Full transcript8 chapters · 6,902 words
00:00Why he skipped his father’s union construction path
Steve Griggs: I think it’s thrown, the word’s thrown around very loosely, like it’s not fun. It’s freaking lonely, you’re going to be broke, like you see these guys on Instagram. Oh, I’m an entrepreneur, dude, it’s brutal. Like I don’t give a shit what you say.
Steve Griggs: You’re thinking about work all the time. I work seven days a week, but when I take a vacation, I shut it down Like I’m able to shut it down. Like I’m able to shut it down. It’s not all glory, like.
Narrator: If that’s one thing, it’s not glory, it’s not for everybody and you better have big balls, my friend, welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue collar owners and insiders spill the real story behind their hustle, building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts.
Narrator: We’ll dig into their journeys, from scaling chaos to growing the bottom line, with lessons and grit that pay off big. Here’s your host, the blue collar CFO, tyler Martin.
Tyler Martin: Hey, welcome back to Profit and Grit with Tyler. This is, of course, tyler Martin, your host. I want you to think about something. Imagine pulling up to a client’s house in your first work truck and then watching it burst into flames in front of them.
Tyler Martin: That’s exactly what happened to today’s guest, but that was just the start of his journey, from setbacks to scaling a high-end landscaping empire in one of the toughest markets in the world. He’s got a no BS take on business markets in the world.
Tyler Martin: He’s got a no BS take on business trust and winning. His name is Steve Griggs. I want you to stay tuned because this conversation is packed with hard-earned lessons you won’t want to miss Now. If you’re a new listener and of course you probably are this is just one of the first five episodes.
Tyler Martin: I think this is episode number four. I would truly appreciate it if you’d leave a review of this episode, preferably a five-star review, but of course I want you to be honest. If you could do that on Apple Podcasts, it really helps them feed the show and get it out to more listeners.
Tyler Martin: My true desire and belief is to help people through the stories, the lessons and the education that guests have had that they can share with the listeners, and I truly believe that I’m helping people by doing that and, with your help, by reviewing it can make a difference.
Tyler Martin: So thanks in advance and, most importantly, thanks for listening. Hey, steve Griggs, welcome to Profiting Grit with Tyler. What’s up, tyler? Good to be here. Yeah, thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. So I’d love to start out, steve, with learning what you do professionally, and then just a tidbit, on a personal note, of something about you.
Steve Griggs: Okay, so we own and run a outdoor living space construction company in one of the toughest markets in the world, new York City, right. So I had to deal with a lot of setbacks and failures and all that, but we’ll get into that later.
Steve Griggs: My father was a construction worker in New York city union construction worker. I didn’t go down that path. I saw what it did to him every day grinding, so I wanted to do my own thing. So I went to school in Mississippi, got my landscape architect degree, moved back to New York and 40, 40 years later, man, I’m still doing this 40 years later.
Steve Griggs: You’re still standing. I’m still saying that’s a.
03:04What makes New York’s concrete jungle brutal to build in
Steve Griggs: I don’t give myself enough credit for that because it was like man, how did you survive 40 years in business? I mean, it’s crazy, so yeah. So here I am, talking to guys like you man, it’s cool and it would go without saying.
Tyler Martin: You know, obviously I’ve researched you. Your work is like insanely good, like I was, you know. I was going down looking at the pictures and I’m like I want that house, I want that house, I want that house. I want that house because of your work.
Steve Griggs: Thank you Been doing this a long time.
Tyler Martin: Okay, how about a personal?
Steve Griggs: I want something personal, anything you’re into, anything you like to do, I like to win, I like to win. I like to everybody’s like well, when are you going to, you know, retire? I don’t think I like to hunt, I like the game, right, I like the game.
Steve Griggs: And I think if you’re trying to be great, I think you always have to be evolving, right? So I don’t know, I see people my age starting to retire move to Florida. It’s just not my thing, right? Yeah, so you know, I still got a kid in college paying for that.
