Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:24] Welcome to this very special edition of Cherokee Business Radio. It is our House to Home series, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by Woodstock Neighbors Magazine, bringing neighbors and business together. For more information, go to Facebook and Instagram at Woodstock Neighbors dot wbvm. And if you have a heart for community and you want to grow your small business, please consider joining our Community Impact Movement, the Main Street Warriors program. Go check us out at Main Street warriors.org. You guys are in for a real treat this morning. First up on House to Home Radio, please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Bolst Real estate Mr. Tom Hardy. How are you man?

Tom Hardy: [00:01:11] Wonderful. So stoked to be here. Well, excited.

Stone Payton: [00:01:15] We’re so delighted to have you in the studio. We’ve been planning this for a long time. I got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think maybe a great place to start would be if you could articulate for me and our listeners, mission, purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Tom Hardy: [00:01:33] Absolutely, absolutely. Well, um, the best way to talk about my mission and purpose, honestly, would be to just kind of go back to the beginning of my real estate story because it was kind of, um, formative and how I got here. Um, so, like, I was telling you personally, uh, a little while ago, my wife and I were renters for a very long time, and we had this huge problem where we would be renting at a place, rent a house, be there for about two years, three years max. And then the the owner would sell the home. And, you know, we get the 60 day notice and pretty soon we’d be, you know, rinse, repeat doing it again, moving into a new place, making that look really cute. And then as soon as we get fully settled in and we feel like we’re going to be there a while, same thing would happen. And this ended up happening about three times to us before. Ultimately, we were like, no, we put our foot down and we’re like, no, we’re buying this place. We’re we love this place. We don’t want to go anywhere else, and we don’t want this to happen to us anymore. So for the first time ever, we got serious about, okay, we’re we’re going to become homeowners. We’re going to do this. So we pulled all our resources, pulled every lever that we had in our disposal and barely locked in and were able to close on our home right at the beginning of Covid, like, right when first Covid started out.

Tom Hardy: [00:02:50] So we got lucky, you know, just situationally with how, you know, all that was playing out. The market was going nuts. You know, at the time the interest rates were very, very low. We were able to lock in at a very low interest rate and get it done. But, um, one thing we were able to avoid was competition with other people simply because it was just we got lucky just right there during that first week when everything was crazy and, you know, everybody was Clorox wet, wiping their groceries and all that. We were buying a house. And, um, but the feeling of relief we experienced when we closed that day and got out to the parking lot and we were just, you know, high fives, hugs and and just that relief that we felt that, you know, that load off of our shoulders, that that was the moment that kind of a light bulb went off for me. And I kind of knew that this is what I wanted to do. This is what I want to do with my life. This is what I want to do with my career, is help people get to this point in their life where they can experience this emotion that we’re experiencing right here. So that’s what guides everything I do is, is that just helping people, helping people.

Stone Payton: [00:03:55] Now that you’ve been at it a while, what are you finding the most rewarding? Man? What’s the most fun about it for you?

Tom Hardy: [00:04:01] Like I said, that right there. I mean, being there for, like, say, um, first time home buyers in that moment, you know, guiding them through that process and then just the satisfaction of, you know, having done it, you know, a job well done for them and just celebrating with them, you know, one of the biggest days of their life, certainly one of the biggest purchases they’re ever going to make in their entire life. And you got to guide them through that. It’s a very rewarding, you know, awesome experience.

Stone Payton: [00:04:27] Now you had to go get licensed in that you had to go to school, I suspect. Right. And you have to get you got to get the stamp of approval. What was that experience like?

Tom Hardy: [00:04:35] It was it was good, very educational. Um, I did an online course, so it was a lot of reading, just page after page after page. But, um, I found it fascinating. And the more the, the more, um, you know, deeper into that class I got, the more I was, you know, kind of confirming to myself, this is what I want to do because everything was clicking, you know, all the concepts made sense. And, um, ultimately, you know, I’m really big on integrity and, um, and, you know, treating people the way, you know, the golden rule, all of those facets. And I very, very quickly found that the best way to do business in this, in this industry is to to abide by those, you know, fundamentals. So. You know, as I was going through that class, I was starting to realize this. Like, not only are you going to, you know, get an opportunity to help people, but, you know, you’re going to be able to do it on your own terms and you’re never going to have to screw anyone over, and you’ll be able to sleep like a baby at night. So that’s my goal. It’s my goal to just operate with integrity, help people and impact lives.

Stone Payton: [00:05:42] So there’s the paperwork, there’s the math, there’s the legalities. I mean, I starved to death in this business, I can tell you that right now. But there’s also the the relationship building that like, talk through how you learned how to effectively and productively show a house, for instance. I mean, that was all brand new to you too, right? What have you learned about showing a home?

