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:08

Best student.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:09

And so I kind of saw a lane that, if I worked as hard as I, as I wanted to work and I could really make something of myself in business, and I really kinda had a chip on my shoulder,

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:24

I set a goal for myself and, and I actually remember very clearly.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:28

I was in my early twenties and I was physically mowing yards.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:32

I had a couple of helpers by that point.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:34

But I was mowing yards in a part of town where all the wealthy people lived and there was one particular neighborhood where were some of the most beautiful homes in town were.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:43

And these were my customers because they had the money to pay a gardener like me.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:46

And I thought I made a goal.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:48

I made a promise to myself that in 10 years I was going to live in that neighborhood.

Bryan Clayton: 00:07:53

And by 30 and I actually got it done, but by 29 I built a house in, in this, in the same neighborhood and still, still was a landscaping

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:04

And so that was a lot of fun and business was the vehicle to get me there.

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:08

And I learned a lot the whole way.

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:10

And so.

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:11

That's what I tell fellow entrepreneurs is like, think about business and in terms of, of the, of the thing, the vehicle that can make your life interesting

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:28

I'm I'm every five years.

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:29

I'm not even the same person.

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:30

Cause, cause cause the marketplace is causing me to level up.

Vit Muller: 00:08:34

Now I know money doesn't grow on trees, but did you ever felt when mowing the lawn that you're sort of shaving, you're

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:46

Yeah, I looked at, I looked at I read a book It was the autobiography of, of Warren buffet.

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:51

And one of the things that he talks about in that book is like a hundred dollars is not a hundred dollars.

Bryan Clayton: 00:08:55

It's actually a thousand dollars because that's what it will grow to be.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:01

And so I looked at every dollar I could make in, in that, in that business as, as a thousand dollars is a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars because I knew if I could just take it and put

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:14

And so it was like hustle, make money.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:18

Take money reinvest, make more money.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:19

And this like did that for like a decade.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:21

And then I had something, but, but it was, it was hard to, to keep that long kinda that, that long-term perspective, especially in the early days, because

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:33

You're not getting the vacations, you're not getting the cars, the nice homes, the, the things that we equate with success.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:39

And so I was able to like manage my own psychology and just understand if I just really put in a hard five or 10 years that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:46

That it would be worth it.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:46

I would have had an actual business and there's a difference between being self-employed and owning a business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:53

And so for the first five years, I was really more or less self-employed and I didn't want to be self-employed.

Bryan Clayton: 00:09:58

I wanted to own a business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:10:00

So I, I reinvested every dollar I could into building the business.

Vit Muller: 00:10:04

That's amazing.

Vit Muller: 00:10:04

And that's great to hear that you've, you've realized that straightaway as you were running this very first business, cause you know, you had a good point with the

Vit Muller: 00:10:15

they, they initially put a bit of money in and then they expect that the business is just going to continue growing with that initial.

Vit Muller: 00:10:23

Initial investment.

Vit Muller: 00:10:24

but , it's so important to have that investment mindset, whether you have a business or not you can really make your money grow if you do it right.

Vit Muller: 00:10:31

And I think in an example with business, it applies even more.

Bryan Clayton: 00:10:37

Absolutely one of the best investments you can make is in your own business because you're in control of it.

Bryan Clayton: 00:10:43

You can grow it, you can put in the effort behind it to make your capital grow.

Bryan Clayton: 00:10:47

Whereas if you put it in the stock market or something else you're kind of at, at, at, at somebody else's disposal.

Bryan Clayton: 00:10:52

And so for me, you know, I always invested in my own business and, and it kinda enabled me to go from zero, not having a dime, to being retired at age 33.

Vit Muller: 00:11:05

Briggs an interesting idea in my head just now, you know, when you talk about investments and, investors and what people know about particular company, like they, they

Vit Muller: 00:11:24

So in a way you're.

Vit Muller: 00:11:26

You're an insider trader.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:28

Exactly.

Vit Muller: 00:11:29

Putting money in your own business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:31

Exactly.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:32

Yeah, you are privy to information that nobody else is, and you are in control.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:37

You, you can put in more effort, you can come in on Saturday or Sunday.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:40

You can make more calls.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:42

You can do more sales, you can look for ways to make it more efficient to make your capital grow.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:47

And you don't, you can't do that in most, any other investment.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:50

And so that's, that's one of the things that often gets overlooked and, and then also a lot of business owners go and take on a lot of debt and, and that can kind of.

Bryan Clayton: 00:11:58

that can help you if you, if you're really got things dialed in, but a lot of times it can mask an inefficient business and prevent you from doing the hard work of making a profitable business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:08

So that's another thing I'll throw out there is just, use debt wisely really, after you have something figured out, you can pour debt on top of it to be like

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:23

Let's go take out a line of credit.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:24

And that's really a race to the bottom.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:27

Hmm.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:27

So tell me, cause I know, in one of your messages to me, you sent me that you, you were actually able to go through the experience yourself, where you had to

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:41

So how did you go, how did you, how did you manage that?

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:44

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:44

So 2008 was a really tough time in the United States.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:48

we, we went through a crisis where all home construction basically stopped.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:53

everybody got scared and spooked and quit spending money.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:56

And it was hard.

Bryan Clayton: 00:12:58

Like we were doing seven or $8 million in revenue in 2007.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:02

And then that went to like $2 million in revenue.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:04

And so, but, but, but all of our expenses stayed the same.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:07

And so we had to figure out, How are we going to get through that?