Steve Griggs: So, yeah, man, life’s good, that’s.
Tyler Martin: Okay, for maybe people that don’t know, or the reason why you do refer to your market being so tough. What makes it so tough?
Steve Griggs: New York. It’s the concrete jungle, like, think about it, it’s concrete, if you can. You know the song by Frank Sinatra. You can make it here, you can make it anywhere. It’s true, it’s brutal, like, just because people that I deal with in the suburbs mainly all work in the city and they’re used to that.
Steve Griggs: They’re just used to no excuses. Why can’t it be done now, now, now now, faster, faster, faster, cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. It’s just New York mentality.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah, I love that term concrete jungle. That’s hilarious, that makes me laugh.
Steve Griggs: That’s it. It’s concrete jungle.
Tyler Martin: Okay, so let’s go back. This is really about learning about your entrepreneurial journey and what you’ve learned along the way. Take me back to what got you into thinking this was a business. I mean, obviously it sounds like academically, you did things that put you in this direction, but was it all along?
Tyler Martin: You saw yourself being in this space. Did it grow into it? Take me through that story.
Steve Griggs: Listen, just to be completely transparent here, my grades weren’t the best, right? I struggled in school.
05:09Struggling in school and learning from a Rome pool builder
Steve Griggs: I took one of those aptitude tests where, when you see yourself check the boxes, I didn’t want to be in an office, I didn’t want to be. So I checked all the boxes to kind of, and ended up at landscape school. Landscape school, got a degree in horticulture from upstate New York, then transferred to Mississippi State, still struggled in school, had a great time Not a great time, you know learned a little bit, but you didn’t really learn stuff till you got out of school, right?
Steve Griggs: I get asked this a lot on these podcasts and what really made you do that. So I got out of the college and I worked for a very, very high end swimming pool company in a very affluent area Okay, okay, swimming pool company in a very affluent area, okay, okay.
Steve Griggs: And I learned a lot from him. He was an Italian guy from Rome and I just seen the way he I would operate when he would meet a client and he would always get the job done on time, on budget and I think that built his reputation right For the no nonsense guy, you know.
Steve Griggs: And also working with my father in New York city because he was a construction worker and I would work there on winter vacations for when I was home from college, and they just see that work ethic, that work mentality, it’s like no excuse to just get the job done.
Steve Griggs: So that’s what I just. That’s all I know, right? That’s the only way I know.
Tyler Martin: So when you were going through school, did you already have your sights set on being in business for yourself?
Steve Griggs: I just remember when I was 16 years old. I’ll never forget this. I was 16, washing dishes at I don’t know one of the catering home. We would hang outside and I just remember some guy saying why? Something about living someone else’s dream.
Steve Griggs: I never forget I was 16. Why do you want to work for somebody else? Because you live someone else’s dream, so that I interpreted it as this guy has a dream that he wants to be a business owner. Why are you going to help him live his dream?
Steve Griggs: Create your own dream, right? That’s kind of how the sort of thing I can think of because it’s still stuck to my head. That’s powerful. I mean, 50 years later, yeah, yeah, so it didn’t start out. Yeah, if I’m going to bet on my, if I’m going to bet, I’m betting on myself.
Steve Griggs: That’s really it, like I’m not going to bet on anyone else. I’m going to put all in on myself. If I’m going to fail, I’ll fail on my own. I don’t need you to fail and tell me I’m out of a job. So yeah.
Tyler Martin: So how did you get like? It obviously didn’t start into this high-end design. How do you? When you started your own business, what did that look like and how does it morph into?
07:23The $500 truck that burned up in front of his client
Steve Griggs: It was brutal. It was you know. Come on, I bought a truck for $500. It burnt up in front of my client’s house. I mean just, you know it’s just terrible. You know it’s just terrible. Basically, I just needed someone to trust me to do the job.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, I never figured the first job, and how did you do that? How do you, I mean, cause you?
