This is Under Pressure, a podcast where we dive into the untold stories of entrepreneurs and business owners who have conquered adversity to achieve greatness. And now, here's your host, Nick Staton.
Welcome to episode two of Under Pressure with Nick Staton. I have my first guest here today, Cody Shaw. He is the co-owner of American Landscape Solutions. He lives here in Georgia. I want to say he lives in Gwinnett County. I have some questions that I would like to ask you today. Absolutely, bro. How are you doing today? First off?
Nic Staton
Awesome, dude. Couldn't be better finished up a little, uh, project and ready to move on to the next one. It was a great day. That's what's up. Yep.
Cody Shaw
Um, it's great. Let's see. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Nic Staton
Yeah, absolutely, dude. So yeah. Yeah, I am 36 years old, and I'm a co-owner of American Landscape Solution. I have a business partner who is Kevin Holley. We specialize in hardscapes, mainly retaining walls, pavers, and sod installation. And when I'm not doing that, I'm either fishing, hanging out with my wife or at the gym, usually. But I've been taking a break from the gym recently. But, you know, those are really that's really all I do, man. I do the same thing over and over again every single day. There's really no different thing that I do. It's very repetitive.
Cody Shaw
That's what's up. Yeah. Didn't you say yesterday or something like that, that you're you're thinking about joining in into Apex?
Yes, I'm actually joining Friday, and I've been talking to Sasser, and he's been really super cool. I know you're a member of Apex, and I have a couple other friends that are members of Apex. And from what I've heard, it's, you know, a really good group to join. And, you know, I believe it could take us to the next level. Um, and, you know, I'm, I'm excited to join for sure.
That's what, so yeah, it's definitely helped me out in my, my company a lot with, with the growth and just being around like-minded people, you know?
Yeah. How long have you been with apex? How many years?
Uh, I joined them in 2022, but it was kind of in the middle of the year of 22. So a year and a half, roughly. Okay. A little over a year and a half. Okay. And I've seen nothing but, uh, growth. Yeah.
So what there's, there's different scales, right? You just go one, two and three.
Yeah, there's three different tiers to it. Um, tier one is just, uh, I think it's entourage. Then you have entrepreneurs and then I'm not quite sure what the last level is just for the fact that it's a little higher up. Um, I'm just there at that second level. I started off at the first level and kind of just felt like I needed to go to the next one to learn more. Gotcha. I learned a lot from the first group actually. Uh, yeah. I mean, I've got SOPs now in place and made my first hire with, uh, with office person. That was, that was a big step right there. Yeah, for sure. Um, how did you start your, start your business?
It's kind of a funny story, dude. And I guess we got time. So I'll go ahead and tell it. So, you know, I worked at a warehouse job. And when I was working a warehouse job, I obviously like still, you know, I wasn't on the right track. And I ended up getting a DUI. And I went into work, they fired me, came home. I still had a couple yards that I cut in between doing the warehouse job. And so I was like, whatever, I'm going to go full time. So I did go full time, but it was never like great, you know. And one day I was splitting wood in the backyard of my parents' house because I did firewood in the wintertime. And Kevin had lived in my parents' neighborhood for years and I never knew him like ever. And he just hopped out of his truck And he was like, dude, I just lost my job. Y'all need some help. And I'm like, yeah, dude, come on. Let's be fun, dude. Let's just, you know, split some wood. And so, you know, he stayed for a couple of days. We split wood and we were finally like, all right, dude, I got a couple yards. We can get more yards. So we went from literally his F-150 to cutting a few yards to cutting 40, 50 yards with zero turns and F-150 and F-250. And then we got into the commercial side of things and we did nothing but commercial properties. So we had maybe our best time, we had 10 commercial properties. And there were ones that like you had to come every week And they were huge, man. You would spend all day there. So you couldn't do anything else. And we thought that was really where the money was at, but it really was. money, it was just you saw money coming in. You didn't really see all the money going out for labor because when you have that big, that many properties, we, me and Kevin had to have, um, three full-time guys all the time because we also once a week, um, you know, Kevin would go do a project, you know, so it was hard to try to make it all kind of work. And we finally just were like, you know, we got to let the lawn care side of things go.
Right. And y'all just basically started focusing on the, the, the hard scape.
