How One Builder Hits $1M Solo Without Hiring a Single Employee

600k last year and on track for a million this year with zero additional W2 employees.

That's today's guest.

Most builders I talk to default to hiring the second they feel stretched.

Scott went the other way.

He improves the tech stack before he touches headcount.

He's the proof that if you want to engineer the system right, one operator can out earn a crew three times his size.

Here's the part that surprised me.

Scott just doesn't use AI to save time.

He uses it to protect the stuff AI shouldn't be touching that one moment in his customer experience that he refuses to automate.

He breaks down the exact filter around the midpoint when to automate, when to outsource, and when to handwrite a letter instead.

The builders ignoring this filter are the same ones who will spend 2026 cleaning up shelfware their competitors already stopped using.

If you're new here, hit subscribe.

We break down builder systems like this every single week.

So let's get into it with Scott Worley.

You're listening to Beyond the Bid, the show by GO First, where we share the systems, strategies and practical AI for builders.

Keep listening to learn how to win more of the right projects, boost profitability and scale.

Beyond the Bid.

Welcome back.

Today we have Scott Worley.

Thanks so much for being here, Scott.

Really appreciate you jumping on.

Thanks, man.

Let me make the little animation.

Always adds a little bit more pizzazz.

but yeah.

So to kick things off, Scott, do, you mind just kind of giving a background, like Landsmith and, what.

Some of the projects that you.

You're working on?

Yeah.

Landsmith is our outdoor living and landscape design build firm.

And we're based out of St.

Louis and we design and build, you know, the dream oasis and backyards, pools, patios, pavilions, outdoor kitchens, landscaping, pretty much the whole bit as far as outdoor living is concerned.

Yeah, I love it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, that's.

It is one.

It's a competitive market.

Everybody wants a better backyard and just, you know, gorgeous, to make their.

Their yard more accessible, I think.

Yeah.

How did you get into it?

I know that, like, there's so many specific trades and types of builds that we can get into.

You know, like, have you always been in outdoor?

I have.

you know, I think it started, it's not too unusual path, but I started.

I was cutting grass for a guy like, many, many years ago.

And, you know, it's one of those.

One thing led to another kind of situations where that learned that leaned into, plantings and then brick edging and patios.

And all of a sudden we're doing patios with, you know, pergolas.

And pergolas turn into pavilions, patios turn into outdoor kitchens.

And then, of course, if you're going to have all that, why wouldn't you put it by a pool?

And so, you know, things kind of just progressed from there.

Absolutely.

And so you're.

You're basically growing Landsmith, independently, but also using, you know, quite a bit of AI and automations to help fulfill, like, the back end.

Absolutely.

and one that's incredibly impressive.

It's hard to do, but, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Like, has that always kind of been the dream to be, you know, like a one man os?

It's looked quite different over the years.

Gosh.

So I've been in landscaping for about 20 years.

I went in the business, in 2010 and I was pretty like, out of the gate.

You know, I was a young guy and I wanted to.

I was really a fan of using technology.

And so I remember the earliest iteration was when the iPad2 came out and, I had a client who edited a PDF and it was like this fillable form PDF and you know, it doesn't sound like it was that long ago, but CRMs were like, they weren't really, they didn't really exist the way they exist now.

And so I remember showing up to consultations with an iPad and getting comments from customers.

Like it was like I was showing up in a cyber truck, you know, like completely new, like, who are you?

How much are you going to cost?

And all this stuff.

You know, I mean that was the thing I was debating, like, yeah, the robot man.

Like that was the debate.

Like, am I showing up with an iPad?

Is it too flashy, you know, or, you know, because everyone else is showing up with a clipboard.

Yeah.

And so, pretty early on I've always had this interest but you know, the businesses looked differently over the years.

In, the early days I had a lot of our work in house and you know, had a shop cruise, we had a lot of in house work.

And so I did that for quite a while.

And now, you know, I've got a, subcontractor model.

And I think the reason, the biggest difference and the advantage is that it gives us better access to talent.

And so that's kind of what we've learned over the years and it's working out for us.

Absolutely.

So that's a pretty good, I mean that, that's an impressive track record.

First.

But when you're you know, basically creating these systems and everything by yourself and working with so many different subscribers, first off, how are you finding like that quality talent, vetting it out and then also managing it by yourself?

