Austin Gray: Hey, welcome back to Season Two of the OWNR OPS Podcast! I'm your host, Austin Gray, and in this episode, I'm going to recap Season One from 2024. I'm also going to share with you the vision for this podcast moving forward.

First off, I just want to thank each and every one of you for listening and supporting the podcast. I never thought it would take off this fast. I started it in, I guess it was December or January of last year. The reason was that we weren't doing any sort of wintertime services.

For those of you who do not know me and what we do, my name is Austin. I own and operate Bearclaw Land Services here in Colorado, where we do forestry and excavation in the summer. This year, we brought on snow services, but last year, I wasn’t doing any sort of snow removal work. I got bored over the winter and thought, “Man, what could I do? How could I spend my time in a useful way to learn how to better grow my business?”

I had set the goal to do 1.2 million last year and thought, “Who could I talk to?” I had been involved on X, but I'm not super involved on any of the social media platforms other than X. That's the one I spend my time on because, for whatever reason, there's a bunch of entrepreneurs and business owners on X. There has been a really cool network of people, and I have made some friends, especially entrepreneurial friends, who I can bounce ideas off.

I thought, “What if we did an interview-style podcast that brought on people who are growing businesses or have grown businesses?” We could interview them, have them share their stories, and ask targeted questions about how they think about growing their businesses. So, I started it, and Julius, if you're listening, thank you so much for being the first episode! You are the OG guest, and I really appreciate it.

Bod, you were another one of the first ones, so I appreciate you seeing the vision from the very beginning and being willing to jump on camera and share your thoughts during your time operating the dumpster rental business.

That was really the start, and from there, I began reaching out to other people on X who were business owners and asked if I could interview them. The motivation behind it was selfish in the beginning; I wanted to interview other business owners from whom I felt I could learn. But as the vision started to develop, I thought, “If we can do this in a public format, surely there are other people who can benefit from this knowledge as well.”

Now, I'm going to go through some of the episodes here. I may miss some of you, and I’m also going to mention some of you. If you are listening to this, I appreciate you if you were a guest last year on the OWNR OPS Podcast, and if you are just a listener and haven't been a guest yet, I appreciate you tuning in and listening.

Some of you have reached out and told me that this content has been helpful. I want you to know, those who have just been listening, that I'm going all-in on this in 2025. I spent a lot of time reflecting on this at the end of last year and thought about the direction we are going to take with the OWNR OPS Podcast. The direction we will go is to continue doing more of the same.

I’m going to bring on successful business owners in the services and trades who are either actively growing a business, who have started a business, or who have exited a business. My thought process on this was that I don't need to be industry-focused. I put a lot of thought into whether or not I should focus specifically on the land clearing, excavation, or snow removal side of things, but the reality is there are already podcasts out there like that.

If you haven’t listened to the Dirt Bags Podcast, Luke Egabron was a guest on the show. Luke, if you’re listening to this, I appreciate you being willing to come on and share. You are one of the most positive guys I’ve ever met, and it’s so much fun just chatting about marketing.

If you haven’t listened to the Dirt X Podcast yet and you’re in the excavation, land clearing, or any industry where you’re using heavy equipment, check that out. They are very focused on that. We’re going to stay true to what we started as, and I’m going to continue to interview other business owners in various industries.

The principle I’ll come back to is that all businesses are very similar. It does not matter what type of business you are growing; you still have to think about when to hire, who to hire, and what to hire people for. You also have to think about what roles and responsibilities to delegate to others and let go of control if you want to grow your business.

There are a couple of themes that were very prominent throughout interviewing successful guests. I’ll go down the list of guests here if you continue listening and talk about some of the most listened-to episodes.

Man, a lot of people who are running multi-million-dollar businesses came on. We had guests all the way down from a couple hundred thousand dollars in revenue just starting out to about 25 million in revenue in the services and trades. A reoccurring theme I saw is that the business owners who focus on being the best at their service and hone in on one or two things, going all-in on them, are the ones who grow very quickly.