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:10

How are we going to kind of reinvent the business from the inside out and, and I didn't act quick enough.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:14

So I made a mistake.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:15

I didn't make cuts soon enough and I didn't, I didn't evolve quick enough.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:19

I kind of hoped it would just get better.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:21

And there was one day our, our payroll cycle was like a $120,000 every time payroll hit.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:28

And so payroll was, was going to hit on Monday morning.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:31

And it was Sunday night and I check our company bank balance and we have like $23,000 in the bank.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:38

So it's like, wow, how did we, what am I going to do?

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:41

everybody.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:41

I just work two weeks, they're expecting a paycheck.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:44

They have bills to pay, but I can't cover payroll.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:46

And so that was a crisis, and we had to get through it and, and it was, it was a hard, hard thing to go through, but I, I basically got up in front of everybody, said, Hey, I screwed up.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:56

I made a mistake.

Bryan Clayton: 00:13:57

I didn't see this coming soon enough and I didn't make changes soon enough, and I'm not able to pay all of you what you're owed today.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:03

it's going to take me a couple of weeks.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:04

I'm going to have to sell some things and, and take on a line of credit to get us out of this short term situation.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:09

But I will promise I will make everybody whole and not one person quit everybody every way, stuck through it with, with me.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:14

And, and it kind of galvanized us as a team.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:17

It helped make the culture stronger in the business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:20

And and, and then slowly I was able to like lick my wounds and understand the, the, the, the painful lessons learned and make the changes in the business to where that wouldn't happen again.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:28

And I think, I think a lot of times, you know, looking back five, 15 years later, that I'm glad that happened because I learned a lot and I, and

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:39

And so, you know, success is allows the teacher.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:41

And so if you're going through a tough time, if, if like the, if, if, if the COVID crisis has.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:47

Has gutted your business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:48

a lot of times, this is happening to you, it's happening for you, not to you.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:52

And so it's like an opportunity to reinvent yourself and your business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:56

And so it's in a weird way.

Bryan Clayton: 00:14:57

I'm glad it happened to me, And, and and I may be, I think a, now a lot of people will look back five, ten years from now and be glad that this happened to their business now.

Vit Muller: 00:15:05

Mm.

Vit Muller: 00:15:06

Hmm, absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:15:07

Absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:15:08

No.

Vit Muller: 00:15:08

So how so, how did you like specifically, how did you go about recovering from that?

Vit Muller: 00:15:13

So you're looking at that account.

Vit Muller: 00:15:14

You're on it's that day in the morning.

Vit Muller: 00:15:15

You're sipping coffee and like, oh shit, 23, 23, K.

Vit Muller: 00:15:19

Got to get that message out to the team in the best way possible.

Vit Muller: 00:15:22

So it's, it's received in the best way possible.

Vit Muller: 00:15:25

So what, what are your next steps?

Vit Muller: 00:15:26

How did you, how did you, how did you.

Vit Muller: 00:15:28

Survive this?

Bryan Clayton: 00:15:30

Yeah, practically speaking had to sell some stuff had to, had to put some of my own cash back in the business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:15:35

Although I didn't have like the, the, the liquid assets to cover the whole thing and, and had to look at our banking relationships and cobbled together three or

Bryan Clayton: 00:15:47

And then I was able to, to come in on Saturdays and Sundays and really just pour through my books and figure out where I screwed up.

Bryan Clayton: 00:15:54

Where were we losing money?

Bryan Clayton: 00:15:55

Where were we inefficient?

Bryan Clayton: 00:15:57

where were we keeping too many people on and losing money every hour of every day and having to make the hard decisions to cut hours back Trying not trying to lay off as few people as

Bryan Clayton: 00:16:13

And going through the, the hardest, the hard decisions and the hard things that you have to do to, to get through a crisis that, and I read I Tor told me at

Bryan Clayton: 00:16:30

And then you can rebuild from that, from that point forward.

Vit Muller: 00:16:34

If you're going to eat crap, don't nibble.

Bryan Clayton: 00:16:36

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:16:39

Cool.

Vit Muller: 00:16:40

And so.

Vit Muller: 00:16:41

Obviously 2008, right.

Vit Muller: 00:16:43

There was, that was the home loan crisis.

Vit Muller: 00:16:48

Right.

Vit Muller: 00:16:48

So I guess makes perfect sense.

Vit Muller: 00:16:50

Less people to, to cut, to cut lawns and do landscaping for right?

Bryan Clayton: 00:16:55

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:16:55

And we did a lot of new construction stuff and that was over with done, nobody was building anything.

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:00

And, and so, and a lot of our commercial clientele got spooked and didn't want to spend any money on anything.

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:06

And they cut everything to the bone and it was really, really tough, but like I said, I'm glad it happened.

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:11

It made me a better entrepreneur.

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:12

Absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:17:13

Absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:17:14

And so what are some of the things that you had to cut down on?

Vit Muller: 00:17:16

Like when you were doing those cats when you were literally going through the process?

Vit Muller: 00:17:19

Okay.

Vit Muller: 00:17:20

Well now I've managed to put together the money to pay off the payroll for those two weeks, moving on okay, here's what I needed to do.

Vit Muller: 00:17:27

What were some of the things that you were looking at and how did you, if you don't mind sharing,

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:31

It's never one thing it's always 50 or a 100 things and they add up.

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:36

So anything from we're spending $300 a month on bottled water in the office, that's got to go.