Yeah. I mean, we basically just focus on, you know, like I said, retaining walls, side pavers, um, cleanups we've talked about getting back into the grass. You know, I think we ever did again, if we ever decided to do maintenance again, we would just go and do, you know, we just would need. 40 residential customers, we would just try to go residential, we would need 40 of them, and that were weekly. That's 100 grand right there if you could do that. That would be a nice little addition on the side, but it's just the labor part. As you know, dude, it's very hard to find good help that will stick around.
Right. But that's where you're going to come into play with actually joining into a group like that and actually learning how to, uh, take that, that step and, you know, take that shoe off that, you know, you keep feeling when you need to turn around and be somewhere else, focusing probably. Yeah. So for sure. Cause I, I I'm then that's hearing you. That's exactly where I was at before I ever hired Jeff Savannah. Uh, anybody, you know, I just kind of wanted to just do it because I knew that the job needed to get done and it's so hard to find anybody, man. I went through so many people. I had a guy that came on, dude, couldn't even start a blower. Yeah. 27 years old. Can't start a blower. And you try to show them how to start it. And then you cut it off and you're like, okay, start it. And he's like, dude, why don't you just cut it off? And it's like, well, I'm not always going to be around here. You need to learn how to start this on your own. He was like, man, fuck this. Yeah, dude. That was exactly what he said. He said, fuck this. And I was like, all right, well, I guess this ain't for you.
That's so hilarious, bro.
That's funny, man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, we had we had employees. We had a couple employees, you know, and they would. They would last for a month, maybe two months, about every two months. It was, I mean, lawn care is a big turnover anyways, like, because it's such a repetitive, it's such a repetitive, uh, you know, thing to do every single day. Yeah.
It's not really different. You're, you're going to a different yard and doing the same exact thing.
Every, yeah. And week after week after week, like you gotta have some sort of incentivized, like, you know, like, you know, Brickman or like, you know, the top dogs out there, they have something that, you know, keeps their employees around because there would be no other reason why, I mean, year after year going to the same property, it just gets old.
Yeah, I can understand that. That's why I like to, uh, kind of do commercial and stuff like that because I'm always at a different site. I may be at a site, maybe, you know, a week or something like that at the most. And then I'm going to another one or whatever, but I like being at different places, not going to the same place over and over.
I wanted to ask you, dude. So when you do those commercial sites, do you have to wear like a helmet and a vest and all that stuff?
It depends on where you're at and who's around. Uh, like if there's nobody out there and they're done with all their production, which that's usually when we come in, then nine out of 10, no. Um, but it also just depends on the company that you're out there working for.
Gotcha.
Yeah. Okay. Um, what's been the hardest part of your business?
Dude, for us, I mean, I would just be honest, you know, I'll be 100% honest with you. The hardest part of our business has been taxes. Because when we first started out, we didn't start out and think like, okay, we need to do it step by step by step by step. We just said, we're doing this, and we'll figure out the rest later. And you know, some people... Yeah, we do now. We have all that stuff now. Yes. Um, but we just said, you know, let's start the business. We'll figure out the rest later. Well, a couple of years went by a couple of years went by and we were like, okay, we got to handle this. So, uh, we handled it about two years ago. We had, uh, four years of back taxes, um, that we had to take care of. So, um, yeah, we're all caught up right now. You know, Kyle Pilgrim. No, I don't think so. Okay. Uh, he does, he does, uh, I'm surprised he's not an apex actually. He does perimeters Texas. Um, but he takes care of all ours. Uh, and he's really good.
Okay.
Yep. Yep. So he got us, he got us all taken care of.
Y'all like two years behind or something like that. Yeah. Because y'all just weren't, y'all just weren't taking care of it. Yeah.
Yeah. So we had a lot of back taxes paid. We're current now. We're good now. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, I say we're good, but we got, I mean, yeah, I've got taxes coming up. Yeah.
Yeah. So I would say that we're always wanting our money.
Yeah, yeah, I would say that's the biggest thing that you should you should worry about, you know, one for like, you know, brand your name, get your yourself out there as much as possible. you know, meet as many people as you can and put as much content out as possible because the content, I mean, I forget who said this dude, but it just hit, like it hit home so hard. It's like the content that we put out, outlives us years and years and years. Like we might not even be doing this in our, our content will still get out there to somebody. So I believe getting your business done the right way, and putting out content, you'll figure out the rest.