They focus on hiring and delegating effectively. In 2025, one thing I am really contemplating is how I grow as an entrepreneur and what I need to get better at—even if it makes me uncomfortable.

The comfortable thing for me to do is to own and operate as I have been. I can get the equipment paid off, run a small crew, and do that, but I enjoy growth. I like challenging myself. So I will continually come back to the question of “who, not how.” Who can do this task? If I am spending my time on a recurring task every single week, I want to think about who we can hire and delegate that task to.

There are multiple people who come to mind, such as John Wilson. He is the host of the Owned and Operated Podcast but he also runs a $25 million home services company. He's in his early 30s and bought his dad's plumbing business at the million-dollar mark. He has since scaled that to $25 million. If you haven’t listened to that episode, you’re going to want to go back and check it out because he breaks down the growth stages of different small businesses.

That was Episode 29. John, if you’re listening to this, I appreciate you coming on because you gave a masterclass. A lot of our listeners are sub-one million, still in that early growth stage. Go back and listen to that, even if you're a couple hundred thousand dollars in revenue, because he provides you with the exact playbook you need to think about.

It’s very simple: if you’re in the truck or on the equipment and you’ve got a couple of guys, things you need to be thinking about delegating are:

1. Hire an office assistant as soon as you possibly can.
2. Hire a sales guy or project manager, and then you fill the role of the other one—either play project manager or sales guy and go hire the opposite.

I went back and listened to that episode the other day as I was driving home from a job bid, and I thought, "Man, that guy has some wisdom for his age. He's good at what he does." So, John, thank you for coming on; I appreciate you sharing with our listeners.

If you have not listened to that episode, go back and check it out.

Some of the other top episodes here—I have my Spotify analytics pulled up—Logan Robinson has the top episode titled "Starting a Cleaning Business in One Week." Logan did a challenge with his friends; I think it was a month-long challenge, and for the first three weeks, he was doing e-commerce dropshipping. Then he came across some stuff online and decided to start a cleaning business. In one week, he had paying customers. I can’t remember how much revenue he generated, but go back and listen to that one. Logan, I appreciate you being on.

If you’re listening to this, thanks for sharing, and I wish you the best of luck in 2025. I know you’re in growth mode, and I saw one of your posts the other day. Logan is very methodical about how he builds his processes and how he hires, so I brought him on a second time.

Once again, thanks for being on.

The second most listened-to episode is "A $5 Million Excavation Business at 23 Years Old." This was an episode with Garrett Williams, who has a pretty big YouTube channel in the landscaping, excavation, and snow removal world. If you have not watched him—even if you’re not in the excavation, snow, or landscaping world—go watch him. Just search for Garrett Williams or G&M Outdoors on YouTube.

The kid is like 23—maybe he’s 24 now—but he is one of the most positive people I have ever met. His positivity is infectious. If you watch some of his YouTube videos at night, you’re going to be amped up and ready to grow the next day. You will be ready to treat your team right and treat your customers right.

Garrett, I’m thankful for you, and I’m looking forward to filming some content with you in Minnesota in a couple of weeks. Keep an eye out for that—we’re doing some YouTube stuff over there, and we're going to record some podcast episodes.

Garrett and his sister run a $5 million business in their early 20s. His sister manages all the back office operations, and I brought her on to give a breakdown of office operations 101.

So Marina, thanks again for being a guest on the show as well. Marina is so dialed in with her back office processes, so go give that episode a listen. It is Office Operations 101.

Let me see if I can find the episode number for that one. That was Episode 45: "Office Operations 101: Manage Schedule, Quotes, Jobs, and Invoices Better." We talked about how to do things in Jobber, so go listen to that one if you haven’t already.

I’ve got to do a quick shoutout to Bod and Andy, my partners at SEO Partners Striker Digital. I say "partners"; we’re not formally business partners, but we do business together. They have delivered incredible results on the SEO side for Bearclaw, and if you guys have been listening to the podcast, you know I can't stop raving about them because they're just great at what they do.