Steve Griggs: you obviously are polished now, but at that you know, at that a younger age I was, I was fresh out of school, fresh on my own, I bought a piece of junk truck and a guy I went to high school with on the big business.
Steve Griggs: So he let me landscape his building. Right, it wasn’t much, but he, he trusted me with his business. He trusted me to do a good job and they did a good job and then from there it just kind of slowly, slowly, again 40 years.
Steve Griggs: You know everybody. How do you get the big jobs quickly? How do you do all that? You have to build up trust in people. They’re not just going to give some 20 year old $500,000. You got to have a track record. Let’s say, right, you’ve heard about using a track record and all that.
Steve Griggs: Sure, but you didn’t have that. No. So I started. You know mulching and planting flowers and just you know cutting grass and just kind of slowly built that up over time. That’s all yeah.
Tyler Martin: A little segue here, when you give me this image of driving up in this junkie truck and then it burns up in front of your car it burns up and I’ll never forget it. This is what’s so funny. You now win the prize because I had someone on my show a long time ago and his first client call he had no business client calls and he’s in the shower and says to the client who he’s never even performed any services, she’s all.
Tyler Martin: Can I trust you as a business owner? And he’s sitting there in the shower answering why he can try, why she can trust him, and it’s the funniest little bit. But you just want it, the burned up truck, I think exceeds the carburetor.
Steve Griggs: I know the carburetor caught fire and things freaking burnt.
Tyler Martin: Okay, so you start to establish businesses, because I love the home service space, because it’s a tough space. You obviously can make good money, but it’s a tough space. How do you build that homeowner credibility? Obviously you have a portfolio of work now that probably sells itself.
09:32Winning the Orthodox Jewish community on trust and referrals
Tyler Martin: But as you’re building that up, how do you get there?
Steve Griggs: One step at a time, one client at a time. I do a lot of work in the Orthodox Jewish community right, and they’re big on trust. You do a good job for one. They refer you to the next and to the next and to the next.
Steve Griggs: So it’s really trust and referrals, that’s it. And basically it’s all going to come down to say what you’re going to do, say what you say you’re going to do, do what you say you’re going to do and just do it Like you know.
Steve Griggs: Just your word is your bond. That’s it. Like you don’t want to. That’s, that’s the whole thing about this whole business thing. You know, nobody cares about your dog or nobody cares man, they just want their job done. They don’t want to hear your stories.
Steve Griggs: Do you sub your workout to other? So years ago we used to have the, the in-house people, um, doing it all that, and that was a whole other business. My model now enables me to. When I was in Sacramento, Massachusetts, I’m able to go all over the place.
Steve Griggs: Because of that model, I’m able to go out all over by building partnerships, trade partnerships with other people. I am able to pick and choose, handpick and choose the best masons, the best lighting people the best of all and I bring them together and then I orchestrate the whole thing.
Steve Griggs: So a client, so my client base, are busy people, successful people, celebrity type people and they don’t have time or they don’t know how to deal with all. They just want to know that I have it, they’re back and I got it covered.
Steve Griggs: That’s really it, Right.
Tyler Martin: How do you? You kind of answered this question by saying you handpicked the best of them. But I’m just curious how do you manage? So when you have in-house, you can manage the staff.
Steve Griggs: You don’t manage any. You don’t manage anybody. You don’t manage what Guys don’t show up. It’s part of the business Hard to get guys, hard to do that. You want to pick the right people that have their act together, meaning meaning they don’t need your $2 deposit to start the job.
Steve Griggs: They’re well capitalized, they have credit, they have vendors you know what I’m saying. And you want to pay these guys quickly and quickly. You know what I’m saying. You want to keep them fed. You want them to make money. You don’t want to beat them up so much where they’re not making a profit.
Steve Griggs: You want them to succeed, so everybody succeeds.
Tyler Martin: It’s a win-win, right, right, but I mean subs sounds like you’ve got it nailed down, but subs can be a little unpredictable, like you said. They don’t show up for their jobs, maybe they don’t hit your timeline. Do you do anything?