You know, content's king, man. Yeah, it really is. The more you get out there, the better. Mm hmm. For sure. When did you find yourself under pressure with your business?
You every day, every day. No, I mean, I think the taxes thing, that put a lot of pressure on me and Kevin, definitely, because we didn't know how we were going to come up with that much money all at one time to pay for all the years that we missed. But we did get it taken care of. I'd say another time we were under pressure is, I don't even think I knew you then, but this was probably about two years ago when we were doing firewood and we had one of our employees cut off their finger. Did you ever see that?
Whoa, no, I think I remember y'all cutting some firewood and stuff like that. That was like when I first started following you.
Okay, if you scroll way down, dude, you can see it, but it's the only accident we've ever had, knock on wood. And one day this, yeah, he literally, so my machine, you put the wood up there and then you pull the lever and he held his finger on the piece of wood as he pulled the lever. So this whole piece right here, came off dude like he don't have that no more and so he didn't have insurance of course and we had to come out of pocket like 10 grand to for him to get his finger fixed and so I would say those were pretty stressful you know stressful times um you know the winter time is usually stressful it's you know
That's what I was going to ask about, uh, job leads and stuff like that. Um, and you know, that can be a lot of pressure for some people starting a company and stuff like that. How are y'all going about doing?
Oh, for sure. For sure. Uh, dude, I would say 90% of our work is from Facebook. And I would say if it's not from Facebook, then they go to Facebook to see what we do. I would say.
So you're organic, you're not doing any paid leads or nothing like that?
Dude, we've done all that, man. I have done almost all of them. The only thing I haven't done is the paid mailers. But we have done all the advertising crap.
And nothing's worked better than y'all getting out and putting your boots on the ground and knocking on.
Right. Right.
Yeah. What about other people giving you referrals and stuff like that?
Word of mouth and freaking Facebook. And it's not just Facebook. It's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. I need to do Twitter, but I don't. You know, it's doing all of those.
And you're like me, just in another industry.
Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So, um, yeah, I mean, we might do some paid advertising, um, you know, here in the, here in the future, but for right now, I mean, we do, it works for us. What about you? Do you do pay paid advertising?
I've tried here and there or whatever. And we're also in the middle of doing like some Google stuff right now, but nothing's hitting. They just keep taking money from me. So kind of the point where I'm about to just pull the bucket on that, you know, because, you know, organic is just over thrived everything this whole entire time. Like I was explaining to a gentleman earlier today that called me, um, I've bought 300 signs. I think I've may have put out five. I bought 3000 door hangers. There's a box under this desk that's still sitting here that none of them have gotten put on doors, but they've been handed out to people like if we're at a job or something like that. And I see people I hand on the door hangers or I wouldn't. Might put them on a couple doors, but man, honestly, organic has just been so so well for us. Yeah, exactly. Like you said, posting on Facebook, posting on Instagram, TikTok, next door, LinkedIn. And being repetitive with it, you know, being consistent, that's the main thing that is the main thing is being, and then I noticed that, you know, you don't, you don't just overly feed your, your audience with just your jobs either, because, you know, that can burn them out. You actually, you know, show that your, your family and your wife and stuff like that. And, you know, so people want to know who you are. They don't want to just fucking see your work, just blasted in their face 24, seven, because that kind of turns them away.
Yeah, yeah. And I would definitely, you know, you got to give credit where credit's due. I learned that from Todd. He would say do 25% business, 25% family, 25% leisure, and 25% what was the other one? I can't think of the last one, but yeah, I try to separate it out where, you know, our, I think the last 25 hit, uh, 25 is the hit, you know, hitting them with, you know, the sale or whatever. So, you know, people want to see who you are, what you do that they can trust you.
And, you know, cause at the end of the day, you're selling yourself. You're not selling a product.
No, you're definitely selling yourself. There's a million companies out there. You're selling yourself.
Yeah, they've got, they've got to be comfortable with who you are or otherwise, you know, they're going to go with somebody else or not go with anybody. Absolutely. So many people out there that have burnt a lot of these customers. So when they do even call you, they're hesitant, hesitant to even want to use you.