I love being around people who want to be the best at their craft, which is why I rave about Bod and Andy. If you choose to work with them or if you do go work with them, you're going to realize quickly they are some of the most serious guys I know about being the best in their industry.

For example, Bod's Episode 10 titled "Ranking Number One on Google for Dumpster Rental" was about his dumpster rental business. I’ve brought him on two other times to talk about SEO growth.

In Episode 37, "SEO Tips for Local Service Businesses," go listen to that if you want to learn how they approach SEO on the back end. I also did a "Google My Business Profile" episode with Bod; that’s just free content—anyone can go listen to that episode and optimize their Google My Business profile by following the instructions that Bod talks about.

That was Episode 38: "Optimize Your Google My Business Profile with Bod Gallo." That one will tell you literally how to bring in leads. If you don’t have a marketing plan, that’s the one to listen to. If you do one thing, set up your Google My Business profile, optimize it, and you’re going to get leads from it. I guarantee it. If you just follow the instructions, you’re going to get leads.

Bod and Andy, thanks so much again for being on. I've had Bod’s business partner Andy on as well, and he provided great insights on how to structure your website as a service or trade business owner. We called that one "Website Must-Haves." That was Episode 54: "Website Must-Haves with Andy Walker." Go listen to that one if you’ve done a DIY website setup.

Just go listen to it, and afterward, take a look at some of the websites they've built. You will know what you need to update. Honestly, for the price they charge to build a website, I think it’s foolish not to hire someone like them. Even if you don’t hire Bod and Andy, hire somebody else—just pay the pro.

If you’re an equipment operator or service provider, this was one of the first areas I thought about delegating. To get better at delegating, you’ve got to practice. It’s just like a muscle; it’s like training at the gym.

You’re not going to go to the gym and throw on two plates if you’ve never bench-pressed before—unless you’re a freak of nature—but you’ve got to start with the bar and work your way up. You've got to train. So, if you want to get better at delegating, start now and practice.

Your website is one of the easiest things to delegate. It’s not worth DIYing. If you don’t have a web design or SEO background, you’re just going to mess a bunch of things up. It’s worth paying $2,500 to someone who is a pro.

I just paid a web designer I haven't had on the podcast yet to revamp the podcast website because they’re really design-focused. This investment is going to pay off long-term for the podcast and my service businesses. I've used an agency called Launch Kits before—they're great at what they do, and they built the Bearclaw website without any issues.

I have a lot of business with Bod and Andy, and I believe they have the service-based business stuff dialed in. For the cost they charge, if you go sign up for SEO services and pay them $1,500 a month, they're going to give you a really good deal on that website. It’s worth paying them to do it all, so you know it’s done right.

When you build a website, you want to consider all the back-end details: titles, meta descriptions, page structure, submitting, and indexing on Google. There’s a lot that goes into it.

I hear people ask, “Why wouldn’t I just build it on Wix?” and it’s like, “Dude, please don’t waste your time.” You’re going to spend all week doing it—at a minimum—if you’ve never done it before. You’re going to try to play around with the designer, and then you’re just going to hack together something that will be slow and won’t be indexed properly.

So please, don’t DIY a website on Wix if you’re serious about being in service. Go make some money, provide great service to your customers, and reinvest that money into a professional web designer. I’m telling you, you’ll skyrocket past all your DIY competitors.

If you guys can’t tell, I love the marketing side of things, and I get really fired up about it.

Julius, how to start a pressure washing business is the number four most listened-to episode, coming in just over a thousand starts. Logan's episode had 1867, Garrett's was a little over a thousand, and Julius's was a little over a thousand listens.

Next up is the septic business. I had so much fun interviewing Brock, who has become a good friend. We text and call because we’re in similar industries—we’re operating equipment, thinking about how to pay down debt, which pieces of equipment to buy with cash, which ones to finance, and what kind of debt load to carry.

