Austin Gray: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the OWNR OPS Podcast! Thank you guys so much for listening.

In this episode, I’m going to share with you a process for reflecting on the year. As we approach a new year, it’s always good to reflect on what you achieved in the past to know where to start for setting your goals for 2025.

The end of the year is always kind of a crazy time, right? Everybody tends to make excuses like, “Oh, the holidays are here.” And yes, the reality is the holidays really are here. Family is super important to me. I go hard all year long and do my best to make time for friends and family—primarily family—over Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Running a business and actually operating a business that’s seasonal, especially around snow, makes it challenging to find time for family. Fortunately, we have a team in place, and I’m able to maintain family as a high priority on my list. This year, I will be spending time with family.

Our team here is taking time off. For those of you who don’t know, our marketing team, Bearclaw Media, is in South Africa, and they’re taking two weeks off. So we’re recording a bunch of content here and will get it out to you over the next couple of weeks in drip campaigns.

Do you operate heavy equipment and want to grow your business online? Check out Bearclaw Media!

For those of you who have been listening, this was formerly Land Service Marketers. We decided to brand it all under the Bearclaw brand since we have been building all the social media accounts.

So, what is Bearclaw Media? We offer digital marketing services for contractors throughout the U.S. in the heavy equipment industry. Think land clearing, excavation, snow removal, and septic installs. If you’re operating heavy equipment and have a high-ticket order value, Bearclaw Media could be right for you. If you want someone to handle all your social media management and bring you more leads to help you grow your business, then Bearclaw Media is the exact service we’ve used to grow Bearclaw Land Services.

We’ll implement the same strategy into your business. You’ll get a dedicated account manager. All you have to do is upload photos and videos from the field of your equipment into a shared iCloud album. Visit gobearclawmedia.com and we can handle it from there.

I want to share the process I use for reflection. Look, it’s not anything crazy, but I do come back to the Five Fs. The Five Fs that I like to reflect on are: Faith, Family, Finances, Fitness, and Fun.

Faith

So we’ll start with Faith. Did you feel like you allocated enough time to whatever faith you have? For me, I believe in God. Being straightforward with you, this is the one that often gets pushed aside.

Now, what I will say is I have committed to praying at night. Sometimes I do it in the morning before my daughter leaves for school, but for sure, every night before she goes to bed, I’m praying over her and praying with my wife. That is something I’m very thankful I have implemented into our lives as a family in 2024.

It’s helped me through ups and downs. Even this morning, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. I feel like I have my hands in a lot of different things. These are the times when I feel like I return to the 80/20 rule—what 20% of things are driving my life forward, and where can I focus on the 20% that is beneficial rather than the 80% that is taking away a ton of time?

For me, faith is like starting with a belief system. In my 20s, I questioned everything I was taught growing up, and I think that was a very healthy time. Now, in my early 30s, having a family, I get to choose what values I’m going to instill in the next generation. It’s very important for me to teach my child the same morals that were instilled in me. I agree with my parents and my wife’s parents about the morals they taught us, and those are all biblically based.

Look, I’m definitely not perfect. You guys hear the financial side of me—or the driven and competitive side—where I’m like, “Let’s build a business!” But the reality is when I spend time with family and take time for fun—like going hunting in the mountains—I always end up reconnecting with the Creator. Right now, I’m doing my best each day to be thankful for what we have in this life and to just ask for help because this entrepreneurial journey is hard.

Fitness

Let’s move on to Fitness. The fitness journey can be tough. I love the suffering aspect because whenever you put yourself in that scenario where you are near blackout mode, you have to tap into another source.

Not to get too far off-topic, but one of the things that reconnected me to my belief in God was fitness-related. One year, I did a 100-mile bike ride in Utah on the White Rim Trail. I had never trained as an endurance athlete; I always trained for strength and football. It was a good challenge, but at about 40 miles in, I started cramping up. We had no support system, and my friend Adam is way faster than me and in much better shape. So, I told him that he had to go ahead and I would just work my way through.

Ultimately, I ended up in a situation where I was in the middle of the desert on a bike, cramping up in full-body cramps. I had to ask for help. By the time I hit about 75 or 80 miles, I hit another runner's high, and everything kind of went away. It was dark at that point, and long story short, that was a transformative experience for me.

Since then, I’ve been steadily building my fitness. Being married to someone who has strong faith and having kids is also motivating. As I reflect on faith, I definitely have a lot of work to do, but I’m happy with the rituals I’ve implemented into life. So, I encourage you to reflect on your own faith journey.

Family

Next up is Family. I have a beautiful two-year-old daughter and another one on the way—very thankful for my beautiful wife as well. We have done some fun things together as a family, but this is one area of life that I’ve neglected, especially being as present as I want to be as a father and husband.

One positive is that I was able to be here for most bath times and bedtime routines. Reflecting back, I do miss a lot of events that I don’t want to regret while my children are young, all just to build a business.

I’m very motivated, as you guys know from listening to this podcast from a business perspective. It is fun and challenging, but at the same time, I don’t want to miss out on family time. Sometimes, I get so far into work mode that I neglect opportunities to take lunch breaks or go to the rec center or pool with my daughter.