Yeah. I mean, speaking of that dude, like, you know, for our projects, you know, our projects are. They're big projects, you know, so we have to get a deposit on every job or else we require a deposit on every job because, you know, if it's a $20,000 job, there's going to be $10,000 in material.
And you need to be having some of that covered. Otherwise, you know, they burn you on that. Then you're, you're completely burned.
Yeah. So, you know, some people have been burned before and they don't want to do that. You know, we try to work with those people for the most part, but, you know, we do have to have that, that 40%, um, you know, it definitely helps.
Yeah. Because it gets you started, you know, it's not going to, it's not going to give you profit, you know, but it's at least gets your guys started and buys the materials and stuff. So you're not just quite out of pocket on all of them.
Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, You just gotta have the water, man. You just gotta have access to the water, dude. What is like the most, like I know you basically just use water for everything, correct?
Yeah, just water. I hook up to the water, to the house, hook up to fire hydrants, stuff like that, to get, to get water from people. And sometimes you'll go up to a job and you'll hook up to their water. And you know, my terms and conditions even explains that to you that we're going to hook up to it and they'll come outside and they're like, what are you doing? Why are you taking my water? And I'm like, well, we have to have water to wash your house and your, your concrete for one. And for two, I'm not about to just ride around with 500 gallons of water. I made that mistake one time and took the front end of a car off. Oh my God, dude, he pulled out right in front of me, right down the street. I went to go do a job that day. And it was the craziest thing the way that it worked. I had three jobs that day. The first one I went to, I forgot my ladder at the house. So I had to go by the house to get the ladder. And I go by the house to get the ladder. Then I leave the house and I get one street away and this kid pulls out. As a car's turning in, thinking that I guess he was going to get past that car and that I wasn't going to, you know, be right there. Well, he was like a deer in headlights. He just froze. And dude, I had no choice. I'm in an F250 brand new 2021. You know, barely any miles on it. I was so pissed, but I tried to swerve away from him and there was just no way, man. I took the whole front of his car off. He spun around in the road and it totaled out my truck. His dad was not happy at all. Not bad, dude. I mean, I came out of my truck. I said, dude, you better have good insurance. oh that's hilarious he called his dad immediately his dad coming out there man it was it was crazy that's nuts that's so crazy dude um how do you manage your mindset oh my mindset dude that is so
I'm like different than everybody. Like, well, I'm not going to say everybody, dude, but like the majority of people, I would say. I don't watch TV. I watch podcasts. If I'm if I'm going to watch something. Well, so basically, this is my routine. I go to the gym, when I get done with the gym, I come home, I make videos. But right away, I cut the TV on and I cut it on a podcast. I like to listen to George Jenko, I like to listen to Grant Cardone, I like to listen to Wes Watson, Patrick, basically all those guys. So I constantly have that playing in the background even though I'm not like, sitting there watching it. I always have that playing in the background. Um, so mindset is like, basically I just try to put in a lot of positive besides when I go to the gym, when I go to the gym, I listen to like rap music. So, you know, I'm putting in negative then, but for the most part, I just try to put in positive and, uh, you know, positive comes out. Um, and I just try to think like, think about the future and, uh, you know, I know I could be doing a lot better. And I think if you just implant that in your head, you constantly if you just say, I can do better, I can do better, I can do better, like you will constantly keep doing better and better and better. And I'm nowhere near where I want to be. So if I just keep saying I keep doing better, better, better than, you know, that's that's my mindset. That's how it works for me. You know.
Right. Our words really shut us down. You know, what we say out of our own mouth can either make us or break us. A lot of people don't understand that. So to hear you say that, you know, you're constantly, you know, believing in yourself and telling yourself that you can even, you know, you, you may fail at times or whatever, but we all fail, but you're going to learn from that mistake or whatever and pick it back up and go at it again, but a different way.
Yeah, absolutely. And I would have to say, you know, I definitely would have to say being a man of faith, going to church every Sunday and, you know, having somebody to lean on, having Jesus in my life. And, you know, even if you're not a man of faith, you know, and you believe in something else. I mean, just having that, you know, having having, you know, God to lean on in tough times, you know, it definitely keeps your mind, you know, focused.
That's what's up. What's been the best part of your business?
Um, dude, I would say every day is the best part of my business. I get to wake up, go to work with my best friend every single day. Um, you know, when we get these big projects, we get so hyped up, you know, we get so happy. I would say just doing those videos all the time.
