This is Rodney, my wonderful wife, Denise. We're with the podcast landscaping with Zebra scapes, and we want to tell you the story of behind it all. A lot of people see a business running, and they're like, they got it made what it takes to get going. It's impactful, isn't it?

Yeah. So that company I was working at, they laid off or terminated 30 and then they had another layoff. So work kept declining, and we had a family to feed, and we were raised to work hard stay out of debt. So we didn't use the credit card to buy food. We didn't we we grind it out. I would knock on doors, get a get, you know, clean up yard two to $300 write them on a paper. When I got to about $2,000 to work out, tell them we booked out about two weeks, three weeks. And then when I had enough money on the books. Then I would went and bought the equipment, knocked the workout, and then I paid the bill. And all the business, money went back in the business. And all the business, I was working nights, and you were working, went to feed the family. So we were putting in the hours, weren't we?

Yes, we were. So I had a remote job working from home, so I was able to be with our young daughters during the day, and Rodney was working at nights, and then we'd go out and door knock during the day for several weeks.

Yeah, try to hit the 10 doors and hope to get one. And that was usually what it was, sometimes too on a good day, but yeah, a company was called TK Haley after our three daughters, Trinity, Kylie Haley, and several years later, we were really looking how we can help the community. And our church was big in foster care. So

we were definitely said we're going to be a cartoon. I wanted to mark the trucks that can be seen. Our business grew. And owning a business is not the nine to five. Five to five. It is long hours. I remember in the rush of it, I would go to bed about 930 you'd go to bed about 230 in the morning, and we'd see each other. I was getting up and you're going to bed. Yeah,

I wanted to be with the girls during the day, when they were home, they weren't in school yet, and so I wanted to be able to be with them. And so I would, after we put them to bed at night, and Rodney would go to bed, I would stay up about six hours and do book work at that time. And so we'd pass each other in the wee hours of the morning, I

worked out of my quotes, and then I get home, I park the trailer in the garage and work on tools till nine o'clock. People don't think it's possible, but it's amazing what you do when you're in love with somebody.

So I always joke with people, when people ask where we graduated college that neither of neither one of us did. We got our PhD in being poor, hungry and driven, and so just to our listeners out there that maybe aren't good in school or don't have just success in testing environments that entrepreneurs are built in a different way. And just to explore that, and the more that you see opportunity and pursue it and doors can open,

yeah, that's for sure. What are some of the things you learned owning a baggage you regret it.

Oh, my. I learned so many things. So Rodney has a huge heart for people, and over the years, there's was just so many people that he believed the best in and and took advantage of him. And it's really heartbreaking to see, because it starts to callous your heart towards wanting to help people that there is genuine people in the world that want to change and better themselves. So I think looking back, you know, we, we tried to maybe help too much, to enable people more than they wanted to help themselves. We what would you say about that?

100% true. I believed a lot in people. I mean, there was several people that they cried. I gave them an older truck, couple 100,000 miles on them, and thought they deserved it onward from here six months, and they wrecked it a week later. And I don't know if I regret it, but I definitely learned a lot about leadership. Leader. Leadership, it takes a lot to lead. You got to they got to want to. They got to be hungry. Those are the ones we were. We have now. It's we're very grateful the team where we are today, it took a lot to get here. We just ground. We worked. We didn't think of it as a business. And we and my for our first yard, for the first seven years in electricity, didn't have water. It was just a yard, and I snow on the ground, whatever. Until we were able to, we saved the money up. We didn't, we didn't go out and get a bunch of debt, put a bunch of overhead over us. But now we're blessed with an amazing yard and an opportunity. But most of all, we seek to hire people smarter than us, smarter than us, more knowledgeable, and that's where we are today, and now, every time we hire someone, we're looking for where they can get to long term.

Yeah, I think you know, looking back to tell my younger self is we maybe felt threatened by people smarter than us, and now see it as such an asset that you always want to surround yourself with people smarter than you, and also just being in the business for so long, you help recognize that just because people are smarter than you doesn't mean that they can go out and start their own business and be successful. It takes a lot more than just being smart.

Yeah, I think when you talk about threatened, I always sit there and say, why would they work for us to do it themselves? Until about 10 years later, we hired some very, some great people, and they just don't want to own it on business. They don't want those night hours, that full responsibility, but huge, knowledgeable, impactful people that taught us tremendous about business. Yeah,

I just remember, and in the younger years, maybe 10 years, 15 years ago, I would have receipts all over our house. And, you know, tried to teach my girls how to organize the receipts, credit card receipts, and put them in date order and highlight the totals and mark them off on the statement, so very early. I mean, 10 years old, they were doing that for me and getting everything organized. And I think it's going to help them in their futures as well.