In 2025, I plan to put more structure around disconnecting from this whole grind lifestyle of finances and fitness, which is something I did a good job balancing. The important part of reflecting is just being real and honest with yourself, which is why I’m reflecting right now.

As it relates to your family, reflect on what you did well in 2024 and what you want to change and do better in 2025.

Finances

Moving on to Finances. This is likely why many of you listen to this podcast—because you’re interested in starting your own small business. I love small business and the startup phase. If you’ve followed along, we built Bearclaw Land Services over the last two years.

We haven’t done anything crazy, but as I looked back at the numbers, I believe we’ve generated just over $1.5 million in revenue. Revenue might be a vanity metric, but at the same time, it’s a metric you need to look at when starting something because if you can’t generate revenue, you can’t focus on optimizing for profit.

As a lightweight stat, the way that we’ve generated that is through our marketing and sales strategies. I get excited about marketing for small business—implementing digital marketing solutions into these unsexy, sweaty businesses that most people don’t want to work in.

The average person listening here tends to be male, and I resonate from both a business and fitness perspective with males. I’ve played football my whole life and spent time with many men. So, seeing that 98% of you are male doesn’t surprise me because you resonate with me.

The biggest opportunity right now in 2025 is to build a service-based business. If you grew up in the trades or blue-collar world, the odds are against you if you try to start a tech business. But there’s a much easier path to entrepreneurship through offering a service or trade in your local community.

If you can block and tackle on basic business skills, you can provide a great marketing plan online for a service-based business. That’s the biggest opportunity in 2025.

As I reflect on the financial side, we had a goal of $1.2 million this year for Bearclaw, but we didn’t hit it. We will land somewhere around $1 million. I’m looking at the goal on my whiteboard, and while we didn’t achieve it, we set a goal and worked really hard toward it. I’ll continue reflecting on what decisions we made as a team, what we did well, and what we can improve.

As I break down our financials for Bearclaw, I will look at how many fire mitigation and excavation jobs we did, how many grading jobs, and what we believe we can achieve in 2025.

We’re also planning to add on foundation excavation this year, and I’ve got two irons in the fire—one builder and one developer—so we’ll see where that leads us. From a winter perspective, we had a goal to build a $5 million business over 5 years, and right now, we’re on track to hit $1 million in year one.

So, now we have to figure out how to go hit $2 million next year. For podcast sponsorship revenue, I had some goals that I didn’t set until the end of Q3/start of Q4. What we’re looking for are four sponsors for the podcast at $1,500 per month. My goal is for the podcast to kick off $6,000 a month in revenue.

I had an interesting conversation with another podcaster who is interested in purchasing ad slots on the podcast. If that doesn’t work out, we will target software businesses specializing in home services, professional service providers like insurance companies, attorneys, and accountants.

Sponsors and Services

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Fitness (Concluded)

Now back to fitness—jump on a scale. The scale never lies. If it’s a weight goal, jump on the scale. If it’s a physique goal, look at yourself in the mirror.

There’s a lot of power in looking yourself in the mirror and asking yourself if you gave it all you could yesterday. If you’re not where you want to be, assess your effort.

Why not achieve your fitness goal in 2025? One big excuse is not having time to work out. I feel that deeply, especially when you’re trying to build your business.

This year, I implemented a 35-minute, every-minute-on-the-minute workout with a kettlebell. It’s efficient because you build strength while getting your cardio in. I structured it to shoot for roughly 30 seconds of work and 30 seconds of rest for 35 minutes.

I enjoy this workout because it keeps you on track. If you need to get in shape, you can start small with just a few reps. If you’re decently strong, start with 30s, work towards 40s, and eventually 50s.

I would work out once a week and change up the exercises. It is a HIT (high-intensity training) program that blends strength and cardio.

Finally, this workout is efficient, allowing you to finish and get back to work quickly. If you’re someone building a business, I encourage you to try it out.

Fun

Now, let’s conclude with Fun. What did you do this year that was fun? Life is meant to be enjoyable. Sure, we achieve things, but sometimes there’s too much pressure to work for 18 hours a day or feel financially behind.

Are those your goals? I just want to be financially stable, build a great business, and enjoy the services we offer and the clients we work with. More importantly, I want to be home for bath time every night for my kids and pray with them.

This year, I got to go elk hunting, which was incredible. I also got to go to a nice hotel with my wife for our anniversary. Over the last couple of years, with having a child and managing a business, it’s been difficult to focus on each other. I’m thankful we were able to do that.

As I look forward to 2025, I want to think proactively about planning family and fun together. I’ll keep building the business while being intentional about family engagement.

Reflection

So, I hope this episode has encouraged you to think about the Five Fs. Just as a recap, they are: Faith, Family, Finances, Fitness, and Fun. What was 2024 like for you in these areas, and what do you want 2025 to look like?

Thank you for listening! I’m excited to keep pushing forward. If you’re starting your business, post in the comments below, especially if you need help in a specific area—we’ve got a great team here at Bearclaw Media.

Thanks, and we’ll see you in the next episode! Don’t forget: Work hard, do your best, and never settle for less.