Yeah, I think there's two parts to how I'm finding the talent.

first is the system.

Like who are we when we're approaching people to vet them to see if they'll work for us.

Because I think how we present ourselves, how we carry ourselves and the systems that we're using internally can affect how you know, their impression of us and whether they want to work for us.

And then, so we've got a, like an onboarding system, kind of like a pipeline.

Like how you have a pipeline for clients and you've got these different stages.

You have a CRM for clients, we have a CRM for subs.

And so whenever we meet people, we're usually not asking out of the gate.

I mean, obviously before we do work with them, we need their coi.

They got to be insured, they got to be reputable.

But what we're asking for is like, give us photos of your work.

we are finding good subs through our current subs.

Like, who are you?

We meet an electrician.

Who do they like to work with?

And there's some synergy there when you find a couple of companies, that like, working together already.

so that's been really helpful.

And then doing, trade events.

And I think that could be a really good source because if there's a company that is investing the time and the effort to not go to a job site and go to some sort of, even these little like supplier training, local training events, you know, like anything like that, if people are showing up to that, then they are showing an investment in their workmanship and their craft.

And that's like a really good place to start versus just hitting the Google, the Google button and trying to find, you know, whoever.

Yeah.

So, training events are usually a good place to start to look for people.

That's a smart call.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

People who are, or the businesses that are looking to better, always better themselves.

That kind of does the vetting for you to a certain extent.

It definitely helps.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How about, so when you're thinking about, like, the subs that you do need for specific projects, are you using any type of, like, system or AI to help you, like, strategize, you know, preferred subs or preferred suppliers or anything like that?

Yeah, I think one thing that really helps.

We use a program called Job Tread to manage our projects and manage our company.

And part of that program is like this web form.

And so when I meet somebody, say, at a trade event, and we want to see if they're going to work out for us, I can text them this form and they can just fill out their information and it automatically comes into our system.

And then we also pair that with services, like Zapier to automate some of this stuff.

And so they get like a welcome email.

And then when we send a first bid or a budget request, we kind of let them know, hey, the first time we ask for numbers, we're just looking for kind of a range that we were saving each other's time on, like, meeting and vetting.

Like, I'm seeing their work there, you know, but they're giving us ballpark ideas of what they think their costs are going to be.

And if we're in the neighborhood, you know, we're looking for, companies that are investing their money in their tools and their staff versus their marketing.

And so, that way they have what they need to get the job done.

Well, you know, we're not looking for the low, we're not looking for the low number.

That's always dangerous.

yeah, yeah.

But you know we vet them and, and yeah, so they get like a welcome email automatically that kind of walks them through.

Here's what our program is like to work with and job tread.

That program allows them to see photos of the job they get takeoff, they get the plans, they get a bid request that already has like, it kind of broken out by area and like task and so it kind of helps expedite getting their numbers.

so yeah, that's, that's definitely helpful for getting those initial numbers and getting the bids.

Yeah, and it probably, you know, makes you know, Landsmith seem so much more reputable when you already have a platform like that.

Yeah, they can just kind of jump on and you know, be like, they have all their ducks in a row.

This is great.

And it's great, it's, it's great, is great.

And you know when we, when we award the first project there's a series of automations where they get emails to sign the subcontractor agreement, submit their COI, submit their W9.

And that happened because what I was struggling with was you know, I'm ready to work with sub and now I've got to go through and mainly like move all these files and that's just the kind of stuff you don't really want to be like messing up, you know because when it comes audit time and you've got to submit this stuff to your accountant, I didn't want to have to chase anything down or, or look for a file somewhere in a folder.

And so being able to automate that step has really helped both like in the perception and the experience the subcontractor working with us, but also our, our experience.

so yeah, it really kind of makes those things easier for us.

Absolutely.

And then as your sub like list kind of has been expanding, are you using like automations to help maintain those records too?

Like maintain that COI or the you know, W9?

Absolutely.

Yep.

So if we send a bid request and it sees that there's an expired coi, then they get a follow up email that's automated.

so yeah, or it helps us keep it on track.

And I think earlier you asked too about trades.