Yeah, we had one time that they were wanting to earn money to go on a vacation, and we told them we could do this yard cleanup together as a family, and they could get paid for it to use on vacation. And at that time, they could barely even hold the back plague blower on their back, and yet, there they were blowing the leaves out, and we have pictures of that. It's just such precious memories of just really teaching them the value of hard work and that nothing's given to you freely, that that it a good work ethic is will take you far in life.

Yeah, I don't think they, I mean, they're years later. 18 years later, they've gone huge. We got one. Our oldest has a father daughter, construction and their other one has a lighthouse coffee, which is great. But today, where we are today, 17 years later, we are have grown. Our marketing has improved. We. We have some zebras at our place. Huge marketing opportunity from the drive by. So marketing is big. We went around town put metal zebras up just it's long ornament. There's nothing wrong about it. Then we're,

yeah, we've tried to be heavily involved in the community. We participate in the Fourth of July parade and Christmas parades and just events downtown, we try to have a client appreciation a couple times a year where they're invited to our yard and office and see various aspects of landscaping, water features, outdoor furniture, outdoor kitchens, to try to help visualize what they could have in their yard. And we also do employee appreciation events. So our team always knows, you know, the value of that they're bringing the hard work every day, and that they're a valuable part of zebra scapes.

Yeah, we started at EXPO Mother's Day. They come in for Expo spring and fall. That's pretty big to tie in. We have food and everything here. It's awesome to see the just the employees that are enjoying it. Here we have we learn a lot and where we are today, from where we came from. It's very impressive for neither of us any business background, no education. It's just hard work. Like Denise said,

everything's self taught. So I love math and numbers and finances, and so I just learned profit and loss and balance sheet and all the things it takes to run a business, just by Google and Rodney is really gifted in marketing, and just, he's a very out of the box thinker, and comes up with, sometimes, what I think are crazy ideas that usually end up, you know, being a smashing success. So I think together, just the visionary and the you know, the financial clarity has made us a successful team. And

one thing for sure, we're not. We're our focus ain't driven by money. Our focus is driven by our legacy. You know, what we're what we stand for? Yeah, you know, that's huge. That's I highly sleepless nights with an unhappy customer that's disappointed in us will keep me up at night. You know, we thrive, our mission, our core values, quality, integrity, efficiency, teamwork and relationships. That has driven us to where we are today, and that's the group of people we got. If they don't follow those, you know they're not, they can't be a lead of what we're looking for. We're actually constantly striving to get people part of this.

We've got a beautiful place on Willow Creek Road, and have been able to just incorporate a lot of different landscape ideas and into our yard and office area with pavers and and synthetic turf and water features that people can come out and look at and just get ideas for what they could have in their yards as well.

So what's the future hold?

Only God knows.

Yeah, this is the good Lord's business. But one thing is we're working toward. We have one employee owned to get involved in the company. We're only as good as they are, and so we are trying, not trying, we offer to them and get the steps to grow. We're kind of capped. We're done growing. We brought in some several amazing people workers, and they're like, let's ramp this thing up and make an impact, and let's start educating and that's what this podcast is about, is basically educating new people that wanted to start their own business, and then also the customers that we have, what it took to where we get and where we're who we are. And we're very, very blessed. We have an amazing family. We do a lot with our family, and then, like you said, a lot in the community, and always looking at ways to be more helpful and more impactful, not only to the community but the families and to the employees.

So I hope that this story is inspiring, especially to listeners that maybe think it's such a far reach, because literally, we were trying to feed our kids supper that night. And so I hope that it can resonate with people, to really motivate and inspire you, that sometimes a dream seems big and far off, but go for it.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, uh, budget planning, the. Staying on track is very important. I mean, you had a strong budget, a food budget. I was, if I remember right, 275, a month, and I would open the refrigerator and be like, there's nothing in there. And you said, you have two more days until the next month.

We had a lot of rice and beans. That's right,

five pound bag of rice. But you know what? We stayed out of the didn't use your credit card. We thrived and grind hard, and we're very blessed where we are today. It's, you can't get my head around how the good Lord blessed us and where we are so well. Thank you for listening and look forward to this podcast. It's landscaping with Zebra scapes. We're hoping that we can teach, educate and encourage people be entrepreneurs of any sort, and also just explore what you can do with your yard, and we're proud to be a part of your journey.

Thanks for listening. Bye.