Building Better Crews & Buying Better Tools with Working With Matt

So, uh, you, you went all in on one platform early, um, in that construction division portion, right?

Correct.

What was the, what, what kind of experiences had you taken from different, different times in business, different, um, eras o- of, as you've grown, right? That, uh, the, the maintenance into the irrigation, into the design-build, doing those things.

What did you take learning curves from those that you learned from maybe having different brands of, of gas-powered stuff or whatever, and you said, "No, this is, this...

I wanna get one platform here with this construction vision." What, what were your, like, main factors in that? Aside from the battery tool, one tool to the next, were there any, was there anything else that really kinda drove that decision?

Yeah, I think, um, I, we kinda have to jump ahead to talk about this.

So when it comes to working on two cycle, like we have two full-time mechanics that work basically, as you were saying, on all the nasty stuff, all the two cycle stuff, the chokes, the carburetors, um, all the issues that come with gas-powered, right? So I was like, "If we're gonna buy gas-powered stuff," again, this was when we first started, I was like, "Ideally, we wanna buy all the same." So like when something dies, we can just interchange or take parts.

Take parts, yeah.

Exactly.

So to have, and kind of what I was just saying about the batteries, to have one platform that is, is universal, that no matter what tool it is, whether it's a weed whacker, a saw, a blower, um, what, a drill, a impact for the mechanic, whatever the case may be, they're all interchangeable.

They all...

And then especially with the newer stuff, uh, and more expensive stuff, you have the One-Key, which allows you obviously to track everything and, um, that is a whole nother topic in and of itself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, um, yeah, I think having one platform is, is, is crucial.

And especially like right now we are running, we'll get into this in a little bit, but we have some guys that are running trimmers, some guys that are running weed whackers, some guys that are running like the, um, Quick Lock attachments.

And sometimes, like this crew might be a hybrid crew and they're mowing today, so they don't need all that.

So then another crew can just take their batteries or whatever the case may be, and everybody, it's just cohesive.

It just makes life a lot easier that everybody's using the same platform, the same battery, have the same chargers, and there's no like taking from this guy or taking from that guy and never giving it back, et cetera.

Yeah.

It's, it's just really nice to have it all on one platform.

I, it is funny though, I've found like the, th- during the switch, like, you know, everybody's kind of, in the beginning you're a little standoffish, like, "Oh, battery, ooh, this isn't gonna be any good." And then you start using it and people get defensive.

They're like, "Who, who took my, who took my Quick Lock?" Or whatever, right? "Who, where are my, where are my batteries at?" Um, we have this truck built in 'cause we have a couple crews and so if the maintenance guys ever take something from the landscape guys, they're like, "Where..." The landscape's like, "Where, where's my stuff at?" Like, "Why is it not back?" And they're like, "Th- don't, don't take my stuff." Uh, they get defensive of it.

So well, well let's transition over.