Tom Hardy: [00:06:03] Oh, tons. Tons. Um, it it’s, um, that was, um. Well, when I first started, I was mainly, you know, working with buyers and the buyer side. So that was one of the first kind of crash courses I received out in the field was showing homes and kind of how to do that. Right. And, and, you know, pitfalls to avoid and things you want to, to focus on. But, um. Um, yeah. Um, showing homes is actually a lot of fun. I really enjoy a good day where I’m just out in the field showing house after house and. All right, where are we going to next? You know, get a big day lined up. Seven places to go check out. But, um, it’s a great you know, it’s a great experience to kind of get out there in the field with them and kind of deduce down which houses they’re going to like. But, um, yeah, in terms of actually navigating all that, obviously you want to kind of, you know, coach your buyers up to, you know, abide by certain, you know, unspoken or maybe they, you know, educate them on things to, you know, pitfalls to avoid. Um, you know, you don’t want to talk too much about the house when you’re in the house. You never know if someone’s got like a, you know, security cam or a Nest Cam. Oh, I hadn’t.

Stone Payton: [00:07:06] Thought about that. Like, oh, look, look, honey, they’re showing our home. Let’s listen in.

Tom Hardy: [00:07:11] Yeah. Good or bad. Because, you know, I mean, you know, you’re obviously when you get go under contract with a seller, you know, from that point forward you’re operating a good faith and as are they, that everyone is kind of marching in lockstep towards the the closing table. But before that, you’re competing with other buyers, you know, and you don’t necessarily know the seller’s full situation and they don’t know yours. So talking too much can kind of tip your hand in terms of maybe could possibly weaken your bid. Or maybe they overhear a conversation and they just simply go, I don’t like those people. And that can weaken the strength of your bid right there. Because, I mean, numbers are one thing and numbers are a big part of this. I mean, these are big, huge, ginormous transaction transactions, but it would blow your mind how much of this is actually the people element, how much of the business has to do with people? Well, that’s really.

Stone Payton: [00:08:06] People coming to light for me more and more because I had always, I guess, in my mind, framed up real estate as a very transactional business. And I’m beginning to learn nothing could be further from the truth. This is an it’s very grounded in relationship, isn’t it? Absolutely.

Tom Hardy: [00:08:22] Absolutely. 100%. I mean, just about every single bid that every offer that I’ve ever submitted and bid that I’ve won, you know, um, I could go back and and kind of trace back through those conversations I had, say, with the listing agent. That, um, you know, laid the groundwork for us ultimately winning the bid. I mean, like, you know, when you think about it in terms of, like, you know, the you’ve got your house, house just went on the market, you’ve had it on the market for about 4 or 5 days. You know, you get a bunch of offers, you’re laying them all on the table and at the end, you know, like maybe a lot of these offers are identical. Even so really, you know, what’s the differentiating factor that let’s say if you got three offers and they’re basically all identical, what’s going to be the element that calls, you know, which offer are you going to pick. Well, you’re probably going to pick the offer of the team that you liked the most because it’s not just about liking them, it’s about working with them together and collaborating with them to get to the closing table. So yeah, you know, establishing good rapport. People’s an extremely important element of it all.

Stone Payton: [00:09:30] Well, that’s another unique aspect of your your business. I guess it’s not like other realtors. They’re certainly not the enemy, but in a lot of respects, they’re not like people might envision a competitor in other arenas. You guys have to work together a lot. You may be working on another deal next week, and you may be on the other side of a deal. Yeah. So the the realtor community is a pretty collaborative group of folks, isn’t it?

Tom Hardy: [00:09:55] It’s a small world too. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:09:57] And people get to know you. They get to know you if you’re a good person or.

Tom Hardy: [00:10:00] Absolutely. So yeah, you always want to be putting good out there, making sure you’re. Yeah. Keeping your side of the tracks clean, so to speak.

Stone Payton: [00:10:08] So have you had the benefit of one or more mentors to help you kind of navigate this terrain early on?

Tom Hardy: [00:10:15] I have I’ve had a few key mentors along the way right now at this at this moment, I’m kind of lone wolf mode. But yeah, I’ve had some wonderful mentorship through through the years that have really helped me develop my game.

Stone Payton: [00:10:29] All right. So let’s talk about the work a little bit. I’m never going to happen in a million years. But just for hypothetically, Holly and I want to sell our house. Um, we, uh, so we reach out to you and say, you know, I’ll tell you, Holly, we got we got to talk to Tom. Right? So what, we get together at your office, you come to us and we sit down and have some kind of initial conversation, right?

Tom Hardy: [00:10:48] Yeah, absolutely. That’s that’s, you know, it’s the first thing you do. It’s also one of the most important things you’re going to do in that process is get together. And it’s called a listing presentation. But really it’s a conversation because, yeah, you know, you’ve got a lot on your mind about the house that, you know, you want to convey to the realtor. And there’s also a lot that you don’t know that needs to be that you need to be kind of caught up on especially, you know, you know, the real estate landscape is always changing. It’s constantly changing every year there, you know, changing the way the documents are written, certain stipulations that get added or omitted that you’re basically kind of have to stay up on, but.