Y'all look excited as shit all the time and having fun out there.
We really do. I mean, you know, some of it's for the video, but for the most part, man, we do have a good time, dude. I mean, I can't imagine having to go into work every single day, go sit in the office, go sit inside and hit a time clock and having to listen to somebody tell me what the freak to do. Like that ain't happening for me, dude. You know what I'm saying? I ain't doing that.
I feel like that's why I never could hold a job is because, you know, someone was always telling me what to do. And I just wasn't, I wasn't, that's why I quit school. Yup.
Same here, dude. Shut up, sit down. Yeah, dude. I got, I got the 10th grade and then I was like, yeah, I'm just going to get my GED.
I went to the ninth grade. I made it into the ninth grade after being homeschooled. My mom was like, yeah, he passed me in ninth grade and I didn't learn shit. No shit. I think I had the highest grade of a 35. My coach came to me and he was like, Nick, you know, I can help you with like 10 or 15 points, but dude, 30, bro. I was like, well, if I can't play sports piece. Yeah, for real. Cause I thought football was my way out. I thought that's what I was going to do. I thought, you know, I was going to play college football, play pro football and be a kicker is what, what I really thought. But my cousins really took that to a whole nother level. Why do you say that? Oh dude, he's out there killing it. He, uh, went to college playing college football, um, being a kicker. And then he ended up getting drafted, but he's playing for a Canadian team. Oh wow. Yeah, playing for one of their best teams up there competing for the Super Bowl up that way. However they say it or whatever they call it. Oh, that is super cool dude. Yeah, it's pretty amazing to see that he's taking that that dream that I had and just ran with it. He played soccer and stuff when he was a kid and got into football and dude, he just blossomed really well.
Would you say that you got him into football?
Nah, his dad got them into football. Honestly. Um, our whole family kind of played football, race, dirt bikes, stuff like that. Um, so we either kind of followed along, uh, in the footsteps of our dads, my dad raced dirt bikes. My dad wasn't really anyone that played any type of like sports of football, baseball, any of that. Um, but my uncles did all my uncles played for Burkmar.
Oh, okay. I was supposed to go to Burkmar and I was supposed to go to central and Burkmar ended up going to Grayson. Um, which was not any better.
I went to JP McConnell for six. Yeah. For sixth grade for just a few months before my mom ended up taking me out and homeschooling me the rest of the time. Sounds familiar. I'm very bad with names and stuff, man. That is one of the hardest things that I have when people introduce themselves or whatever, because then as we carry on conversations, they'll be like, okay, Nick. And I'm like, ah, fuck, I forgot your name.
Yeah, I do. I suck with them too, dude, for sure. It's like, I know a face dude, but like, I don't know that name.
It takes me a while to register the name, the face. I've got a photographic memory of that. I know that I've seen you somewhere kind of where I've seen you.
Dude, we got a small group at church, man. It's the same group that we've had for like a year, bro. And I still get mixed up on their names, bro.
Come on, Cody, how you like in those small groups like that? I hear those are really good to have. It's just stuff like that, because, you know, life's always kicking us in the ass.
Yeah, man. I mean, dude, I recommend it. Definitely. You know, there's all types. You know, you have like the married small groups and then you have like the single small groups and then you have like, you know, there's a whole bunch of different ones. But it really teaches you like not only, you know, about you know, the, the, the word, but how to, how to cope with life, you know, and what, and what it throws at you. So I, um, I enjoy them, dude.
That's what's up. I just started going to a church, uh, Sunday, actually something. Where'd you go? Went to Midway down here in Villa Rica. That's where Tim Jackson and, uh, his girl and all of them go to.
Oh, that's what's up. That's your boy, right?
Yeah. He's he's kind of my partner on the on the roof inside. Anytime I get any ruse or anything, I pass that to him and he passes me some dry wood cleanings and stuff like that. So that's what's up. And he's also cool just to have around and talk to and brainstorm with and shit. And it's also cool to see how well he's been doing, man, since I've. Yeah, he's killing it a lot. And really, he's like the he's like the shark.
Yeah. I mean, it was like he came on and then boom, that's all you see is just him killing it.