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:42

we we, we, we were overspending on advertising that wasn't producing an ROI for us, and we were just being sloppy with, with that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:50

We weren't watching the, the money we were spending on, on at the time, Yellow page advertising, and it didn't, it wasn't delivering our ROI, so we had to cut that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:17:59

We had crews of people like every truck would have like a, two or three laborers and they would go and do work.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:06

And, and there were some routes that we have four people on the truck.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:08

And when in fact two people could get the same amount of work done.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:11

And so we had to really look at that like minute by minute, hour by hour in the day and, and understand where we were.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:17

We were being sloppy operationally.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:19

we had too much middle management.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:20

the business was doing 7 to 8 million $, but.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:23

we have five people in the office that weren't necessarily direct laborers.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:26

They were indirect costs and, and we could probably get by without a head of HR, I could do that job part-time.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:32

And so there were a lot of things like that that you go through and you just like little by little, you look for ways to be more efficient and to cut down your, your variable and fixed costs.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:43

And then if you do that and if you do it long enough and you're diligent enough, you can, you can get back to a place of.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:49

we have what I call sound, unit economics, meaning what you're doing every day is actually making money and you're not losing money, which is why I was losing money.

Bryan Clayton: 00:18:58

The problem was is my metrics were, is there money in the bank?

Bryan Clayton: 00:19:02

That's it.

Bryan Clayton: 00:19:03

That's not, it's not a good way to run a business.

Vit Muller: 00:19:05

No, no.

Vit Muller: 00:19:06

Well the key lesson from, this is what you say and what I like is, is basically the idea of a really lean business.

Vit Muller: 00:19:11

Like everything, all the ducks in a row, you you're, everything is a thought thought out.

Vit Muller: 00:19:17

And and nowhere you got no leaking taps, right?

Vit Muller: 00:19:21

Everything is on point.

Vit Muller: 00:19:24

And, but.

Vit Muller: 00:19:25

You only did that because we were going through crisis.

Vit Muller: 00:19:27

So it brings an interesting question.

Vit Muller: 00:19:29

why aren't business owners doing it when everything is going all right.

Bryan Clayton: 00:19:34

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:19:34

We get sloppy and, and necessity is the mother of invention.

Bryan Clayton: 00:19:38

And, and so when you're making a bunch of money, it's easy to, to piss money away.

Bryan Clayton: 00:19:43

And a lot of one thing that got me in trouble was the business wasn't okay.

Bryan Clayton: 00:19:49

Big enough for a full-time CFO and we really needed one.

Bryan Clayton: 00:19:54

If we had a good CFO at the helm, we could've, we could have prevented this situation and known it was coming, but we couldn't afford one nowadays.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:03

Any business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:04

whether it may be make, they're making a hundred thousand or a million dollars a year or, or $10 million a year, you can hire a

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:15

And, and yeah, you might not be able to force somebody that's going to cost 250 grand a year, but you can certainly afford them for five hours a month and

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:26

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:27

We're not what the stuff we're doing every day.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:29

Isn't making any money, we're losing money and what what's going on.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:33

And then you can pay a really good CFO to help you diagnose that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:37

So it's best to get somebody fractionally in that role, no matter what stage of the game you're at.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:42

And I, and I don't mean just like a tax accountant or a bookkeeper.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:45

I mean, somebody who really is good at, at, at financial modeling that can help get you out of trouble and it can help you stay.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:52

Stay efficient and stay profitable even during good times.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:55

So when a bad time does happen, inevitably, it will, you're ready to weather that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:20:59

And you don't have to go through this crisis, which, which a lot of businesses did and meant a lot.

Bryan Clayton: 00:21:03

Didn't make it out.

Bryan Clayton: 00:21:04

I saw a lot of businesses at that time that were underwater on terms of how much money they owed on equipment and assets and, and they lost everything.

Bryan Clayton: 00:21:12

I saw people lose multi-generational wealth, eight figure wealth, and in less than six months, it was really sad.

Vit Muller: 00:21:19

This fractional CFO.

Vit Muller: 00:21:21

That's a great idea.

Vit Muller: 00:21:22

I haven't really heard of it like before, like that way.

Vit Muller: 00:21:25

And I've always heard of accountants and always great to have an accountant in, but I knew, I knew in my head that when I was running my

Vit Muller: 00:21:36

I was looking into these things.

Vit Muller: 00:21:37

I thought, well, I don't really need like.

Vit Muller: 00:21:39

The money's like the bookkeeping side of things, or, the taxation side of things from the accounting perspective, really.

Vit Muller: 00:21:45

So need a strut strategist somebody that can, and don't really sort of didn't end up looking into it, but fractional CFO, I'm sure they go on the different titles.

Vit Muller: 00:21:54

What are some of the titles that people can look them up on?

Bryan Clayton: 00:21:57

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:21:57

So, so a see a good CFO who can help you with understanding, do you have unit economics is what you're doing.

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:04

whatever widget you're making or service you're selling, you know, are you making money?

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:08

are you what they call contribution, margin positive?

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:11

Meaning the stuff you're doing, is it delivering money to the bottom line and a fractional CFO can help you understand that?

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:18

And also hold you accountable to hit those metrics.

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:21

And so, and, and, and so the problem was back then is like a good CFO makes minimum a hundred K a really good one, 200 K a rockstar 300 K and, and a business doing $5 million.

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:35

Can't afford one.

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:36

Because, because like, that's barely what the business owner might make, if everything is going well.

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:41

And there really was no way to hire these people, Ala cart back then, but now with technology and platforms like upwork.com, you can go in and hire somebody to, to be in the trenches with you.