Stone Payton: [00:11:25] So I’m thinking about this Holly and Stone scenario. There’s also getting the the the a couple like that on the same page. Right. Like you ever do a little therapy. You got to get them on the same page. Right. Because she may have different ideas. Yeah. First of all, we both probably don’t even know necessarily all the right questions to ask, things we ought to be considering. So you’re educating us. But we got we got to get them on the same page before we can move forward. Right.

Tom Hardy: [00:11:49] And like I said, it can be an emotional process too for for the seller. I mean, this is your this is your home. You’ve, you’ve, you know, you’ve poured a lot of love into this place. And, and, you know, you want to make sure you’re getting everything out of it that you put into it and then some, you know, so it’s a, you know, there’s a lot of emotions attached to that with, um, you know, with sellers. So part of the job is just kind of easing them into it and kind of, you know, calming the calming the environment, so to speak, and kind of, you know, educating them on what to expect the process of, you know, it really helped to kind of lay out the process, too, of like, everything that you’re going to have to do to prepare the house, you know, before it actually goes live. And there’s a lot that goes into that. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:12:34] Let’s dive into that a moment, because it strikes me as one of those items where I might think because of my lack of knowledge, oh, if we’re going to sell the house, we got to fix this or spruce this up and you might come in and say, well, no, that’s really not going to make much of a difference. Don’t put your time and energy and money in that. But that one thing you hadn’t thought about that you got to get that right before we go. Right. There’s that kind of stuff. Oh yeah.

Tom Hardy: [00:12:55] Exactly. I mean like. We, um, just recently, I, uh, um, had a closing in the house. There was a, um, a medical lift out in front of the house that had to be removed. This was a, you know, a $10,000. Endeavor. I mean, it was like a it was basically an elevator out in front of the house, like a platform lift. Right? Um, but that money that cost what was far offset by the value that the house received by it not being there. So.

Stone Payton: [00:13:28] Got it. But but you would know these things.

Tom Hardy: [00:13:31] Yeah. So it’s just a matter of, you know, communicating to that in a way where they can get behind, you know, that expenditure and know that they’re doing the right thing to go ahead and.

Stone Payton: [00:13:40] Right, right. Prepare the house. So how does day to day, the whole sales and marketing thing work for a realtor? Like how do you find the stone and Holly that are ready to to sell? Are you out there shaking the bushes? Do you run ads? Do you count on I don’t know, people like Zach who are doing, you know, making their yards beautiful and knowing that maybe they want to sell or buy or how do you get the new business.

Tom Hardy: [00:14:04] You know, that’s an amazing question. That’s the million dollar question. Actually, um, when I first started, I, you know, I couldn’t have answered that properly. Um, and my answer was just to be, you know, would have probably just been to say, call people, call people, call people. But, um, that’s still kind of the answer you need to be calling people all the time. You can be reaching out to people. But, um, over time, I slowly realized that it’s more about kind of developing relationships with, like, your community, especially your, your local community, like even down to a micro level of your neighborhood, your street, like out, you know, reaching out to your community and more meaningful way than just chatting with people, um, like, for example, like, um, well, like recently, um, I started trying to get creative with, okay, so how I am going to how am I going to organically kind of. You know, insert myself into my community more in a more organic way, in a way that kind of fits with what I’m doing. So I just went and joined a softball team.

Stone Payton: [00:15:05] So that’s kind of that’s an.interesting marketing strategy.

Tom Hardy: [00:15:06] You just kind of get creative.

Stone Payton: [00:15:07] Zach. You’re tall. Maybe you should join a basketball team.

Zach Hannah: [00:15:09] Yeah, there we go.

Zach Hannah: [00:15:10] We can all play sports together.

Tom Hardy: [00:15:11] It kind of worked. I mean, within like two, two and a half weeks of being on this team, I had. Well, these are clients that I’ll be working with in the spring. But at the time they were strongly considering just moving right then and there, selling their house and buying another house. So I almost had $2 million in business just within two minutes, two minutes of joining this softball team. So yeah, they call it farming. It sounds like a dirty word, but I don’t I don’t want to view it as farming. I you know, farming could be anything. You know, farming is really just like is how do you cultivate your leads and doing it in a, in a bigger way than just say, you know, doing a mailer or sending out a bunch of emails or whatever? This is more like an outreach where you’re actually getting to know people and not in a way where you’re pushing your services on to them, but more just getting to know them, just becoming friends with people and then, you know, naturally, organically, as time goes on, you are able to kind of, you know, talk about what you do. And, and in that way you’re able to, you know, in the most organic way possible, garner business.