Like we like working with multiple companies even in each trade because it allows us to fit the sub to the project and so it gives us the ability to serve the clients who are looking for a front yard refresh and also clients who are looking for the full home renovation.

So yeah, absolutely.

That makes perfect sense.

Yeah.

Better fit.

so in terms of growing your business though, I know you had mentioned this, this concept which really resonates with me because I kind of do the same thing of constantly looking to improve rather than constantly looking to hire.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm a big fan of ratios.

I think, it's easy to flex the revenue number.

But I remember so when I first went into business I partnered with the guy that I was working for at one point and one of the things that he said stuck out to me.

He said, Scott, if you make a million dollars, but it costs you $999,000 to do it, what's the point?

And that really stuck.

And so I always try to look at things through a perspective of ratios instead of just amounts or volumes because I think that's easy.

Yeah, we could all lower our price and sell more.

But like having a good ratio, like making sure that there is profit in there to account for the unexpected cost that typically come up during a construction.

Straddled.

We could just serve the customer and take care of things instead of feeling straddled and they're being lost somewhere.

you know, so when it comes to growing the business.

Yeah.

Instead of just trying to rush to hire designers or staff or office staff, thinking what can be done?

Like what pieces can I.

Fractionally, you know, almost like fractionally purchased, you know, like I hire an accountant but I'm not hiring a full time accountant.

I need them a couple times a year, you know.

Absolutely.

So with the advent of just like the technology that's exploded just the last couple of years, there's been a lot more available at a fractional kind of approach than has before, you know.

So something that comes to mind is the VRs, you know, like being able to have somebody answer the phone for us.

Yeah.

Virtual receptionists are killer.

Absolutely.

Especially when you, you know, when it's Well, not that you guys have this scenario maybe, but you know, if you're a plumber, you, you know, you don't want to have somebody staffing the, the call your, your phone lines overnight.

So when you 1:00am Emergency call, you know, still having automation dialed in, that answers it for you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's a really big, that's a really big benefit.

We've got, we've got a system and it's a service that answers the phone for us.

And we do that because we recognize that the value to the customer is if we put our phone number on the Internet, we put it out there.

Someone needs to answer when that phone number is called.

And as much as I would love to be the person that's always answering that phone, the reality is it's almost never a good time because I'm also doing a job.

And, I mean, if I'm working on design, maybe I'm on the phone with someone else, maybe I'm meeting with a customer.

And we need somebody to be able to answer that phone, capture some information, possibly even schedule a consultation.

Like our people.

They kind of talk about the design process and then offer a consultation.

And then every single phone call, I get a text immediately to my phone, which is also fantastic.

Yeah, that's killer.

Just being able to stay on top of it without, you know, getting so distracted and having to actually answer it.

Yeah.

And it's really empowered me to be able to serve pretty much everybody because if a call comes through, I had a rep, a paver up call, and he, like, tried to get through, you know, to me and didn't.

But then I got the text and I was like, yeah, And I called, you know, I called him up and, it was really easy to see.

You know, you get the text message with the info and a brief little summary of what you're getting, what the call was about.

And so I could still, you know, very much any call that comes into the business is still coming to me.

It's just I'm not having to be the one to actually pick up and speak.

So.

Yeah.

Are you using, I know I use a tool called Quo, and they have like a, What, like a AI Va or, Are you using something similar to that or is it, something you built?

it is something similar to that.

And it's called, The website is Smith AI and they have two options like you just mentioned.

They have a live person option and they also have like an AI option.

And we prefer to use the live person option, even though maybe the AI version can do pretty well.

The reason we like the human version is because, it's the part of our business that's having a human contact with the customer.

I feel like at that moment, even if the person is stumbling or doesn't have all the answers, we feel like when a customer calls, they want to talk to somebody.

absolutely.

We use the live person option.

Yeah.

And then that's a Perfect.

You know, little like layup for you.

The one who does have all the answers.

Exactly.

Yep.

And then I get the message.

So if there's questions I couldn't answer, I call back right away because I just, I got the message.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So in terms of like your philosophy towards growing your company too, I know you had previously mentioned like, you have this concept.

Of like the three altitudes.

Yeah.

I think as far as like the action steps, there's these practical things.

These are like what feels like the silver bullet.

what's the app?