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:55

For an hour, a week, two hours a week, whatever you can afford.

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:58

And sure.

Bryan Clayton: 00:22:58

They might make a hundred or $200 an hour, but it's, it's not an expense.

Bryan Clayton: 00:23:03

It's an investment because it's going to help you stay on track and keep you out of trouble and also make you more money.

Bryan Clayton: 00:23:09

And it's not necessarily like.

Bryan Clayton: 00:23:12

Yeah, they're going to be doing a lot of hard work, but they're going to be a forcing function for you as the owner of the CEO to be doing a lot of hard work.

Bryan Clayton: 00:23:19

Cause you know, you're paying this person and you got to meet them tomorrow morning and it's like, okay, I gotta get all my stuff together.

Bryan Clayton: 00:23:25

And I got to make sure that all, all, all of my, my, my my, my financials are in order and they're, they're in a place where I can produce them and they all tightened, they all button up and then

Bryan Clayton: 00:23:39

That exercise is not happening in most small businesses, because there is no such, there isn't anybody that, that is helping execute it.

Bryan Clayton: 00:23:47

And so these days you can, you can leverage somebody who is a rockstar for a couple of hours a month, and it helped keep you in line.

Bryan Clayton: 00:23:56

And it's better to hire somebody who's really, really, really good for five hours a month versus somebody who doesn't really know what the hell they're doing for 40 hours a week.

Bryan Clayton: 00:24:06

and the, the, the, the trap that a lot of business owners fall into, and I know I have is, well, I can't afford somebody that makes 200 K a year.

Bryan Clayton: 00:24:13

So I'll hire the person fresh out of school that makes 45 K a year.

Bryan Clayton: 00:24:17

And you're really just kind of wasting your money cause you don't have the systems in place to train them on what you want done.

Bryan Clayton: 00:24:22

And so you need somebody who's experienced, you can't afford them full time, but you can't afford them five, five hours a month.

Vit Muller: 00:24:28

And it actually ends up costing you more because you're having to in a way on board and when everything, whereas if you get somebody who is seasoned and

Vit Muller: 00:24:38

They know exactly what to look at.

Bryan Clayton: 00:24:40

Exactly.

Vit Muller: 00:24:42

So this lawnmowing business, so you, you had eight about 80 employees or more, that's what you said?

Vit Muller: 00:24:48

from my memory.

Vit Muller: 00:24:48

and then you sold it.

Vit Muller: 00:24:50

So they were all like contractors, employees kind of thing.

Vit Muller: 00:24:52

And across the whole Tennessee or whole US?

Bryan Clayton: 00:24:55

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:24:56

So at the peak of, of the, my landscaping company that I was running, I had 150 people and they were all employees.

Bryan Clayton: 00:25:04

And so we, we serviced a, the middle part of Tennessee where Nashville is.

Bryan Clayton: 00:25:09

And so we had sent out something like 80 trucks every day of, going all over the region servicing properties.

Bryan Clayton: 00:25:16

And that was the business we were in and we were pretty darn good at it and we were profitable.

Bryan Clayton: 00:25:21

And that's why we were able to get it sold to one of the largest landscapes think companies in the United States.

Vit Muller: 00:25:26

And that was in 2013?.

Bryan Clayton: 00:25:31

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:25:32

So then moving on forward, you've all gone to GreenPal so what inspired you to start up with GreenPal

Vit Muller: 00:25:38

? Bryan Clayton: Yeah, so sold that business, retired got bored.

Vit Muller: 00:25:41

Need to get back in the game.

Vit Muller: 00:25:43

I realized it was like a learning period for myself.

Vit Muller: 00:25:45

I realized, okay, I need, I need a business to work on to lend me purpose and passion, and I'm missing that.

Vit Muller: 00:25:51

And so I thought, okay, well, you know, I've done the contractor thing.

Vit Muller: 00:25:55

And that was really, really hard.

Vit Muller: 00:25:57

I don't want to do that anymore because I was really hard.

Vit Muller: 00:25:58

So now I'm going to do software, because software is so easy.

Vit Muller: 00:26:01

And I see, I see everybody getting rich overnight building software and I thought, okay, I want to play that game.

Vit Muller: 00:26:07

And luckily I was naive and luckily I didn't know what I didn't know.

Vit Muller: 00:26:12

Cause if I know what I knew, what I know today would have never gotten started.

Vit Muller: 00:26:15

I would have been too scared to do it.

Vit Muller: 00:26:17

So a healthy dose of naivete can help you when you're starting a new business.

Vit Muller: 00:26:22

And I sure as hell was naive and I recruited two co-founders, we got to work on it and we didn't know how to code.

Vit Muller: 00:26:28

We didn't know how to build software but we just thought, Hey, we'll pay, we'll pay somebody to build.

Vit Muller: 00:26:32

what we thought, what we think green pals should be, how the app should work and then we'll market it and we'll be off and going.

Vit Muller: 00:26:39

And we did that.

Vit Muller: 00:26:40

We pulled together our money, all three of us and like $150,000.

Vit Muller: 00:26:45

And we paid a dev shop in Nashville where we live to build green pal, took them like eight, nine months launched it.

Vit Muller: 00:26:51

And it was a total failure.

Vit Muller: 00:26:53

It was like, it was a total flop.

Vit Muller: 00:26:55

It didn't have the features that needed it didn't, it didn't work.

Vit Muller: 00:26:58

It didn't didn't have the buy-in from the, from the lawn care services, because it didn't have the features they needed.