Brock has been really interesting. Out of all the people I've interviewed, I love all of you who I’ve talked to, but Brock has challenged me to think differently. You listen to a guy like John who scaled his business to $25 million, and that’s really cool. However, what's also impressive is that Brock has three guys—himself and two others—and they did $2.3 million last year with only three people. Why? Because they specialized in one service and went all-in.

One of the first episodes I brought him on for was Episode 22: "Septic Business Goes 0 to 1.3 Million in 7 Months." Brock, like many contractors, fell into the trap of being generally handy. It’s easy for you to take on a bunch of different services. Customers will call you and say, “Hey, can you fix my trim?” “Sure,” right?

Then they’ll ask, “Can you fix my pool?” “Yeah, I’ll be there.” Next, they’ll say, “Can you pour my concrete?” “Definitely,” and finally, “Can you build my house?” “Sure.”

That's the trap most contractors fall into, and I still struggle with it. But Brock has challenged me in a way; he literally picked septic installs as his one thing and went all-in.

He did all his marketing, and I always thought, “Dude, we need to do forestry, excavation, and snow.” I’m still not convinced we need to move away from that model, but I’ve thought a ton about it. It makes me wonder, do we just need to focus on one thing?

My question for you, if you’re listening to this, is to think about it. Reflect on Brock's insights and ask yourself, “Where am I stretched too thin?”

The reason I’ve hesitated is that I like the niche service we provide, which includes fire mitigation (essentially forestry cleanup), land clearing for new construction, and road grading. I believe if we are consistently focused on dividing and conquering within our company—where someone is specifically responsible for excavation, someone else for forestry, and someone else for snow—we’re moving in the right direction.

However, issues arise when your team jumps around to all different services. Why? Because you miss out on efficiency. What I took away from Brock is that he picked septics and said, “I’m going to be the best septic installer anywhere near me.” They’re cleaning up—doing $2.3 million in revenue with just three people in the 2024 fiscal year!

Some of you might be listening who have built bigger businesses, but my question is: How many people does it take to get there? Tech businesses and software businesses hover around $750K per employee—that’s impressive, and they’re hustling.

Brock wears the hats of four people; he’s doing the jobs of four men. But that’s why I respect people like him. He is literally becoming the best version of himself through hard work.

If you haven’t listened to it, go back and check out Brock's episode. I did part one and part two, where we dove deeper into his story. If you’re in the excavation or construction industry, I highly encourage you to listen to those episodes. He explains how he bounced around doing various services as a general contractor before focusing solely on septic installation and becoming the best.

They are building a great business—they already have it—through hard work and specialization. I also brought him on and interviewed him over the Christmas break. We'll be releasing the latest episode to catch up on his latest story.

You all already know Garrett Williams; I mentioned him earlier. He is next in line on the top listened-to episodes with Episode 28: "Excavation Bidding Overview and Org Chart Structure with Garrett from G&M."

They run a $5 million business, and I wanted to pick his brain about how he thinks about bidding and structuring his organization.

I already mentioned the SEO tips episode. Okay, this one was fun: Chris Berg. If you’re listening, I appreciate you being on! Chris is a seasoned veteran entrepreneur. We discussed 21 years of entrepreneurship lessons with Chris, aka "The Car Wash Guy." If you’re on X, you’ll know him as that.

The reality is, though, that’s just one of his four businesses, where he makes money. He makes all his cash in the e-commerce business and is reusing that to buy car washes and leverage bonus depreciation to offset his taxes. He’s a super smart and savvy entrepreneur and has become a great friend.

He’s one of the people I lean on for entrepreneurial advice. He’s the one who first challenged me to hire faster than I thought I needed to. So Chris, thanks for all the help you've provided me in the first couple of years of starting this business.

This recap provides an overview of the top episodes from the past year. In 2024 and 2025, we’re going to do more of the same!