And maybe that's why, you know, we're.

What.

Maybe that's why you're listening now is you're looking for the secret, like tidbits.

The silver bullets.

Yeah.

Secret socks.

Yeah, yeah.

What's.

Okay, Scott, how are you doing this?

Right?

Like, what's the secret sauce?

yeah, I could list some apps and that could be helpful in some programs, but that's all going to live on this action level of altitude.

if we were to go one notch up to attitudes, that is going to be this middle ground, approach to how are we organizing the automation.

For example, I could tell you about the website Zapier.

You can go in there and you can set up automations and altitude level up is how are we naming.

What naming conventions are we using for our zaps?

How are we organizing the automations?

For example, in our program we use, like I mentioned earlier, job tread.

There's a couple of, like, there's a couple of pipelines.

We'll use a customer pipeline and a job pipeline and we intentionally separate them.

That wasn't, that's not like an AI program.

That's an approach to organizing these apps.

And we created these like maps.

And so like a customer is like a vehicle.

The pipeline is the road.

And then documents or events are the fuel or the trigger that pushes the vehicle down the road.

And just that basic like naming, structure and overall like arrangement has helped us, you know, keep these organized because, you know, part of it is recognizing that in the future the apps may change.

But if we have this overall like layout and structure, this framework, we can always replace the windows, but we know where the walls go.

Nice.

So, you know, that's, that's been really helpful and then even more helpful, you know, in this age of AI because models change all the time.

You know, jumping from ChatGPT to Claude or to Gemini or whatever.

And so having that context or those, you know, those, those files, that knowledge base of here's actually Our workflow, regardless of the app.

Tremendous.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And then, And so that third one, the atmosphere, if we were to go, a tick up, I'm going to start this with there another story.

And this happened a number of years ago.

Back when I had crews in I, would teach them how to manage energy throughout the week.

Because we're landscapers, the work is hard.

It's outside, it's wet, it's underground.

mallets, they're not light.

Sledgehammers are not light.

And so when we're working, there were certain things that we would need to do faster and certain things that we would need to do slower.

So we're talking about our energy management throughout the week.

Let's do some hard stuff today, knowing tomorrow is going to be a lighter day.

And then that made that, like, that cadence was really healthy.

The thing that we also talked about was the mental side of it.

So, for example, if you've got to get up because you need a hammer, and you go to the truck, and then you can't find it because the hammer isn't there, and now you've got to, like, mentally switch from what I needed the hammer for to now I've got to find the hammer.

Realizing that there's, like, this mental transition that happens there.

And the mental transitions can be exhausting.

It can be mentally expensive.

And so we became like, hey, if we're going to be professionals, we need to be able to put tools back where they belong.

Just something so simple.

I feel.

This feels so basic when I talk about it now.

I mean, if you think about that, that that philosophy is in everything, like, mise en place.

You know, it's in kitchens for that reason.

Yeah.

it sounds so, you know, I don't know.

I don't know how it sounds, but it just sounds like, yeah, of course you want to put the tools back.

But then also in practice, everyone knows that, yeah, of course the trucks get messed up, you know, so we would, like, plan our week so that the end of Friday, we come back early and, like, reset the shop because we're using this stuff and, you know, we're not putting it back and cleaning every single time.

But, like, we've used it for five days now.

Let's get it set up so that when we come in on Monday, it's going to feel fresh.

And instead of, like, scrambling, looking for the thing that we need, we can just be hanging out, drinking coffee for 15 minutes before we head out and, like, taking care of like how our mental, mental expense was coming like throughout the week, our mental cadence, that was really helpful and I take that attitude, that atmosphere, level of mentality to automations.

So this was probably the first automation that I made and it was whenever a contact was created, add it to Google contacts so that I had it in my phone because I had this pain point and it's not about the minutes.

Like it didn't take a lot of time to add the phone number to my contact list.

It was just I was getting in the truck ready to drive and I didn't do it before.

So now I got to stop thinking about where I'm driving and I gotta find it in my CRM, I gotta copy the phone number, might as well copy the email while we're here, you know.

And it's like I had to do this like kind of small little tedious stuff and so once that like one simple little zap, that automation was created, all of a sudden it like freed me up mentally.

It's not like I was losing hours a week.