Vit Muller: 00:27:03

homeowners used it and it didn't fulfill the promise of pushing a button.

Vit Muller: 00:27:06

Get my grass cut.

Vit Muller: 00:27:08

And so that was really hard.

Vit Muller: 00:27:10

it was really disheartening and we realized, okay, if we're going to be in the tech business, we're going to have to learn how to build tech.

Vit Muller: 00:27:17

And we, we decided, okay, well, let's talk to everybody that use this thing and let's try to figure out if we're at least solving a problem that people will pay for them.

Vit Muller: 00:27:25

So we, we interviewed a cup, a couple of hundred people that tried out the first version and they were upset that it didn't work.

Vit Muller: 00:27:31

They were pissed off.

Vit Muller: 00:27:32

It didn't work.

Vit Muller: 00:27:33

They were let down that th that their service provider didn't show up.

Vit Muller: 00:27:36

They were let down that, that, that it was buggy.

Vit Muller: 00:27:38

And so we, we saw that as validation.

Vit Muller: 00:27:41

It's like, okay, well, well, they wanted it to work.

Vit Muller: 00:27:43

They wanted this thing to solve a problem that they had.

Vit Muller: 00:27:47

And, and so that was validation for us to keep going.

Vit Muller: 00:27:50

And we thought, okay, well, we're going to have to learn how to code.

Vit Muller: 00:27:52

We're going to have to learn how to design software, what let's just, let's just go to work.

Vit Muller: 00:27:56

And so we went to work.

Vit Muller: 00:27:58

On the business and on ourselves at the same time.

Vit Muller: 00:28:02

And it took around three years to learn how to build software and to build the second version and get it marketed and get, and get, and get user adoption for it.

Vit Muller: 00:28:14

And it took us a long time and a lot of perseverance to figure that stuff out and do it as we went.

Vit Muller: 00:28:19

But we were getting little victories along the way, just enough to keep going.

Vit Muller: 00:28:23

And here we are eight years later, you know, we've got several hundred thousand people using the app.

Vit Muller: 00:28:28

we we're, we're profitable, we're making money.

Vit Muller: 00:28:30

We have a team of 24 people that work in the company.

Vit Muller: 00:28:33

There's 10,000 lawnmowing services that use the app to run their business.

Vit Muller: 00:28:37

And so everything that gets big start small, and we were very small for a very long time and this kind of just never gave up.

Vit Muller: 00:28:45

Hmm.

Vit Muller: 00:28:45

Hmm, one key think that I'm hearing here is the positive mindset, like you said, you, you spend 150 K on an app that I know

Vit Muller: 00:28:57

You went around and people gave you all the negative feedback around it.

Vit Muller: 00:29:01

And some would be like, well, that's, that's it we're done.

Vit Muller: 00:29:04

There's no point, but you actually, saw it as a proof of concept.

Vit Muller: 00:29:10

Because you looked on the other side of that message of that feedback, just what's the positive.

Vit Muller: 00:29:15

And I think that's really important to have that positive mindset when, when things are not going away, because otherwise, how are you going to continue pursuing that dream, right?

Bryan Clayton: 00:29:25

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:29:25

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:29:26

Positive psychology is definitely required to get a business going from scratch.

Bryan Clayton: 00:29:30

cause cause you kind of have to be an optimistic go from failure.

Bryan Clayton: 00:29:34

To failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.

Bryan Clayton: 00:29:37

And that was, but it wasn't like, we were just it wasn't like we, we w I mean, yeah, we, we suffered the losses and we internalize them and we weren't like Pollyanna.

Bryan Clayton: 00:29:48

We, we realize that how difficult it was and where we were screwing up.

Bryan Clayton: 00:29:51

I think when you're starting a new business, it can help to have that burn, the boats mentality that, when, when the only way, the only way to move

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:02

I think it help you manage your psychology during those early years.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:05

And, and this getting through the cold star and the slog that every business owner goes through.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:10

And it's going to take a.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:12

It's going to take a year to figure out what the hell it is.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:14

You're doing two years to make that work a little bit and three years to get anything really rolling and just managing your psychology and, and continuingly moving

Vit Muller: 00:30:27

Is there anything you wish, when you were starting out?

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:31

Yeah, I, you know, I.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:33

I wish I had read a book called the E-Myth.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:35

the first day I started my first business that would have really helped me out a lot.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:39

That book is kind of like just a, a owner's manual.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:42

I got like a handbook first, starting a business from scratch.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:45

And the book talks about creating systems and processes inside of your business and roles that you're going to be able to Assign and delegate things to different people.

Bryan Clayton: 00:30:55

Like if you think about the, the process of going through and creating an org chart for your business, you'd have like you as the owner CEO, a head of sales, a head of

Bryan Clayton: 00:31:15

And then as time goes on, you can, you can peel your name off of these roles and delegate them to an employee or a contractor or freelancer, but going through the

Bryan Clayton: 00:31:27

And so reading that book and almost revisiting it every year, it can help you build a, a S a sound business from day one.

Vit Muller: 00:31:35

It's great book and I've referenced it in the show numerous times already.

Vit Muller: 00:31:39

I highly recommend it to anybody you guys listening to right now get that book the author is Michael Gerber , book E-Myth.

Vit Muller: 00:31:47

Michael Gabrielle yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:31:48

. I liked the thing where he talks about, the three roles, the technician, the, the manager and the entrepreneur.

Bryan Clayton: 00:31:55

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:31:56

And when you're starting out, often times you start out doing something, your technician, right?

Vit Muller: 00:32:00

In your example, you're started mowing loans.