Stone Payton: [00:16:11] And then other people in the in what I’ll call the real estate ecosystem, probably. Right. Your, your all of your home services, your appraisers, your mortgage people, your folks that work on the on the landscape, all those are good relationships to have. Because it goes back to what we said. It’s much more of a relationship business when you get down to it than it is purely transactional, isn’t it?

Tom Hardy: [00:16:33] Yeah. And and past that, you know, as a realtor, you’re always trying to provide value to people. So one of the best ways to do that is to have a, you know, a ton of lawyers in your in your phone book, a ton of lenders, a ton of landscapers, you know, anyone you can think of that maybe you could refer to someone if they’re, you know, in a situation where they need a plumber. Well, hey, I got your guy. Don’t go to Google. I got your guy. You know, that kind of thing. So.

Stone Payton: [00:16:56] Well, that’s incredibly powerful and impactful, I think to know that to be the guy that knows the guy, right. In your community, in your world, that’s a that’s got to be very powerful. I’m going to switch gears on you a minute. Uh, I don’t know when you’d have time with all the the being on the buyer side, the listing side, the doing, the marketing, the playing, the softball. But I’ll ask anyway, what passions, if any, outside the scope of this work do you, uh, try to pursue? My listeners know I like to hunt, fish and travel. Right. So that’s that’s in fact, I’m probably going to hit the woods actor after the show, but, uh, yeah.

Tom Hardy: [00:17:32] Waiting on you to invite me out there. Just.

Stone Payton: [00:17:34] Absolutely. But what are you kind of nerd out about when you’re not doing real estate, man?

Tom Hardy: [00:17:39] Yeah, I love it. That’s a great question. Um, I’m, uh, I’m actually kind of weird. I don’t really know anyone else that does my whole thing, but, um, I guess if you boiled it down, I’m just like, I’m really into fitness, but I guess you could call it, like, unconventional fitness because I don’t have a gym membership. In fact, five out of seven days a week. And I do mean like all the time I skateboard, I longboard around, we’ve got we’ve got a big neighborhood with a ton of huge and I do mean huge hills. Do you wear a helmet? Absolutely. Especially the way I ride. I mean, speaking of Covid, I actually picked longboarding up right at the beginning of Covid. It was my Covid hobby. And, um, first time I stepped foot on, I was terrible and fell off a bunch and couldn’t even hardly push. But now I’ve leveled up my game so much. I’m probably a danger to myself out there as hard as I ride. But I’ve got, um, you know, we live in Ormewood Ormewood Avenue that runs kind of parallel to the street we live on. It’s just it’s just a deep bowl either side of that road. It’s like a mile long road, but either sides like a half mile. It’s just all downhill. But there’s cars on the road, so it’s it’s a weird sport that I wouldn’t necessarily try to be like a thought leader on or a, you know, influencer, because I don’t want people, you know, I don’t want some someone’s kid hurting themselves and coming back at me. Look what you did to my kid. So it’s not necessarily a good social sport. So that’s kind of where I started kind of brainstorming about the, you know, how can I use sports and, and reach out to people. So that’s kind of where softball came in. But I also liked basketball a lot. So go up to Grant Park a lot and just kind of play with strangers up there, run full court with people.

Stone Payton: [00:19:18] Oh, fun. So you mentioned longboard, which must be very different than the the board I got when I was 12. Yeah. You can’t.

Tom Hardy: [00:19:24] You can’t pop a kickflip on it or anything. Okay. The wheels are all the way out at the end. So it’s more like carving, like you’re on a snowboard. It’s like you’re snowboarding on land, on on concrete.

Stone Payton: [00:19:36] It’s such a fun question because you learn stuff about people you would never imagine in a million years. That is fun. All right, before we wrap, I’d love it if we could leave, uh, buyers and sellers both. Maybe with a handful of pro tips. Just some some things to be thinking about, some questions to ask. Maybe something they should be reading, doing, not doing. And look, number one tip gang, if you’re on either side of this equation and you want some some input and just want to have a conversation, reach out to Tom. Have a conversation. Absolutely. Uh, but let’s leave them with a couple of actionable things just to get their wheels turning.

Tom Hardy: [00:20:07] Pro tips. Pro tips? Um, well, um, I well, I can say, um, just, you know, uh, if I could offer some encouragement to start that, um, you know, uh, 20, 23 was, you know, going into the year, it was kind of scary seeing all the new news articles and kind of the predictions. And, um, you know, my YouTube feed was feed was just filling up full of all this doomsday, you know. Right, right. The industry is going to collapse. You know, market’s going to crash. And and that ended up not happening at all. In fact, the the the market is actually stronger right now, believe it or not. Huh. After this crazy year. So, um, I just want to offer some encouragement that 2024 looks to be a great year for the market and a bounce back year, and should hold a lot of opportunities for people. So if you’re if you’ve got that itch and you’re thinking about doing it, if you’re thinking about, you know, making taking that next step certainly reach out to me because we can have a dialog about it.