But it's taking you off of the task too.

It's, it's breaking that bandwidth.

Exactly.

Breaking the bandwidth is an excellent way to describe that.

Yeah, because you had this like train of thought and it's like a derailleur of that train.

And so when it comes to automations, there's the structure of the automation, there's the apps, but then there's the questions that I ask.

Am I double entry putting information in anywhere?

is there something that's, you know when a calendar, consultation is created and I want to send them an email so they know where our office is.

Can that step be like automated?

Like kind of like this tasky stuff?

when a document signed update the status of the job and update the customer, like kind of move those pieces around so that it feels like it's happening in the background, you know, so to speak.

And the result is that you know, it doesn't take as much of like a mental load to, to go and do and just to do the job.

Which means now I get to spend my energy being creative with someone's like backyard.

You know what I mean?

Absolutely.

or when something comes up and I've got a fire to put out, I don't feel like the house is already on fire and now I've got a small fire.

Yeah, I mean I feel like one of the values that we can deliver to our customers is the fact that we're not like totally maxed out, like on our time and our effort, so that when things come up, we have the capacity to handle things, you know, very quickly and appropriately versus like add it to the list of the 9,000 other little things that we have.

And so, and I think automations and AI has definitely helped us with that.

So this, this is a really, this is a hard challenge, but I think it's one that's pressing nowadays.

in this age of AI and automation.

How do you identify, automations that will actually move your bottom line or sustain, that bandwidth versus just shiny toys?

Yeah, the shiny toys, they're fun, because they're kind of flashy, but sometimes they don't really move the needle.

And so I think, in practice it's probably just the pain points.

I was really tired of putting the contact information in my phone manually.

They already gave it to me.

Why can't it just add it automatically?

And so, I think that the, you know, if you're asking how do I set up all these automations, it's this really like, you know, almost insurmountable task because you hear of contractors and how they've got to set up.

It's like, wow, that's really great, like, good job for you.

Okay, but how do I do it?

And I think in practice my actual experience has been just like, make it the smallest, like the smallest little thing and you know, like this contact, little zap.

It's a two, it's a one trigger, one step thing, you know.

And so, if I'm ever like, kind of stuck on like getting myself motivated to do a task that feels like just a monument, you know, a mountain of a task, I will try to trick myself by just doing the setup.

Like I'll just open the web page.

That's the, that's the task.

Nice.

And if I just open the web page, I kind of feel like, I'm already here.

I might as well, I'll just, I'll just find the trigger.

Okay, found the trigger.

Well, I'm already here.

What's the Google context?

Okay.

And then all of a sudden it's done, you know, because I didn't think, I've got to carve out all this time in my day, I'm trying to do it by these like little tiny bits and like the little bits end up adding up, you know, which, it's cliche, but it's true.

Absolutely.

It reminds me of Atomic Habits, if you ever read that book.

Yeah, just like literally breaking, you know, those huge tasks or big projects into, like bite sized chunks.

and then, you know, the probably my favorite thing from that book is habit stacking.

Basically just like, you know, I want to read more.

So when I make the bed in the morning, I'm going to put the book on my pillow.

Like, you could almost do that.

You know, just going back to your, your reference of like Nissan plus for for, for your team, and putting tools back, like creating habit stacks just for, you know, around that when you put the hammer back or when you put the mallet back, you can do these other things too.

Yep.

And then you end up getting spoiled.

So when you go back and the hammer isn't there, it's like, I can't believe.

What kind of place is this?

Were you guys raised in farms?

That's funny.

Yeah.

Let's see.

In terms of like more initiatives, I know you have some, you have two that are like really pretty innovative or like at least just groundbreaking.

and that also fits just because of your business.

Nice.

I see what you did there.

Yeah.

But one is you're.

You said that you're starting to rebuild some of your website pages so that they're more responsive and more, readable to different LLMs and AI models.

Mm.

Yeah, that's super cool.

Super, super cool.

Yeah.

This is gonna sound almost like a small step backwards.

we had a budget calculator on our website and then we ran it through, an AI.

We ran it through ChatGPT and asked it, what do you think about this?

How is this helping?

And it gave us a answer that I didn't see coming, which was it saw a lot of zeros.