I've asked for your feedback, and all the feedback has been positive, so thanks to those of you who have been reaching out.

If you’re still listening, you've probably heard me mention it at the end of each episode, but we do a weekly newsletter. We have a media team in the back end—when I record an episode, we have a production process to put it into production, edit it, and post it.

We're leveraging AI tools and using a software called Descript. When you record in Squadcast, if any of you guys are coming on as guests, we record in Squadcast.

That software, owned by Descript, makes it easy to export your episode into text. You can then copy that and input it into something like Chat GPT or Claude. We have all these scripts—we run them by saying, “You are a professional newsletter writer. We want to summarize this episode and give our readers the main learning lessons.”

There are all these cool ways to optimize your business with AI. If you aren't using AI yet, I might do an episode about that because as we've taken on shoveling and more snow services, I've definitely used Chat GPT to optimize routes for our snow plow and shoveling crews.

But that’s beside the point. If you have not signed up for the newsletter, go to ownrops.com/newsletter to get summarized episodes sent to you in newsletter format.

At the time of this recording, you’ll still be signing up on the old website, but I hope the new one is launched soon. The whole thing is 72 hours from the kickoff call, so hopefully by the time I publish this, you'll be opting into that newsletter on the most updated site.

Guys, I’m pretty worked right now. We’re doing a lot of snow services. We've taken on about 180 snow shoveling accounts and have one plow route going. But as you guys know, there are just no days off.

We have the pedal to the metal and I'm jumping back into the truck, owner-operator style, for 2025. I'm not losing focus on the podcast because this is something that I enjoy; it brings me energy, and you guys have told me that you like it.

Once again, I’m just going to do more of the same. I'm going to interview people in service-based businesses and trade-based businesses—not tech or e-commerce. The only ones I might bring on are people like Chris.

I also have my friend Simon scheduled. He’s a savvy entrepreneur poised to give advice to those of us in the early stages of business. A couple of these guys have built and sold multiple businesses, including Simon.

I'm excited to interview him. He's launching an aviation venture called Turner Aviation; this will be his third business. He has committed about 20 years of his life to building these businesses—each run was about a decade before he sold it.

I’m excited to bring him on the podcast because he is someone who has continually poured into me and provided feedback along the way. Those are the types of people I want to bring on—anyone who I feel can give sound advice.

I’m also going to keep interviewing people in the services and trades. If you have a recommendation for someone who has built a great business or is building a great business, I want to hear from you or hear from them.

I’ve lined up interviews for the first couple of months here, but I would love to continue building out the interview schedule. We're going to stick to the once-a-week schedule.

As I said, I want this to remain fun. There may come a point in the future where we increase our volume, but my business is my main priority. You know I record on Friday and Saturday mornings, super early.

I feel like if I can dedicate a couple of hours a week to this, keep it going, and as long as it's still fun and people are getting value, I’m going to keep doing it. I love talking to other people, learning from them, and creating a format where you can learn from the same people I'm talking to.

If you decide to stick around up to this point and you have not liked or followed the podcast on Apple or Spotify, would you mind to go ahead and do that? Just like building a service-based business, five-star reviews are super important, so I’d love if you guys left us a five-star review.

You hear me mention this in every episode, but I believe it's vital. Whenever I ask a customer for a review and they offer a compliment, my first response is, “Look, our guys get a bonus for every five-star review we receive. Would you mind saying what you just said in a five-star Google review?”

"Oh yeah, no problem at all."

Okay, while I'm standing there with the customer, I just text them the link. It’s really important to focus on getting those five-star reviews.

So if you’re listening to this podcast, enjoying the content, and excited about 2025, would you mind going to Apple or Spotify, whichever you’re on, and leaving us a five-star review? Just like in service businesses, podcasts and their algorithms work similarly; it helps us a ton and we’d appreciate it.

If you’re listening on YouTube, would you mind to like and subscribe to the channel?