Stone Payton: [00:21:05] All right. So what’s the best way to do that? Uh, you know, email, LinkedIn, phone number, website, whatever is, uh, best for you. Absolutely.

Tom Hardy: [00:21:12] You can reach me at see, my phone number is 404 9737509. And you can call or shoot me a text. Probably the best way to get get a hold of me, but you can also send me an email at Tom Hardy at bolst.homes. That’s Tom, Tom Hardy h a r d y at b o l s t dot h o m e s.

Stone Payton: [00:21:35] Nicely done. By the way, gang, you can’t see this because we’re on radio. He was looking at his business card because he never emails himself or calls himself, so he wanted to make sure he got it right. Yeah.

Tom Hardy: [00:21:45] I’ve got all kinds of notes over here that I. That I didn’t even get to.

Stone Payton: [00:21:48] Hey, stay with us, man, while we visit with our next guest. Yeah. Absolutely. Fantastic. All right, gang, y’all ready for the headliner? Please join me in welcoming to the show with Hannah Outdoor Designs. The man himself, Zach Hannah. How are you, man?

Zach Hannah: [00:22:03] Good. Appreciate you having me on.

Speaker5: [00:22:04] Thank you very much.

Stone Payton: [00:22:05] Glad to do it. We met at Young Professionals of Woodstock. Is that where we met? Yeah.

Zach Hannah: [00:22:10] That’s correct.

Stone Payton: [00:22:11] I don’t know why they let me in that crowd. I, uh, I’m a little long in the tooth to be part of an organization that starts with young, but it’s, uh, it’s it’s a great organization. I love the Circle of Friends coffee shop, and I like hanging out with that gang, but, uh, you and I visited very briefly. I knew right then, right then and there. I had to get you on this show and learn more about your about your work. Talk to us about your about your work, man. What’s the mission and purpose? Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:22:36] So my mission, I want to inform the proper industry standards. You know, there’s, uh, there’s some codes and some guidelines that you can follow, uh, you know, in the industry, and a lot of people don’t follow them, you know, a lot of people, unfortunately.

Zach Hannah: [00:22:50] You know, imagine.

Speaker5: [00:22:51] That. Yeah. There’s no not really many licenses in the landscaping industry. So allows a lot of people to. So. Be called the landscapers. So, you know, just trying to teach people the, you know, the right way and the proper standards because, you know, it might look pretty when they get done. But two, three, five years down the road, they have a lot of issues and wish they would have, you know, hired somebody to do it the right the first time.

Stone Payton: [00:23:14] I’ll bet. So recently I’ve become more and more enamored, I guess, or at least appreciative of what lighting can do to a home in the evening. I guess it’s because of all the Christmas lights and that kind of stuff. But year round that, uh, that’s one of those things that can add a lot of curb appeal and just really make your, your home look great. But again, you want to you want to do it right. Speak to that a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:23:37] Uh, outdoor lighting can, you know, add a lot of things to your home. You know, you can add security, it can add, you know, more ambiance and can, you know, make the space feel larger and really create an awesome space, either the front of the house, the back of the house, you can do spotlights, cap lights, you can do path lights. You know, there’s multiple different ways you can do outdoor lights to really spruce up your home and make it a, you know, pop. There’s a lot of Bluetooth connections where you can control the app right on your phone. I mean, there’s color changing lights now. I mean, you can change them from red to green to white to, you know, all sorts of colors. It’s pretty cool how the technology has changed over the years.

Stone Payton: [00:24:15] There’s probably some ways to do it wrong too, right? Like running, just running that 100 foot extension cord and a baby. I put up some lights.

Speaker5: [00:24:24] Yeah, you know, a lot of people to like, you know, the wires, the splicing of the wires. It’s the big thing, you know, they don’t put the proper wire nuts or the connections and then things, you know, fade out, and you have issues with corrosion and everything like that. So, you know, the proper techniques and splicing, you know, the wires and making sure they got the grease fittings and they’re waterproof. So huge on that.

Stone Payton: [00:24:43] Well, and there’s the design side of things right as well I can see like I can appreciate when I see something that just looks marvelous and I can go home and try to recreate it, but that’s just not my skill set. I’m I don’t know, I’ve never even tried it, but I’m sure it’s not. Is that how a lot of your relationships? Is that the early part of your work, sitting down with folks and kind of mapping it out and sharing some options that maybe they haven’t even thought of?

Speaker5: [00:25:09] Yeah, you know, it’s a little bit of both. You know, we do 2D and 3D designs for, for customers. And then we can also do for lights. We can do, uh, take a picture of the front of the house, the back of the house, you know, existing retaining wall or a new retaining wall we’re building. And before we get finished, we can take a picture and we can show the customer a little rendering of what it’s going to look like at night. It’s pretty awesome technology, what you can use, I’ll bet.