And what I mean by that is when you pick the small or medium or large outdoor kitchen, there's two options that are $0.

The third option is a dollar amount.

And so it had a little bit of difficulty, like understanding how much an outdoor kitchen costs.

The other thing is that an AI, when it comes to a calculator, it doesn't know how to put the pieces together the way that it would be if it were text.

And so, there was like a, website called AI Trust Signals.

And so we got some of this information from them as well.

And basically we went and we took the calculator down.

You know, we have an idea for another one.

But what we did is then we, on our service pages, we talked about it in paragraph, like text, written form, as if the same way we talk about it at consultations.

if you want a kitchen, like a Small one with these kinds of things typically run in these ranges.

If you're looking for something a little bit more elaborate, they're in these ranges.

If you're looking for a master chef kitchen, then anticipate ranges like this.

And so a way to kind of break the edge off to the, you know, of the pricing conversation to clients.

But it's also more helpful information for AI and we find that it has a better job or it does a better job of understanding costs for services.

And I think that, it's still very new.

We just updated it, but we think that it's going to help, the AI agents understand who we are and understand the costs to help answer those questions when people are asking them.

absolutely.

I know you said you just implemented this, but have you seen any type of, signals or indication of if it's helping?

Yeah, our rank on that, on that trust signals webpage, like it did an uptick.

yeah.

And this is the other thing.

So before I had this, because we took the calculator down and it ran through that, but it gave us like a medium score.

I was like, I don't have anything on our website.

How did it get a medium score?

And the AI found like some blog we posted a year or two ago that just kind of mentioned loosely, like some pricing.

And that's where this idea was sparked from thinking, maybe what it needs is like, for the website to talk about it like a person in text form.

And so that, that's kind of where we got this idea of like writing it out and talking about it versus, like just the calculator.

So.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I bet that will be, a pretty significant indicate indicator for you guys in the future.

just based off of, you know, how all these different LLMs are absorbing so much content.

You know, it's like, it's weird.

It's like we used to create websites just for us, you know, with style guides and everything, and now it's gotta.

And you know, with long form keywords and all that stuff.

But now it's, it's a whole.

I mean it still is the same ball game, but just formatting it a little bit so it's compatible with different LLMs.

It's an interesting time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you feel like it makes it feel a little less gamey?

Like you can write the website for people and the AI is going to reward that versus like keyword stuffing?

Do you feel like it's maybe improving the copy of websites?

I mean, what do you see on Your end?

I think so, yeah, I think so.

In terms of you know, the like I said that long form keyword tales though, the like all that marketing gibberish, I guess, I'd say it's slowly being pulled back.

you can definitely tell like the sites that are kind of built by marketing agencies now who are just, you know, inorganically adding in those keywords.

like nobody talks like this.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

but I'd say overall it's definitely an improvement.

as long as all the websites don't start just looking the same.

Yeah, they're all just gonna start saying the same thing exactly.

But I don't know, I think websites by themselves, I think will.

We're going through like a massive overhaul right now with this search and everything.

Talking about that though, you said that you're kind of adding in more like, I guess, like chatbot engagement to your website.

is the other thing that you're working on.

Yeah, we've got an idea for one and we haven't built this yet, but we've got the idea to put together like a, it's an AI chatbot.

Right.

Nothing new there, but you can kind of like almost talk to it to say, hey, this is what I have.

If you're a visitor of the website, hey, I have this kind of project in mind.

And then it has a couple of questions that it's asking, but really kind of like put the boundaries around this chatbot so it's not like a free range, you know, like have it really targeted, not targeted, have it really like guard railed.

And so, where the user can experience something that doesn't.

They're not chatting with it for like an hour.

And that's what we would be trying to curtail.

But basically you can ask it, hey, I have this in mind.

And then maybe you can upload a photo or two of the yard.

That way it has an idea of the scale because it can look at images and get an idea of the scale.

And then to chat with it, maybe it comes up with a couple of images of inspiration images.

but I think the value would be to say I'm looking for say a patio with a pavilion and a fireplace, you know, about how much is that going to be?

And with a photo plus a brief description, maybe an address so it knows how big the property is.

They can say, yeah, it'll probably be, you know, give or take, you know, these kinds of ranges and then you know, ask like some feedback questions.