Steve Griggs: Very, very simple. Do I do anything? Yeah, if you tell me you’re going to be there and you’re not there and you don’t come, lose my phone number like you’re, that’s it. Like what’s you? I’m feeding you work, you know I’m saying so, and you don’t have to collect the money from the client.
Steve Griggs: You don’t have to chase the money, you don’t have to deal with headaches. You just show up and do what you say you’re gonna do when you’re gonna do it, and you’ll get paid. Right. If you start not showing up enough, then you’re, you’re off the team.
Tyler Martin: Basically, yeah okay, so it’s, it’s like you either deliver or you’re gone pretty much in New York mentality.
Steve Griggs: Yeah, you’re pretty much gone.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, you ever have a deal, a project that just went backwards, Like it’s. I mean, it sounds like you guys deliver at a pretty high level, but everything is something ever not go to plan. Give me the story Like how did you handle it?
Tyler Martin: Like one started at a job went bad. Yeah, Give me, do you have one that sticks out or do just?
Steve Griggs: you’re always challenged to kind of keep things in mind, no, you, you, you have one, because it’s probably again.
12:47Jobs go bad when husband and wife aren’t on the same page
Steve Griggs: I like to say the fish rots at the head, right, why did it go bad? Why Like something we did? I don’t want to hear all the clients are paying that You’re going to get difficult clients. You’re in residential, that’s just the way it is.
Steve Griggs: But if something goes bad, I need to look internally on our team to say why did that job go bad? Communication wasn’t clear scope. You know it’s usually something like that. You know they weren’t. Sometimes the husband and wife aren’t on the same team.
Steve Griggs: So now I demand that, guys, you need to be here together If you’re going to make the huge thing. Yeah, husband says one thing, wife says another. They’re not on the same page. It’s just. It’s a killer.
Tyler Martin: But that’s a big tip. I mean having the couple together.
Steve Griggs: Have the decision makers there If you’re going to make the decisions, you so. One recent story is the husband was the decision maker and halfway through the project then the wife becomes. Now she’s in part of the deal, she, you know, and it was just went South.
Steve Griggs: You know it was my fault, cause I should have made that very clear from the beginning.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah, that’s hard. Yeah, what about, like, just from a business standpoint, ever, any periods where your viability was in question in terms of the business, the, the? You know we’ve had some tough time periods COVID maybe you actually had business, went up in COVID, but, like the 2008 recession, anything hit you or you really put you in a bad spot, and how did you handle it?
Steve Griggs: COVID was actually good. When the first thought I thought was going to be bad, but it turned out to be very good in our business, which kind of caught me by surprise. I’m an older guy so I do remember 2008. I remember the night that the car repossessing people came, took my car and took the two baby seats out.
Steve Griggs: Right, so it’s real Right. Yeah, yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday.
Tyler Martin: I don’t want to do that again, yeah, so what did you do? I mean, how did you?
Steve Griggs: Again by building up a good client list you went back to. You’re able to go back to that well and get whatever you could. Can I cut your grass? Can I? You know they still have to spend certain money to maintain stuff, so I just went back to them and I was able to draw pick the low hanging fruit from my previous clients so I was able to get through it.
Tyler Martin: That doesn’t get talked about a lot in terms of sometimes we have to adjust what our ideal business profile is to the market situation. If we don’t, we’re probably going to be out of business, and it sounds like you just adjusted, maybe to a certain level of business that you normally wouldn’t do, but it had to meet for the times.
Steve Griggs: Well, when you have a mortgage, wife, two kids, you figure it out quickly. Yeah, for sure, so true.
Tyler Martin: So take me through your. I want to know your thoughts for people that want to get into the home service business or even in the home service business. What are some of your takeaways? I mean, obviously you’ve really talked about trust, but what are some takeaways there in terms of having a good model and a successful model in dealing with home service, because it is a challenging.