Stone Payton: [00:25:29] So retaining wall that strikes me as one of those things. If you screw that up and don’t do that right, I suspect you could screw up everything from your driveway or some area of your property, to impacting a neighbor’s property and being in trouble with them and the county or the city or you. You’ve probably run into either actual challenges or challenges that you helped avert by doing doing it right. Huh? Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:25:55] I mean, proper way to build a retaining wall. Just, uh, you know, we can start from there. Um, the there’s a couple different processes and steps with the retaining wall. You know, the first thing is the, you know, permit. Do you need a permit to build, build the wall? Every city and county and Atlanta is different, you know, Woodstock here, uh, Cherokee County, anything four feet and below, you won’t need a permit. But, you know, some counties, like, uh, the Hickory Flat or, uh, Holly Springs, I believe it’s, uh, I think two, 2.5ft. You need to pull a permit, you know, down in the city of Atlanta. Same thing around there. Uh, you know, Fulton, Forsyth County, those are all different. Some are, you know, six feet below. So you just got to really do your homework and, uh, double check to see if you need a permit and a survey to to build a wall. You know, if you don’t, you know, you can get going. But, you know, a lot of people say, oh, yeah, I can build you a wall. And then, you know, you look at them and I get a call and can we repair this? And no, unfortunately it’s not, uh, repairable. You know, it’s got a little sag and dip and there’s there’s corners missing and there’s gravel coming out of it. There’s no gravel. So, you know, the to do the retaining wall. Right. You really got to get the footer.

Speaker5: [00:27:00] So there’s a main process of digging down the ground. So you dig down the ground you find solid ground. And then from there you bring in what’s called 57 stone and then 57 stone is the base, uh, gravel that you use for the bottom. And then that is about a two foot wide by 10 to 12in deep, and then that’s gets compacted. And then from there you build your blocks. I like to call them Legos for customers. You know, you take the Lego and you build one Lego completely in the ground. You take one of the modular blocks and you put them completely under the ground, and that’s your footer base. And then from there, you keep building up and up and up. Now the process after that they are depending on the block, but typically they have holes in the block. And then from there you fill that with 57 stone and then you keep going. You they have a lip typically behind them. And that lip is what interlocks them. Some have pins, some have. There’s all sorts of different types, but typically it’s just like a little lip. And you put that lip on the back and you just keep stacking, stacking. And that gets filled with 57 stone and. Then behind it. So you have a drainage system, either a corrugated or solid pipe behind the retaining wall. And then from there you’ll have what’s called a weep hole.

Speaker5: [00:28:06] So about every 30 to 50ft, you’ll have a weep hole in the retaining wall that allows water that gets behind the wall to penetrate on the outside of the wall. So you have the pipe behind the wall that’s usually on your second course of your, you know, your Legos, your modular block. And then if the wall is over three foot tall, you have a system called geogrid. That’s a synthetic fiber that holds the ground and gravel in place and that gets rolled back into the hillside. So if the wall is three feet, you know, you don’t have to do it. But anything above three feet. So you got a four foot wall, you’re going to dig back about four feet back into the earth and roll that geogrid back four feet. So the first foot back is going to be completely filled with gravel. So your little trench behind your retaining wall is all going to be gravel. And then from there it’s going to be compacted clean, fill dirt. You’re going to take a machine and compact that, and then that’s going to get on top of your geogrid. And then once you’re done, you have a nice little cap that’s glued on and you’re rocking and rolling. But a lot of people don’t do it right. And I get called every day to come take a look at a wall, see if it’s repairable.

Stone Payton: [00:29:12] Tom, do you get the idea that he’s done this before?

Tom Hardy: [00:29:15] We got a wall for it. We got a little corner house, and half our walls are just like, they need a V8, you know?

Zach Hannah: [00:29:22] Right? Right.

Tom Hardy: [00:29:22] Degrees off. Off the side of.

Stone Payton: [00:29:24] This conversation reminds me of a billboard I saw a couple of years ago. And it was we fixed $2,000 nose jobs.

Zach Hannah: [00:29:32] I thought that was a.

Stone Payton: [00:29:32] Brilliant a brilliant ad. All right, I got to know the backstory, man. How in the world did you find yourself in this, in this line of work? Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:29:39] So, uh, I was in college, and I was working on a golf course, and I just started working on a golf course industry and built my way up from there, moved down to Georgia to take a golf course job. I’ve done a little bit of everything in industry. I’ve done, uh, commercial builds. Uh, you know, the Bucky’s up there in Calhoun.

Zach Hannah: [00:29:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker5: [00:29:59] So I was a project manager estimator for another company before I started my own company. Did, uh, did that. I’ve done, uh, commercial irrigation, uh, done residential design build. And I also have experience in residential and commercial maintenance. So, you know, chemicals to pine straw to pruning to, you know, seasonal color, a little bit of everything. And then, uh, you know, decided it was just time to, you know, make my own destiny. And, uh, let’s start my, my own big gig. And here I am.