Yeah. His knowledge is, is second to none to some of those people, man. It's just like, he's, he's got a lot of knowledge when it comes to roofing. Like I'll be on some roofs and I'll FaceTime him. And literally as soon as he picks up the phone, he's already telling me what type of shingle that is when it was made. That's crazy. So having knowledge like that literally helps him out so much because when he's talking to somebody, man, I just see, I just see them. They're like, Whoa, God dang. This dude knows exactly what he's talking about. Where, you know, I'm, I'm there originally getting him to come out there and probably they're like, I'm questioning, like, should we go with Nick?
That's so funny, dude.
Like the room inside, man, I can't quite get that shit, but when it comes to pressure washing, man, I'll talk to you all day long about pressure washing. But when it comes to the roof inside, man, I kind of fumble.
Yeah. Let me get it. Let me hit up Tim. Yeah.
We kind of got in with my partner. Come in. He'll, uh, he'll take care of you.
Yeah. We kind of got in with, uh, Bradley kind of like a same deal you have with him. Um, Bradley Hallbrook.
Yeah.
Yeah. So he kind of does the same deal, same sort of deal. We've been, we've actually sent him within the past month, probably four or five roofs.
I mean, it pays off. Well, it's just kind of like, why leave that, that money on the table when you can turn around and you also add some value to your clients that you're already there and they already trust you.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And these have all been clients where we've done, you know, a landscape job for, and look up at the roof and just mention it at least, you know. And, you know, it could be nothing or it could be something. It doesn't hurt mentioning it.
Right. I mean, worst case scenario, they say no. Yeah. Yeah. Or you don't find damage.
Right. Right.
And what did it do? It took like maybe 10, 15, 20 minutes of your time.
Yeah. Yeah. I will have to say Kevin's pretty good. Kevin's pretty good with the with the roofs and the trees. Kevin's good with roofs, trees, concrete. I mean, we both have our values. We both bring a lot to the table. I think those are really Kevin's strong points. Kevin, he's good at making sure everything's built to spec. I can go and I can say, okay, we can build this and it's going to be done this way, this way, this way, this way, this way. I can walk everybody through the steps, a homeowner or whatever. But when we get to the job, Kevin is the one who tells the guys, okay, it's got to be done this way, this way, this way, this way, you know. you know, that's why I say, you know, everybody has their place. Cause you know, I can get the job and I can walk the customer through how we're going to do it. I can do the social media and Kevin can make sure everything's done correctly. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, there's a lot of landscapers, man. And there's a lot of landscapers, um, that take shortcuts, dude, there is a lot, man. And with two people, You don't take shortcuts because you have my eyes and you have his eyes. And one of our eyes, like you ain't getting no shortcuts with us, but we are more expensive than everybody. Usually not everybody. I would say we're like in the middle, but. You know, you're paying for top quality service.
You're not just getting somebody coming by there and just running out and cutting some shit and hopping back in their truck and leaving. Yeah. I'll interact with all your customers and all of that on a regular basis as well, too.
You know, getting absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. We tried to, uh, We try to definitely do a good job. We try to get, um, you know, video testimonials from our customers. Some of them don't like to do it. Some of them will do it. Um, but I believe that's one of the best things you can get from your customers is a video testimonial because everybody said they stay on the, on, on the, on the internet.
All the time. They're not leaving nowhere where they might not see that review that was written out, but they might be following your page and see that that customer was happy and left a review.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was crazy. My neighbor did that up the road for me. He's he's like, I don't know, probably 70 years old. And I did some work for him. You know, he just asked me one day if I would clean one of his buildings for him. And I was like, sure. So I cleaned his building for him and it came spotless. And I was going to leave because I didn't really think he would ever even want to get on video or nothing. Yeah. Because, dude, you're not going to make a video of me. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, man, I would love to just get on video and explain how you just clean that building and made it look good.
Yeah.
And I was like, sure, I'll make a video. So I made a little video and dude, that thing ended up landing me more work because I posted it on next door app and stuff like that.
Nice. Yeah. Next door, dude, you know, next door, like a few years ago, they kicked me off. They like ban me from it. They only let Kevin get on there now. Cause it was like when they first came out and they didn't want you really advertising your business on there. And, uh, yeah, I got kicked out of there. Cause I would advertise our business. Um, like that at all. They didn't like that thing, but now it's, now it's a bunch of that. Right.