Vit Muller: 00:32:02

So that's a technical role.

Vit Muller: 00:32:03

You're doing that.

Vit Muller: 00:32:04

But then as you do that more and it's growing now, you've got more people.

Vit Muller: 00:32:09

So you kind of have to move yourself.

Vit Muller: 00:32:11

To the next level and become a manager.

Vit Muller: 00:32:12

We manage the other guys and then, right.

Vit Muller: 00:32:14

And then you've got too many of those to match.

Vit Muller: 00:32:17

So then you need to get yourself on top and then have assign managers who do that for you.

Vit Muller: 00:32:23

And then you can get yourself into that, more of an entrepreneurial position where you're purely just focused, focusing on the, on the growth and the bigger picture right?

Bryan Clayton: 00:32:31

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:32:31

And you have to be pretty good at all three particularly in the early days to get something going from scratch and, and that's.

Bryan Clayton: 00:32:38

And, you know, are entrepreneurs born?

Bryan Clayton: 00:32:40

Are they made?

Bryan Clayton: 00:32:41

I think anybody can become an entrepreneur so long as they are sufficiently motivated and just have that fire in their belly to, to, to create something and just get joy from that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:32:52

but if you don't have that ambition, it's going to be tough.

Vit Muller: 00:32:56

What was your, what's your definition of entrepreneur?

Bryan Clayton: 00:32:59

My definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who makes something from scratch and, and breathe life into an idea and sees that through ideas are cheap.

Bryan Clayton: 00:33:10

Everybody's got ideas, but the entrepreneur takes action and, and breathe life into it.

Bryan Clayton: 00:33:16

And idea is stillborn, but the entrepreneur.

Bryan Clayton: 00:33:19

takes the idea, does the things that need to be done, whether it be raising capital, coming up with a plan, hiring people or, flat out doing all the work themselves.

Bryan Clayton: 00:33:28

But the entrepreneur brings the idea to life and gets it from zero to one.

Bryan Clayton: 00:33:34

And and I think anybody can be one so long as they're willing to work hard enough.

Vit Muller: 00:33:39

And the earlier the better early, the better.

Bryan Clayton: 00:33:41

Absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:33:42

I've got another story from, from my own experience when I was a kid and that was selling newspapers.

Vit Muller: 00:33:47

That was my first gig.

Vit Muller: 00:33:49

It wasn't really, I wasn't really creating anything.

Vit Muller: 00:33:51

It was already there.

Vit Muller: 00:33:51

So in a way I was just, I would just put myself in a, in a worker bee role, but but I approached it as my own business, they would give me 50, 50 50 newspapers.

Vit Muller: 00:34:00

I would flip them over my forearm and then just.

Vit Muller: 00:34:04

It was quite heavy and then walk around the city and scream, like shout the name of the newspaper and trying to sell it.

Vit Muller: 00:34:11

So maybe look up the headline and read the headline or, and go to pubs, and I was like 14, 13, 14, and I would go to two pubs and it was like

Vit Muller: 00:34:23

And I would just rock up and I just screaming, Hey newspapers.

Vit Muller: 00:34:27

And like, I'll be that annyoying kid, but I just wouldn't left until they bought some of me.

Bryan Clayton: 00:34:32

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:34:32

And a lot of lessons you probably learned along the way, sales, being a self-starter, hustle, grit lot of those things are principles that go into entrepreneurship.

Bryan Clayton: 00:34:41

So good thing you did that.

Vit Muller: 00:34:42

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:34:43

But the other thing is, I don't know if you know this, like a toy that gets, we used to have it in school.

Vit Muller: 00:34:48

Like, everything goes in trends, there's different things that people do.

Vit Muller: 00:34:51

Right.

Vit Muller: 00:34:51

these different toys and stuff, but it was like a stick.

Vit Muller: 00:34:54

And then there was another two sticks.

Vit Muller: 00:34:55

The other two sticks look like drumsticks long sticks with the little bits at the ends devil sticks.

Bryan Clayton: 00:35:01

I can't remember the name, but I remember those.

Bryan Clayton: 00:35:03

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:35:03

And you just flip them and twist them and, and, and do different tricks with them.

Vit Muller: 00:35:07

And that was my idea.

Vit Muller: 00:35:08

I actually came to the I went to the department store and bought all the, all the material and I bought it some wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't

Vit Muller: 00:35:21

Basically create my own little manufacturing line in my, in my bedroom.

Vit Muller: 00:35:25

Nice.

Vit Muller: 00:35:26

It created 10 sets of these.

Vit Muller: 00:35:28

And then I took him to school and I sold them at school.

Vit Muller: 00:35:30

So I'm like, oh wow, there's an interest.

Vit Muller: 00:35:32

So then I made more.

Vit Muller: 00:35:33

and then my mom, she used to work for this organization, which which does events and keep keeps the youth activity from programs.

Vit Muller: 00:35:40

And so.

Vit Muller: 00:35:41

And always, going through different things, different events.

Vit Muller: 00:35:44

And one of the events was in the main square, our hometown.

Vit Muller: 00:35:47

So I said, well, could I, could I have a little, little section there?

Vit Muller: 00:35:50

And I just come on and do that.

Vit Muller: 00:35:52

And she let me do that.

Vit Muller: 00:35:53

And so I just, my like 30 units and all I did, I just, that was our marketing strategy

Vit Muller: 00:35:58

I'm going to stand there and I'm just going to play with it.

Vit Muller: 00:36:00

And then that'll attract attention.