15:36Charging enough and pricing custom jobs as a range
Tyler Martin: You’re dealing with homeowners. It’s challenging.
Steve Griggs: Yeah, you’re dealing with homeowners and you’re walking into their sanctuary, right. Right, it’s challenging. Yeah, you’re dealing with homeowners and you’re walking into their sanctuary, right, so that’s a huge trusting. They got kids there. You’re in somebody’s home. It’s not a commercial building, so you have to take extra precaution on really being aware of their lifestyle and how you can not interfere.
Steve Griggs: As much you want to try to come in, come out, have the guys work, neatly, all that stuff. Have the guys polite. You know good communication. If you’re not going to show up, you need to call the owner and say hey, problem on the job, guys can’t come.
Steve Griggs: Don’t just not show up, you just treat them how you want to be treated. You ever wait around. Guy tells you he’s going to come from between eight in the morning and six at night, like it’s terrible. So if you’re in the home service business or you want to get into the home, you just have to really have good communication and stay in contact with the clients and make sure you charge enough money.
Steve Griggs: I’ve done that for years. I’d never charged enough money and it ended up hurting me. If something goes wrong, you have to go back and not feel guilty that you’re making a profit. You’re supposed to make a profit, so if something goes wrong you can go fix it.
Steve Griggs: That’s just from growing up with that mentality. That’s a whole nother podcast yeah.
Tyler Martin: And when you’re figuring out the profit on a job, are you at the point in your career where you’re doing it all in your head and you pretty much have an idea, or are you a little bit more methodical and you’re doing it on some type of software spreadsheet?
Tyler Martin: How are you figuring that out?
Steve Griggs: I should be a little more spreadsheet. But every job is different because they’re all custom, yeah, and I basically do the design and I basically give them a range where I think it should be at, okay, and I can’t really, because it’s so custom and the plans change and it’s not like I’m building or putting in a flat roof where it’s X square feet.
Steve Griggs: I mean the pools I can get down pretty close, but when you talk about landscaping and lighting, it can fluctuate, so I like for them to give me the ability to be creative and change a little bit.
Tyler Martin: So I kind of say we’ll keep it between x and y, kind of fluff it out, okay. So you’ve got a range there that if things take a little bit of a twist, you can at least build it in.
Steve Griggs: Yeah, yeah again, that goes back to the trust, right like it goes back to the trust. Not trying to rip them off, but you, you want to make sure that the job is done right the first time and you don’t cut any corners.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, Okay, that’s good stuff. And then the other question I wanted to ask you just around managing your business and just future plans. You mentioned being a little later in your career and you just love to work, you love to win, which I want to talk about that a little bit.
Tyler Martin: What’s your transition plan? Do you are you going to just do you have someone else that will step in at some point? Do you envision selling it someday? Do you will it just upon your demise? Someday the business will go away. What’s your thoughts around that?
Steve Griggs: Um, I do have two sons. Okay, not interested in the business, like my wife is like no freaking way. I see how I come home tired and dirty all the time, so that’s not that rude. So am I going to ride off into the sunset and go golf?
Steve Griggs: I don’t know, maybe, and that’s not my thing. That’s not who I am right. I think teaching other younger guys. I mean, I do have a lot of knowledge in this, so anybody has a question. They can certainly ask me the question, cause I’ve done it all.
Steve Griggs: I’ve done it all wrong. You know what I’m saying. So, like when I was going through this, it wasn’t podcasts where you can get information like this you could. I’m saying was just beat your head against the rock. Yeah, if you’re new in this business and you don’t go on, listen to podcasts like this one and learn like you’re you’re, you’re an idiot, I’m sorry right because the information is there right yeah, and like youtube I mean literally anything you want to know, as you know you.
Tyler Martin: You know anything in your business. I’m sure there’s a youtube training video on it and anything.