I think I’ve covered everything in this recap, and I’m excited for this year, 2025! I’ve already decided it’s going to be the best year yet. We’re going to grow the business.

I’ve set the goal to hit $2 million this year. I thought I was going to do this crazy goal-setting episode, but the reality is: just pick a goal, and then start doing the work.

Many people take too much time reading about and reflecting on goal-setting, and that’s awesome, but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in service-based businesses. So pick a goal. Last year, it was 1.2 million; this year it’s two million.

I’ll need to work hard to get there and hire some people.

With the podcast, I’m hesitant to even say I have a listens goal. We're probably at about 60,000 total right now. While 150,000 listens sounds good—doubling would be great—I’m not too focused on that.

What I’m more concerned with are the actions. When I goal-set now, my goals are referred to as lead measures. If you haven’t looked up the difference between lead measures and lag measures, go look that up online.

In short, lag measures are the outputs; lead measures are the inputs.

My goal is to make sure we publish one episode and one newsletter every single week. If we do that, the lag measures will take care of themselves—more listens, more views, followers, and all that social media stuff; they are vanity metrics.

I’ve talked about this before; the goal shouldn't just be to get more of those. If you're in this game, or if you're in content creation, it’s no different from building a business.

Yes, you can sit and think about generating $2 million in revenue, but if you don’t implement strategies to actually drive that, you’ll never get there.

You can create content for social media, write newsletters, and share insights. It’s about personal growth and the challenge of building your business.

So, for me, the podcast is a personal growth challenge. Can I commit to doing what I said I would do? Can I build a team and process around producing and publishing media?

For me, it’s about the challenge—doing the thing, and right now, I am doing the thing.

On the back end, our team will edit, publish, and do everything else. I’ll review it, and if I want to change something, I’ll let them know.

In 2024, we moved quickly; we threw a bunch of things against the wall. In 2025, we will refine those processes. Now that we have our first version of the post-production and publishing process, I can spend time studying titles, descriptions, and successful podcasts.

What are they doing that we're not? Those are the things that are fun and challenging as an entrepreneur.

Challenging yourself to get better every single day is worthwhile. It’s about the process, and I’m in love with that process.

You hear people say they want to make $10 million or grow a $10 million or even $100 million business. But once they achieve that, what then?

Christian Ruff, another guest I brought on last year, asked me, “What would you do if you were given $100 million?” Without hesitation, I said, “I’d go buy equipment and start offering forestry, excavation, and snow services.”

So, I know I’m doing what I would do if I achieved that goal anyway.

Once you achieve a financial goal, if you’re an entrepreneur and wired to grow, that craving never goes away.

I’m working on enjoying the process. You don’t have to have everything perfect right now. Enjoy figuring out how to improve things.

That’s what wakes me up at 3:00 or 4:00 AM every morning. I love trying to make things better because it’s a challenge, and it’s fun.

There’s no exact playbook for growing a forestry, excavation, and snow business. A lot of variables come into play depending on your market, so you have to be in the game to improve.

To me, that is enjoyable—challenging yourself to become the best version of yourself every single day.

So, in 2025, I challenge you to be the best version of yourself. How can you improve this year? What do you need to focus on to become a better version of your role in the business?

I know I'm not perfect; I make mistakes all the time, and I'm sure you do too. When you make a mistake, address it, own up to it, figure out how you can do better next time, and then move forward.

That’s all this entrepreneurial game is about.

I’m going to wrap this episode up there. I have to pee like a Russian racehorse. We’ll see you guys in the next episode.

Stick around; I’ve got some exciting episodes in January to be published. We’ve already recorded them, as I mentioned. Brock's coming back on and a couple of other exciting guests, so stay tuned!

Episodes are published every Friday, and newsletters go out on Saturdays. Check it out at ownrops.com to get more information. To sign up, go to ownrops.com/newsletter.

Don't forget—work hard, do your best, and never settle for less!