Stone Payton: [00:30:29] So were there some surprises early on when you went out on your own? Did some things like. Man, I never anticipated that. Or.

Zach Hannah: [00:30:37] Oh, yeah, of.

Speaker5: [00:30:37] Course, you know, you’re like, oh, well, I thought I could do this right. Or, you know, the business side of things like the, you know, the taxes and the business license and everything like that. So, you know, it’s been a learning curve, but it’s, uh, you know, it all falls back on me if I don’t do something right. Yeah. You know, falls back to me and my business partner. So, you know, it’s a good learning curve.

Zach Hannah: [00:30:55] So talk to.

Stone Payton: [00:30:56] Me about grass, man. Of all the things I don’t know. And it’s a pretty big list. I don’t know the first thing about grass, but I have admired different kinds of grass on different lawns. Do you, do you get into that at all?

Speaker5: [00:31:08] Oh, yeah. So there’s, uh, three main types of grass in Georgia. So, uh, Bermuda, there’s, uh, your main grass, uh, about, I’d say 85% of the lawns in Georgia here have, uh, Bermuda, you know, great grass, great for, uh, great for sun. Doesn’t love shade. So if you have some shady issues, Bermuda does not love the shade at all. It’ll get choked out and it’ll start dying away and dying away and dying away. You know, great grass. You can make it look good. Fertilize it, you know, put some chemicals on it in the springtime for pre-emergent and in the fall. And, you know, other than that, it’s a pretty hardy grass, you know, you might have to water it, you know, if you’ve got a newly established lawn. But other than that, you know, people’s homes. You don’t really have to water Bermuda too much unless we get a really, really crazy drought. Uh, the next one is, uh, Georgia. You know, there’s a laundry list of different, uh, Georgia’s and Georgia. But I would say the my favorite is Georgia. It looks like a nice golf course. Grass. You can cut that down. People like to reel mow that too. And you can get some nice stripes in it. That’s my, you know, my favorite thing.

Stone Payton: [00:32:07] How do you do that? I’ve seen that. Yeah. Like on the baseball diamonds. How do they how do you do that.

Speaker5: [00:32:11] So it’s just a directional pattern. So if you’re if you see the white line that means you’re following the mower downwards. Now the green line means they’re coming backwards. So it’s just a directional pattern in the grass. So it’s just you know go down turn around and go back forth. So that’s how they just do it back and forth.

Zach Hannah: [00:32:27] It looks so cool.

Speaker5: [00:32:28] They do the crisscross checkers I mean you can you can cut any type of pattern you really want on that. But you know it’s awesome what you can do. You know Zion, Georgia, it needs, uh, you know, 4 to 6 hours of sunlight to really thrive. So that one’s a lot more shade tolerant. Grass in, in Georgia. Uh, you know, it’s my favorite. If you can afford it, it’s it’s awesome. You know, everybody’s got budgets. So, you know, we can do what you we can. And then the other one would be, uh, fescue, you know, nice thick grass, but, you know, it’s more temperamental. Great for shade. But you got to verify it. You got to overseed it in the fall. And it needs a lot of fungicide treatments because you’re watering it a lot in the summer because, you know, hot heat in Georgia, it doesn’t love the heat, but it’s great for shade. So those are your three main grasses down here in in Georgia.

Stone Payton: [00:33:13] So the answer to my question is yes, he does know a thing or two about grass as well. Fantastic. I’ll ask you the same question I asked Tom, how do you get the new business man? Or I guess you’re obviously out networking a little bit and building those relationships. Do you advertise? How do you get the new business? Yeah, a.

Speaker5: [00:33:30] Lot of mine is, uh, you know, networking, love to go and networking events, meeting new people and, you know, building those relationships, those are key. You know, your different business partners that’ll, you know, throw your name out there and people are looking for different services. And, you know, another thing as well is, you know, referrals, you know, building that Google rapport up and reviews and people refer you and refer you and, you know, pass on to your neighbor and their friends and everything like that. So, you know, referrals are huge. And then, you know, this year I’m going to, you know, start the marketing campaign. You know, I do a lot of my own social, you know, social media and everything like that. And just, you know, hiring a firm to, you know, take that responsibility off of off of us because it’s a it’s a lot to deal with when you’re running a business. If I can deal with one less thing, that’d be awesome. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:34:14] That sounds to me like if you chose to, you could you could do a whole, like, educational series and just let people know some of the stuff that you’ve been sharing, sharing with us today. And I don’t know, I’m from the training and consulting world, so I know it’s very different. But even though you share that kind of information with them, most of us are going to be like, I’m glad I know that. And now I know just enough to know I need to call Zach, you know? Right. Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:34:38] That’s what I’ve been trying to do, you know, on the Facebook Cherokee Connect. I’ve been trying to, you know, inform the customers of what the proper way to really do some of these, uh, you know, processes, either with retaining wall, patio or artificial turf, you know, planting a tree, you know, there’s a lot of things you can do the right and wrong way. And it’s just, you know, showing the customer like, hey, this is what it’s supposed to be. I just want to give my information to you because you deserve to know if you’re getting your your property installed the correct way.