Steve Griggs: Yeah, change the light. I changed my own outlet, the other, like I’m not a handy guy I’m not, I’m not either. I shut the whole power off in the house so I make sure I don’t get electrocuted. Kill the switch and then you know I’m not chancing any of that.
Steve Griggs: So true story. True story, by the way, the whole power of the whole house I’m chuckling circuit, shut it down.
Tyler Martin: I’m laughing because some of the dumbest stuff I look up on youtube because I don’t know how to do it from a handy perspective. I’m almost embarrassed to search it because it’s so, it’s so like obvious, but I just don’t have any tech, any, any skills in that room, right.
Steve Griggs: I fixed my, I fixed my washing machine. Google didn’t have the iPad open with the instructions. I mean, it was basically like a little cell phone you had to clean with a little alcohol, right? But I would have never figured that out. I would have never figured that out.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah, that’s funny, okay, cool. So don’t really have necessarily a business transition plan. What I think I kind of heard you say is it would be great if you had a younger person or people that you could mentor into that space potentially.
Steve Griggs: I think that would be a good transition Build some sort of reoccurring digital product or something that we just live on and just take all that knowledge, package it up how I did my marketing, how I did it. It’s just some sort of something where someone can just, you know, instead of going to a four-year degree, you can get all the information in a short amount of time and go start making money.
Steve Griggs: That’s what my thoughts were.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool. And then I want to talk about a little bit just in terms of being an entrepreneur. What would you say are like two, three things, if they come to mind, that are things that you’ve learned that we could really apply to our own lives.
Tyler Martin: I’d love to know if some things stick out.
Steve Griggs: I think it’s thrown, the word’s thrown around very loosely.
20:59Entrepreneurship is lonely, not the Instagram version
Steve Griggs: Yeah, like, it’s not fun, it’s freaking lonely, you’re going to be broke. You see these guys on Instagram. Oh, I’m an entrepreneur, dude, it’s brutal. I don’t give a shit what you say. You’re thinking about work all the time. I work seven days a week, but when I take a vacation, I shut it down.
Steve Griggs: I’m able to shut it down. It’s not all glory. If that’s one thing it’s not glory. It’s not for everybody, and you better have big balls, my friend.
Tyler Martin: You just now shot like 90% of the posts on LinkedIn. It’s usually like a summary of how easy it is and overnight success. You just kind of shot those all away.
Steve Griggs: No way, my friend, I don’t care. No way, yeah, nope.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah, you know, you made the comment about winning. Like you like to win, I like to hunt you like to win.
Steve Griggs: I like to hunt.
Tyler Martin: You like to hunt. So how do you do that? Because you made a comment about, or also about, maybe not taking bad deals. You got to make sure they have the right profit margin.
Steve Griggs: Don’t take a bad deal. Don’t take a bad deal, it’s very.
Tyler Martin: So you’ll walk. So if someone tries to beat you up on pricing, it’s not even beating up up.
Steve Griggs: It’s not even beating up, it’s not even about pricing. So this just comes from years and years. Like you think you know, they talk about the red flags of a client, like sometimes they slip one by you, man. Like you think it’s all great and then it it just turns back I don’t know, like there’s no, oh, it’s a bad one.
Steve Griggs: You try to like out of 10 deals, you try to you’re going to get a bad apple right. You try to pick the right clients. You listen for the buzzwords and you just make sure you’re in sync. I’ve gotten way better at that right.
Tyler Martin: Give me an example Like what are some red flags that you go?
Steve Griggs: oh, why does this cost so much? Why does that cost so much? It’s just like, like, not even like I thought it was going to look like this. I thought it was going to be that color. It just becomes like you’re questioning If you knew, I answer you, I don’t need to be here, like, if you do, you’re like, I don’t need to be here, right, you know.
Steve Griggs: So that’s where the trust comes in. And you, you know, you build up that trust and they that’s why they hired you. You’re the professional. You need to get this job done on time, on budget. Make sure we’re happy. That’s all I care about.