Oh yeah. I mean, I post on there all the time, you know, it's just for my little community around right here. Cause that's where I, if anybody hits me up, that's where I'm going to get a job from that is just within like a 15, 20 mile radius of my house, which is cool because I don't really get many jobs that way, but, um, they don't like it. They don't comment. They don't do none of that. They just call and they say, oh, I saw you on next door app. I'm like, okay, well, I'll keep posting.
Yeah.
So it's just kind of one of those things that just trickles in here and there. Like, you know, you got your, you got your eggs in several baskets, but when they're all firing, it's really nice.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. A hundred percent.
Um, what are you expecting or what are you excited about for 24?
Dude, I am excited to just do bigger projects, man. We've never had a project that's been over 50 grand, like, you know, one project being 50 grand. And my goal, my goal for the past two years is to land one project that's 100 grand. And, you know, I mean, if you do the math on that, it's not 100 grand. It's, you know, by the time you do labor and material, you probably come out with 40% of that, which is still great money, you know. But, you know, big projects, more projects, I'm excited for the winner this year because I know we're not going to be caught with our pants down this year. We're definitely going to be prepared. I'm excited for the Apex group. I'm excited to be alive, man. Really, just everything. You know what I'm saying? We're so blessed just to be alive, bro. Like my brother is, you know, my brother, he is in prison for probably the rest of his life. He has to wake up and, you know, he was my best friend and he made a couple of stupid decisions and It landed him in prison for probably the rest of his life and he has to wake up to something no bigger than what I'm sitting in right now. And I don't ever take that for granted because I made the same mistakes he made. He just got caught and You know, I have to be thankful every day that I'm alive and I didn't get caught. And, you know, my brother is a man of faith. So, you know, everything is going to be OK and he knows it's going to be OK. But, you know, I would just say I'm just happy to to be alive and have the opportunity to do what I love to do every day.
That's what's up. Sorry about your brother. No, it's all good. We all went down that road of doing some stupid shit. Yeah. I mean, every single, you know, catching it a little harder than others.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. He, he definitely his was like something out of a movie. That's what I say. I mean, it's, it's pretty crazy, but, um, and he was 27 when he went in, he was supposed to get out when he was 30. Four. And then he did a couple of things while he was in there.
So it's usually how it kind of works.
It's like the system's not meant for you. You know, we begged for you to stay in.
Cause I was talking to somebody the other day about that. And Georgia is one of the hardest places. Once they, once they got you locked in, they got you locked. It's very rare that you ever get off.
Yeah.
I mean, you're in the system, it's set for you to go back and you're locked in there period to where, you know, if you do get off, they still have you in the system to where they can go back and say, well, you did this and you did that. It's not sponge.
Yup. Yup. Exactly, dude. Yeah.
Sucks. Um, well, I thank you for coming on here and, you know, sharing all of this with all of us, you know, I'm sure this is going to help so many people, not only myself. Yeah, absolutely. How can the listeners get in touch with you?
Dude, um, so you can follow me on Facebook. Um, you can follow me at, uh, my Facebook is Cody Shaw, and then I have Cody underscore Shaw. And then I have, uh, or we have American landscape solutions for our business. And then my Instagram is Cody underscore Shaw. And then my tick tock is Cody underscore underscore Shaw, I believe. No, they changed it whenever I monetize. It's the store. Eighty seven on tick tock. I don't know why it's that, but that's what it is.
OK, I'll also get get that from you and also share that as well. Yeah. Places that I post this up.
Are you doing YouTube? Are you doing these on YouTube?
I'm not quite sure exactly where it's all going to be on, but yeah, I'm going to end up putting it on YouTube eventually or, you know, uploading them on there, but it's going to pretty much be on a lot of different platforms.
Yeah.
For people to subscribe and stuff like that. So it's going to have a wide range. It's not just going to be on one place. Yeah. And I'll also upload it to Facebook and stuff like that too. So.
Absolutely, man. Well, I appreciate you letting me have the opportunity to be on here, man. This has been fun.
Yes, sir. Well, guys, that's the end of episode two. If you would just turn around and take and subscribe to this show. If you would like to join in and follow along with any more episodes. I hope you all have a great day. Peace.
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