Vit Muller: 00:36:02

People walk by and they'll ask , and then I'll sell it to them.

Vit Muller: 00:36:04

And then date it worked.

Vit Muller: 00:36:06

It was, it's really rewarding when you, when you do that and like little hustle, it's so cool.

Vit Muller: 00:36:11

Oh,

Vit Muller: 00:36:11

and don't tell.

Vit Muller: 00:36:13

Yeah,

Vit Muller: 00:36:15

absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:36:16

So you've been referencing some, some quotes and books.

Vit Muller: 00:36:18

How much, how much do you invest in your own personal development Bryan?

Bryan Clayton: 00:36:22

You know, I , uh, whether you, what are you, whether you like mark Zuckerberg or hate him?

Bryan Clayton: 00:36:26

One of the quotes that I like that he has said is you want to be a, learn it all, not a know it all.

Bryan Clayton: 00:36:32

And so that really stuck with me.

Bryan Clayton: 00:36:34

And, and for me, I have a healthy dose of Paranoia, almost that, that that in order to make my business successful, I don't yet know all of the things I need to know.

Bryan Clayton: 00:36:46

So I'm constantly trying to read books that I don't want to read or watch things on YouTube I'm not necessarily inherently interested in, but it's stuff

Bryan Clayton: 00:36:57

And so that's one of the beautiful things about business is that it can be the forcing function that cause you to seek out these things, whether it be people in your industry that are, that

Bryan Clayton: 00:37:22

And for me, I try to, I'll try to read at least one book a month and I make time every, every week to sit down for six or seven hours and read.

Bryan Clayton: 00:37:31

And then and then I try to, to listen to as many podcasts as I can while I'm on, in the car or, or exercising.

Bryan Clayton: 00:37:38

And then I also try to limit the amount of fun, crappy TV I watched, and I try to pull up YouTube and, and watch a conference or a podcast like this.

Bryan Clayton: 00:37:48

And.

Bryan Clayton: 00:37:49

And if you do that for long enough, it starts to compound.

Bryan Clayton: 00:37:52

And then you wake up one day and you're like, wow, I know a bunch of stuff.

Bryan Clayton: 00:37:56

I didn't know, five years ago.

Bryan Clayton: 00:37:57

And that's a lot of fun.

Vit Muller: 00:37:58

The other great thing is by listening to different, different sources, different podcasts.

Vit Muller: 00:38:03

And if it's say about entrepreneurship, you actually start to start to hear commonalities.

Vit Muller: 00:38:07

There's these common things that people say from there on success, their lessons, and that just helps confirm in your own head, just really confirming, okay, this is really the way to go.

Vit Muller: 00:38:17

This is really, this is really, these have been really the print, the real principles that, that apply across, across all these industries.

Bryan Clayton: 00:38:25

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:38:25

And there's no one silver bullet.

Bryan Clayton: 00:38:27

Key to success.

Bryan Clayton: 00:38:28

There's no one path to success, but if, if you are, if you're in the trenches, if you're in the game and you're working on your business and you're reading all the books and

Bryan Clayton: 00:38:47

And, and that is what helps you form your, your way to success.

Bryan Clayton: 00:38:52

It's not like a lot of this stuff can be contradictory and.

Bryan Clayton: 00:38:56

There's a lot of paradoxes in, in, in entrepreneurship and in business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:38:59

so it's important to take it all in, put it to practice and then you formulate your strategy.

Vit Muller: 00:39:05

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:39:06

Absolutely.

Vit Muller: 00:39:07

That, that too, as well.

Vit Muller: 00:39:08

For sure.

Vit Muller: 00:39:09

Now this show is about inspiring others to, to be at their best, what do you do to keep yourself at your best, Bryan?

Bryan Clayton: 00:39:15

I set goals that scare me in my personal life and in my business life.

Bryan Clayton: 00:39:19

And so having that stretch goal can, can cause you to be disciplined, to do the things you need to do day in and day out.

Bryan Clayton: 00:39:26

I I've do Well, like what we talked about earlier in the show in terms of hiring coaches or consultants or a senior level executives, not necessarily full-time, but a space them out at

Bryan Clayton: 00:39:46

I have a.

Bryan Clayton: 00:39:47

I have a rockstar CFO that works in the business, but, but he was part-time for a very long time.

Bryan Clayton: 00:39:52

And so meeting with him on a, on a continual basis caused me to level up in the, in the end to be disciplined, whereas I might not otherwise be And then in my

Bryan Clayton: 00:40:13

So creating these like trip wires in your life, almost that you kind of, you know, are coming and, and it's, it's like you have to, you have to be ready for it.

Bryan Clayton: 00:40:22

It's kind of like a forcing function that causes you to be disciplined on a daily basis.

Vit Muller: 00:40:26

Creating trip wires to stay disciplined.

Vit Muller: 00:40:29

I love it.

Bryan Clayton: 00:40:29

Yes.

Bryan Clayton: 00:40:29

Yes.

Bryan Clayton: 00:40:30

That's certainly something that's helped me in the last five, 10 years.

Vit Muller: 00:40:33

That's great.

Vit Muller: 00:40:34

That's great.

Vit Muller: 00:40:35

Now, Brian, if there were three things that you'd want the listener to walk away with today, three key nuggets of advice, what would, what would those be?

Vit Muller: 00:40:46

Actually, let me say it differently or be the three things that you would want them to show walk away after listening today.