Tyler Martin: So you said I think you said one out of 10. So that means about one out of 10 deals. Are you just like I’m not even going to bid on this, or do you find in the middle of bidding we’re just maybe it’s four out of 10.
Tyler Martin: I mean, what do you do? Do you just come up with some astronomical price to scare them off?
Steve Griggs: Or do you just not the right opportunity? I just don’t think we’re going to be a good fit for this. I mean, you say it however you want to say it, but I do refer them to other people. That would be a better fit.
Steve Griggs: Yeah, yeah, that’s good, because I can’t take all the jobs. I can’t take them all on, right.
Tyler Martin: What kind of backlog do you typically have in terms of jobs?
Steve Griggs: Well, when the Northeast is probably like San Jose, it takes six months to get a pool permit easily. I mean it’s well, that’s a whole nother story. But yeah, yeah, like I mean you know, booked up until July right now pretty much just stuff from last year.
Steve Griggs: Permitting takes forever. I’m hoping that everything comes, comes to the next few weeks, that we can kick it off. But yeah, you get really backlogged with the permitting.
Tyler Martin: Okay, do you use some type of project management software to kind of keep everything, or is it all?
Steve Griggs: Yeah, we use, we use. No, we have Daniela runs. We use JobTread for some of the tracking. We use CompanyCam for the job photos. We’ve been using Basecamp a lot so we had had a hard time trying to. You know, intercommunications like we’re trying to like, it’s in.
Steve Griggs: I’m telling that’s in a lot of businesses here how you communicate internally where it’s like oh, this guy likes text, this guy likes email, who’s on whatsapp, it’s freaking, big struggle, big struggle. So we try to keep it limited but again it gets out of hand.
Steve Griggs: But even though you try to train people and tell your customers, hey, just, but it’s. If somebody, somebody on your podcast, another one has the answer, please let me know, because it’s constant. We try, but it’s constant.
Tyler Martin: So you try to match their medium, that they like to be basically communicated.
Steve Griggs: Try, sometimes I get my own way. Like you know, why are you talking to this guy? You know I’m supposed to follow up certain protocol and again it’s setting the expectation. Again it goes back to me Like what is the expectation? Tell them, this is the way we need to speak.
Steve Griggs: You know, just set the game plan up. Yeah, it’ll save you a lot of headaches.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, I feel like you could write a. I mean, obviously you have a wealth of wisdom in your uh, in your skillset, what you do. But I also feel like the whole topic of trust. You really have that nailed down too, and I think I don’t even know if you realize.
Tyler Martin: I, for example, you were a few minutes late today. You emailed me and I can’t tell you how many times I don’t get an email. People wait. Oh yeah, all the time. That’s just freaking rude man. But the way you but this, you did two things Actually.
Tyler Martin: It was interesting. One, the email was cool, but two, you were exactly on time. To how long you? I mean literally to the second. Now I don’t know, maybe that was just luck, but you were exactly on time.
Steve Griggs: I saw the traffic, I saw the GPS. I’ll be home in seven minutes.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, so I mean it was perfect, I mean. But my point is, I built trust because as soon as you came in, I’m like oh man, this guy’s pretty cool. He respected my time even though you were late. So you live and breathe it.
Tyler Martin: What do you think I’d love to, just as we wrap up? Thank, you.
Steve Griggs: I appreciate that. I try to take that very seriously because if the shoe’s on the other foot, the same respect for me. I know it’s a lot of work to put these on. You got to edit it. You got a ton of work for you guys.
Steve Griggs: Yeah.
Tyler Martin: Well, I mean I had a guy the other day. He was like 10 minutes late for a meeting. I sat in Zoom waiting for him, didn’t say a word. He came in about 15 minutes later and he has a nerve to text me and say, hey, how come you didn’t show up?
Tyler Martin: And I said, oh, I’ve been waiting for 10 minutes. And he said, oh, my bad, I was running. And he sends me an email saying, well, since you missed the meeting, how did you miss the meeting? But the whole point was this guy was trying to sell me his services.