Stone Payton: [00:35:06] Um, well, like for me, if I were going to do a patio and I mean, my, my side yard and my little house is like the width of this studio, but still I had this vision of almost like an outdoor kitchen. And but I want to get it done right. I want I want the water out there. Right? I want the gas line to be hit right. And I don’t want to. And I’ve got, I guess, what is essentially a retaining wall. So but before I do very much I need, I need to talk to you. Right. And have you come and you would come out and say, okay Stone, have you thought about this? And yeah, you don’t want to do that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:35:39] We’d uh, you know, lay it out and discuss, you know what? What are your priorities? What? You know, what kind of, uh, outlets do you want? You know, do you want, uh, what kind of grill do you want? What kind of. You know, utensils do you need? Do you need drawers? Do you need a sink? Do you need a refrigerator? And you know everything like that for outdoor kitchen. You know, some people want, you know, a pizza oven. Some people want, you know, a smoker, some people want the propane. And like you said, you know, the water and the electric and everything like that done by, you know, one of our certified vendors, and they come out there and knock that out for you. But yeah, you know, it’s just the right planning and the, you know, what do you want making a list of what are my necessities and what are my wish list. Because you can always get rid of your wish list, but you always have to have, you know, at least three necessities you have for that outdoor kitchen.

Stone Payton: [00:36:26] Right. And you got to think all that through instead of just, you know, hopping in a truck and running over to Home Depot and getting a bunch of pavers, that’s not not the right move.

Zach Hannah: [00:36:34] No, there’s.

Speaker5: [00:36:34] No right and wrong way to do everything, you know, outdoor kitchens and, uh, you know, pavers. They’re, you know, very popular items these days. Well, there.

Stone Payton: [00:36:41] Goes my Home Depot sponsorship. But you know what? We’re doing this for the community. We’re trying. We’re trying to help them out. Uh, so do you longboard? What? Like, what do you do when you’re not doing this?

Speaker5: [00:36:51] Yeah. So, you know, I love the outdoors, obviously. You know, I work work in it, but I enjoy, you know, hiking, mountain biking, kayaking and camping. Anything outdoors I just love. So, you know, it suits me well to work outside and transform people’s, you know, yards. So I love it.

Zach Hannah: [00:37:06] Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:37:07] So people inside that, uh, like, like realtors and other home services that you mentioned preferred vendors or certified vendors, these are all people you too are not unlike what we were talking about with Tom. You’re the guy that knows the guy. And if we’re working with you, we know you’re going to get the right electrician out there, the right plumber, the right. You’re that guy too, right? Yes.

Speaker5: [00:37:29] Yeah, yeah. We’ve worked with, uh, you know, other vendors that help us out in our projects. You know, the electricians, the plumbers, uh, everything like that. You know, make sure they’re certified and get the right licenses to to help you out.

Zach Hannah: [00:37:40] Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:37:42] So where can folks get in touch with you, man? What’s the best way for them to connect with you?

Zach Hannah: [00:37:45] Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:37:45] So you can reach me either my cell phone or email address or my website. So my cell phone is (734) 474-7573. And then our email address is Hana Outdoor Designs with an S at the end at gmail.com. And then the website is Hana Outdoor designs.com.

Zach Hannah: [00:38:09] Tom.

Stone Payton: [00:38:10] He did all that without looking at his business card or something for you to aspire to. Oh, I.

Zach Hannah: [00:38:13] Had it in.

Tom Hardy: [00:38:15] I just didn’t want to. I just didn’t want to get tongue tied.

Zach Hannah: [00:38:17] No, you did it right, man.

Stone Payton: [00:38:18] You got to be a professional. You said you’re a professional. You believed in integrity. That’s fantastic. Well, Zach, thanks for joining us, man. This is, uh, this has been a lot of fun, guys. And, uh, I hope you’ll come back. And I think what might be fun is you. Both of you have mentioned how you collaborate with other people in this space. I think it might be fun to do kind of a round table, bring them in. We’ll spotlight their business as well. But I think what might be really interesting and great programing for us, candidly, is to learn more about those, those relationships and how you choose to to work together in service of the of the customer. If you guys are up for that, we’ll try to organize something like that.

Speaker5: [00:38:55] Yeah, definitely. That’ll be.

Zach Hannah: [00:38:56] Awesome.

Stone Payton: [00:38:57] Fantastic. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today Zach Hana with Hana Outdoor Designs and Tom Hardy with Bolts Real Estate. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you again on House to Home Radio.