Bryan Clayton: 00:40:52

so I think to have an interesting life life, you have to have a purpose, and I think your business can be your purpose in life as certainly has been for me for 20 years.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:03

And so that's one, one takeaway that I would offer is that, you're in business and it's hard.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:07

look at it like almost as like you're, you're in a movie and it's a movie about your life.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:12

Well, you want it to be an interesting movie.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:14

And if there wasn't like hard parts in like the main character didn't overcome these obstacles, then it'd be a pretty damn boring movie.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:21

So think about your entrepreneurship journey in the context of like a story or a book or a movie, and you're the character and you're trying to get through it and trying to get to the mountaintop.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:31

that's a kind of like a macro thing at a, at a micro thing.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:34

A key takeaway is like we mentioned before, it's hire the best for five hours a month, rather than somebody who's cheap.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:41

And sucks for 40 hours a week.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:43

really put that to work in your business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:45

The third thing is, is, is starts start small and, and, and, and do things that are simple, but being ambitious really, really like distill wherever you're at in the, in the video game.

Bryan Clayton: 00:41:59

Of of business distill it down to two or three things that are in your circle of influence act in that circle, get them done, but still have

Bryan Clayton: 00:42:11

but if not, you can get stuck in that small place for, for, for a decade.

Bryan Clayton: 00:42:14

So really just focusing less on things that don't matter, focus on two or three things at a time, execute, then rinse and repeat.

Bryan Clayton: 00:42:22

And, but all the time, having that big ambition in the background,

Vit Muller: 00:42:25

So, number one, think about your life as a story, like you creating a movie and there's going to be interesting.

Vit Muller: 00:42:31

It's got to have, it's got to have it's peaks.

Vit Muller: 00:42:33

It's got to have its lows, otherwise it's flat line and that's boring.

Bryan Clayton: 00:42:37

Yeah.

Vit Muller: 00:42:38

Don't cut on talent.

Vit Muller: 00:42:41

Hire good talent.

Vit Muller: 00:42:42

Spend money on a good talent.

Vit Muller: 00:42:43

Doesn't mean you have to spend on a full-time.

Vit Muller: 00:42:45

You can hire them for a few hours.

Vit Muller: 00:42:46

and # three start small, but be ambitious.

Vit Muller: 00:42:49

And I'm going to add number four, which is my big takeaway.

Vit Muller: 00:42:51

Takeaway point from what you said today is the, is the importance of making sure that you keep in a lean business that you keep all the taps tight.

Vit Muller: 00:43:04

There's no, no water leaking.

Bryan Clayton: 00:43:07

Absolutely.

Bryan Clayton: 00:43:07

Cause a lot of times, most businesses are operating on a five, five to 10% margin and it's a couple of bad mistakes and you're losing money.

Bryan Clayton: 00:43:16

You're not making any money.

Bryan Clayton: 00:43:17

And so yeah, stay lean and stay focused on the numbers.

Bryan Clayton: 00:43:20

And if you don't like looking at numbers, hire that rockstar CFO to hold you accountable to do it.

Vit Muller: 00:43:25

Brian.

Vit Muller: 00:43:26

It's been amazing to have you on the show.

Vit Muller: 00:43:27

lots of great advice.

Vit Muller: 00:43:29

I thank you for sharing your, thank you for sharing your story with growing GreenPal and, and your previous landscaping business and,

Vit Muller: 00:43:39

thank you guys for listening as well.

Vit Muller: 00:43:40

Now I've got a cool little offer from, from Bryan and that is for any, any of you that.

Vit Muller: 00:43:46

I live in the United States and, and you need some basic grass cutting services.

Vit Muller: 00:43:50

then you can sign up for some free quotes on yourgreenpal.com and get up to five quotes in less than 60 seconds for, for the lawn mowing services that Bryan runs.

Vit Muller: 00:44:01

So I've looked at the app yesterday and it is it's truly an Uber, for landscaping.

Vit Muller: 00:44:08

It's incredible.

Vit Muller: 00:44:09

you literally just put your details, you put your home address and it'll in 60 seconds, give you five quotes of the most, the local providers and then

Vit Muller: 00:44:21

based on what else is based on?

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:24

How often they show up on time.

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:26

You want to know that?

Vit Muller: 00:44:29

So that's one of the metrics you track as well?

Vit Muller: 00:44:31

Are they

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:32

reliable?

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:32

We track that.

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:33

So, you're hiring someone who's going to actually show up.

Vit Muller: 00:44:36

That's awesome.

Vit Muller: 00:44:37

So that's greenpal.com, correct?

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:40

Yeah.

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:40

yourgreenpal.com or GreenPal on the app store or play store.

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:45

. Vit Muller: Amazing.

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:45

Once again.

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:46

Thank you for thank you for being on the show, Bryan I appreciate you appreciate taking the time to your busy schedule to share your story today on the, on this podcast.

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:54

With our listeners once again, thank you listeners for listening to today's episode.

Bryan Clayton: 00:44:59

Now, if you enjoyed today's episode, if you can do me a favor and really trying to make more impact of this show and.

Bryan Clayton: 00:45:04

And inspire more people to, to bettering them, bettering themselves and bettering their life.

Bryan Clayton: 00:45:09

If you can please just jump on iTunes or Spotify, give me a review and share it, share it with your mate.

Bryan Clayton: 00:45:16

there's always somebody in your life that you know, that they probably need a bit of kick in the butt or need some inspiration to, to better their lifestyle or better their business.

Bryan Clayton: 00:45:26

If you can just share it on your social media, that would, that would mean, that would mean really a lot to me and would really help grow the show and make more impact.