Steve Griggs: But that’s good though. That’s good though, because if that’s my competition, I’ll eat guys like that all day long. You don’t have to be the best, I don’t have to do that and I’m going to win every time.
Tyler Martin: Isn’t that funny? It’s really true, though. I used to say this a lot to my staff. I said you know, it’s good that there’s a lot of sucky businesses out there in our space, because that makes us look that much better, because we can deliver.
Steve Griggs: It’s easy. I do send you an email. If I had your phone number, I would have texted you because I’m like maybe he’s not going to see the email because I didn’t have your phone number.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah, anyway, that’s good stuff. So what are? Give me some tenements around trust that you stay focused on and I know you do it naturally nowadays but what are conscious things? Obviously being on time or letting people know. Are there any other things that you do that build trust?
Steve Griggs: You got to be. Yes. You need to look the guy in the eye and tell him I’m the guy to get the job done on time on budget. No excuses, that’s it. You have to come from, from a place of altitude. We like to say, right, as my mentor, marshall Wilkinson, said, you got to come from the place of altitude, right.
Steve Griggs: And then you have to. That’s why they’re hiring you. Yeah, yeah, that’s trust. You know, I’m going to come to your property and dig an 8-foot hole in the backyard. I think I can do it. I mean, you know what I’m saying.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, I should be done in about two weeks.
Steve Griggs: I should be. No, I will have you swimming by July 4th. That’s what they want to hear and you deliver it. That’s the whole secret of this whole podcast and the whole business. That’s the secret I’m telling you. That’s the secret I’m telling you.
Tyler Martin: That’s the secret. That’s good stuff. Hey, this has been a great conversation. Is there anything before I get into your website, so I want to share with the audience anything that I left out or anything you want to talk about in terms of your journey.
Steve Griggs: Just again if I can help anyone. You know, if you’re struggling in business, because I get a lot of hit up, a lot on Instagram Hey’m, I’m a young kid, just got out of high school kind of looking like, and how do you get the big jobs like, just start with one little job and do it like I keep saying, on time, I’m about to build up that trust and they have a friend and they’re going to give you another friend.
Steve Griggs: You know I’m saying easily to build up a business, I don’t care what kind of business it is right, right.
Tyler Martin: So yeah, that referral. Once you start delivering that referral, you can’t even really stop it probably.
Steve Griggs: You can’t stop it. It’s the cheapest advertising out there.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah. That’s good stuff, that’s good wisdom there. Okay, your website, stevegriggsdesigncom. Once again, guys, stevegriggsdesigncom, I’ll put this in the show notes at thinktylercom what was your Instagram handle?
Steve Griggs: At stevegriggsdesign. What was your Instagram handle At Steve Griggs?
Tyler Martin: Design. Okay. Anywhere else that people want to reach out to you Is Instagram better LinkedIn, your website. Where should they go?
Steve Griggs: I mean, honestly, I’m just trying to figure it all out because I’m an older guy, but I like to just keep it simple. Okay, we’ll go with just Instagram for now.
Tyler Martin: Okay, so Instagram if you want to get a hold of them. Maybe you, you know, it sounds like you’d be a great mentor. You’d be a great.
Steve Griggs: Yeah, hit me up, dm me if you have a question. I have no problem.
Tyler Martin: Okay, cool, Well, hey, thanks for being on the show. You are awesome. I love your.
Steve Griggs: the way you approach things and it’s great to hear about your success.
Narrator: Thank you, tyler, have a great day. You, too, stop here, and we’re here to help. Subscribe to the podcast for more inspiring stories from trade owners who are building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts. If you want further help, head to yourbluecollarcfocom to schedule a meeting with Tyler, or if you have a story you think would help, you can apply to be on the show.
Narrator: Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time on Profit and Grit with Tyler.
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Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: profitandgrit.com or Book a free intro call. For where your business sits right now, read the $3M to $15M scaling breakdown.