And then, that way it can almost talk about it the way that I would at a consultation, like just a little bit, and then ask if that's, you know, a range that, they're interested in if they want to schedule a consultation.

So it'd be a little bit more of a interactive, like not a calculator where there's preset selections and you're picking these selections, but kind of like just a brief.

Like, is there three or four, just back and forth real quick.

That can kind of like help with answering those questions.

And that could be fed from the data that's already on our website, that we've already got built out.

And so that's something that we're, we're thinking about.

It's still very much in the early stages, but, yeah, it's that fine line too.

That's the hardest part with like, Chad, like, you don't.

You never want to.

You never want to give the indication that the person is like, talking to AI.

Yeah.

That kind of like removes the.

Or I mean, at least like.

I mean, this would be like, hey, I'm an AI person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's like you, without like having that next call to action of like, here, let me, let me get you into, Let me talk, Let me get you to talk to a real human.

because you don't want to like, extend that conversation so much that the person's like, this.

I already, I already answered that question.

Or, you know, like, everybody has that experience.

When you call Verizon or AT&T, you want to make it as, like, valuable and as impactful as you can in a shorter window.

Yeah, absolutely.

Earlier, when you're talking about like the shiny toys, this for us would be kind of like that shiny toy, you know, where it's like, yeah, that'd be really cool.

You know, we could see how it add value to the customer, but, you know.

Yeah.

At the same time, though, it'd be talking about job tread with like a customer portal.

That would be pretty neat to add some type of rag or knowledge base back into that.

So your customers could just ask questions directly in the portal and then it could gather from that knowledge base of different files or scope or whatever.

yeah, Almost like a plugin to job dread, where clients can chat with the portal that can see the images and can see, you know, daily logs and stuff.

And so.

Yeah, that'd be pretty neat.

Or the budgets.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know, Eric.

Kill that one if he makes it this deep in the pod, then, you know, get on that right away.

So that, that also brings up the, a really interesting point of, you know, the shiny toy.

I'll just call it the shiny toys in like that.

and knowing when to automate versus, you know, when, like that the analog is actually the right approach.

Like, I think on our last call you had mentioned, the, the power of like handwritten notes and why that thing will never be something that you look to automate because of the, the impact that it can have.

Yeah.

there's something that I notice with a lot of these services.

They're all about like saving time.

get this scheduling, app so that you can spend your time doing what's more important.

But then I'm asking.

Everyone's saying that, like, okay, so wait, what's more important?

because if it's meeting with, you know, answering the phone, there's also a service that'll do that if it's going to consultations.

Like, there could be a service for, that could be services for all these things.

And so when it comes to like the handwriting notes there, I think there is actually a service that will automatically send out handwritten like thank you cards and stuff to customers.

But the reason that I like doing them myself is it's a, moment that forced me to like, just take a quick pause and you know, they get to see my awful handwriting.

I mean, they don't know if I'm a, they don't know if it's from a fifth grader or a doctor, you know what I'm saying?

But, you know, it's like.

And I get to write maybe, you know, a little something in there, like, hey, thanks for the patio.

Like, we look forward to designing together.

And the, reason I don't automate that is because that's, that's how I actually feel.

I actually am thankful for signing the design and I really do look forward to designing together.

And so, like, there's certain parts that like, I didn't want to automate.

another example of this was.

This was back when I got the iPad, right.

I had cruise in house.

I had a project manager and he was kind of like an old school kind of guy.

And we were trying to get all of our schedules on a shared calendar.

I mean, that's where we're at.

Right.

And we did that, but we also kept a giant dry erase board with a calendar because there was just something that, you know, I was meeting the needs of, of our people.

Yeah.

And Our staff.

You know, my project manager, he liked having I needed to have that calendar event, so I knew where we were at booking, so that when a salesperson sold a job, everyone else knows.

Now we're booked out till the end of May.

But my project manager really liked being able to look at the board in the shop and have sticky notes that he can just physically move.

And there was something tactile about that that he really liked.

And so we kind of did both.

And so, like, yes, I'm definitely a fan of digitizing and automating as much as possible, but I don't want to, like, erase the human in the process.

Like, there's a part of this where we're interacting with this stuff.

And so if we can, like, just do both, why not?

Yeah.

So, yeah.

How do you.

Do you have a framework or anything of, like, identifying, you know, the.

The things that just, like.

What's a good word for it?

Like, unscalable.

Right.

Or, like, the things that just.

You really want to keep analog.

Do you have any type of, like, methodology on.

You know, these are the things that I don't want to touch with a digital pen or whatever it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that makes me think of another part of my process that is analog, and that's when I'm doing the creative process for designs.

I take measurements of the property and then I draw them, and I use a program called SketchUp for my designs.

And I will draw, like, the base, what I call the base map, and then I screenshot it, and then I print it, like, 10 times.

And then I go to a park or a cafe somewhere, and I'm, using, you know, a pen or a pencil, and I'm just, like, drawing on top of this, like, plan of the property.

And the reason I don't, like, digitize, like, do that all fully in the CAD program is because I need to remove, like, the accuracy I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to come up with ideas, and I can't do that if I'm also typing in the distances of stuff.

Because I'm trying to problem solve while also trying to create and come up with ideas.

Yeah.

And so I will, on purpose do that analog so that, like, the distance between a spark of an idea and drawing that idea is immediate because I could just draw.

I could just draw it right away.

And then, you know, I remove, like, the edit button when I'm doing the creative as well.

This is like, a little bit of an aside, but, like, I'll come Back to these ideas with the edit button, with the knife, and then we'll make cuts.

What works, doesn't work.

But when I'm trying to come up with that as initial first ideas, it's sometimes I just draw two circles.

I'm like, nope, next page.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, no repercussions for drawing something, quote, drawing something wrong.

And so when you, that creative process, if I remove those, those I guess consequences of wasting paper or whatever, I get to some really good ideas that I come back to and then try to work out, see if they work.

I love that.

So I guess the answer to your question of like, how do I determine what to like automate or digitize?

I like to automate things that are repetitive tasks, like kind of, you know, updating statuses of things, transactional emails, data entry.

Shouldn't have to type in a phone number more than once ever.

I mean, if I send a form to a vendor and they fill out their information, it needs to be in my phone, it needs to be in the system, it needs to be on the contracts.

Like it needs to be kind of everywhere.

How do we do that?

Like find a way to do that.

And so, so yeah, and then as far as digital, you know, I think the information is more valuable when it's accessible.

So like we mentioned using Job Tread, that's like our source of truth.

And so when our information is in there accurately, then that's like, it's more valuable in there.

So that makes sense.

and I think that kind of ties in the that, that filter, the decision filter too that you were talking about last time.

The automate, outsource or own filter.

Yep.

Wait till the little animation goes.

Yeah, so yeah, that decision filter, do you automate it, do you outsource it or do you own it?

I think this is probably, you know, it's easy.

I think the parts that we want to own are the parts where we're interacting directly with the customer.

And so specifically we're at consultations.

So like designers, like right now I'm still a one person operation, but the plan is to grow.

Growth looks like hiring designers and project managers.

And so that way the people who are like running the show and creating the show, they're working under the same roof.

So that if the project manager has a question about how there needs to be a change, the designer is also in house and that communication stays really tight.

And so those are going to be the parts that we're going to own.

And then as far as, like, outsourcing, we subcontract because, like I mentioned earlier, it gives us access to talent.

Our mason's been doing masonry for 37 years, and we get to use him as we need on.

On masonry projects.

And, you know, and then we automate, like, the busy work kind of tasks that really just need to be.

They're kind of annoyances.

If we can automate those things in the background, then.

Then we've got a really good, like, operation all around.

yeah.

I love that, man.

I think you've delivered so many different, like, methodologies and ways of thinking more than anybody else we've had on this podcast.

Love it.

so who, I guess, where can we.

Where can we find you to, like, follow along with your journey with Landsmith?

Yeah, my Instagram handle is Scottscapes.

if you're in Job Tread, I've got a YouTube channel called Job Tread Unplugged.

And if you want to check us out, our website is landsmith builds.com.

amazing.

Well, Scott, thank you so much for coming on, man.

I really appreciated this conversation.

And, yeah, some phenomenal takeaways, for sure.

Thank you.

Yeah.

But you enjoy the rest of your day.

We'll talk soon.

You too.

See ya.

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