#204 - Professionalism Is the Smartest Irrigation Tool

[00:00:00] Before we jump into today's conversation with Dustin, I want to frame this episode through my own lens. As we head into Smart Irrigation Month, the industry is going to talk a lot about technology. Smart controllers, sensors, weather data, flow sensors, soil moisture, automation, you get the idea. And I believe in all of it. I am a technology first person.

[00:00:28] I helped build baseline from almost zero. I've seen what a great control system can do. I have seen how powerful irrigation technology can be when it is designed, installed, programmed and managed properly.

[00:00:45] But there's something else I've noticed along the way as well. Even the best control system in the world is only as good as the operator. I'm reminded of that almost every day where I live here in Northern Michigan.

[00:01:03] At my apartment complex, the sprinklers run every single day. Rain or shine, they're on. I mean, I'm serious. Freaking rainstorm. The sprinklers are on. It just blows my mind. And instead of talking about it here, I'm probably just going to go knock on the administration's door and see how I can help. And there's been this broken sprinkler geyser running for six weeks. And I got to help make that stop.

[00:01:30] And this property is pretty massive and it has a massive water reduction opportunity. But that opportunity is here even without one piece of smart technology. All it needs is a smart operator. And that is the heart of this episode. My challenge to everyone listening is this. Be the best operator you can be. Think about this. I'm going to try to put this into a perspective of something small.

[00:01:57] This is just a brain share. Here's something small you might consider. This is just one option. Let's say you have a hundred clients. You could have a thousand clients, but let's just say you have a hundred clients in your company or under your management. And each client has 10 zones. That's a thousand zones of irrigation under management. What would happen if you reduced every zone by just one minute?

[00:02:23] Do you think the plant material would die if you reduce the runtime by just one minute? That's a thousand minutes of runtime reduction. Every watering application. If those systems run three days a week, let's just say on average, could be less, could be more. Let's just say three days a week to keep the math simple. That's 3,000 minutes per week. And let's say over a 28 week watering season at 3,000 minutes per week.

[00:02:54] That's 84,000 minutes. And let's just say you have a one inch source that's maxed out at 15 gallons a minute. Of course, some of your systems are going to be 200 gallons a minute. Some of our are going to be six. I'm just picking a number for easy math. 15 gallons a minute per zone. That's 1.26 million gallons of water per year reduction. That's the little simple power that each one of you has out there.

[00:03:20] A one minute reduction could potentially be a $1.26 million savings without any piece of smart technology. And really, this isn't even necessarily a smart practice. It's just a simple way to frame up the power of just one minute. That is the power of being a better operator. So as you listen to Dustin today, I want you to think beyond products. Think about professionalism. Think about standards.

[00:03:50] Think about how your company shows up. How your team is trained. How you inspect systems. How you communicate with your customers. And how much water you are responsible for every single season. Dustin said something in this episode that stuck with me. He said, In order to make our industry more professional, it has to start with you. So that's the episode today. Smart irrigation starts with smart people.

[00:04:20] And maybe the biggest opportunity in front of us is asking one simple question. What small change can I make that creates a huge impact? So here's my conversation with Dustin. I hope you enjoy this one. If you are an irrigation professional, old or new, who designs, installs, or maintains high-end residential, commercial, or municipal properties.

[00:04:49] And you want to use technology to improve your business, to get a leg up on your competition. Even if you're an old school irrigator from the days of hydraulic systems. This show is for you. Welcome back to the Sprinkler Nerd Show. Today, I'm joined by Dustin Neeson, owner of Sprinkler and Irrigation Services out of Gretna, Nebraska. Dustin has spent more than 30 years in the irrigation industry.

[00:05:16] He started the way a lot of great irrigation people start. Outside, in the dirt, digging holes, learning the trade the hard way. From there, he went on to design thousands of sprinkler systems, earn multiple irrigation associations certifications, and lead one of the Midwest's largest sprinkler companies. But what stood out to me most is what Dustin says he wants to do now. He wants to help put professionalism back in our profession.

[00:05:46] Dustin, welcome to the Sprinkler Nerd Show. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Andy. Thanks for having me. So, let's get started by finding out what you've been nerding out on recently. I suppose I've recently purchased a vehicle that has like 750 horsepower. And I don't know, I kind of like to go fast. My daughter likes to go fast. My son likes to go fast.

[00:06:16] My wife does not like to go fast. She won't even ride with me. But I actually, like at the end of the day on Friday, I usually don't drive it during the week at all. But Friday afternoon, I'm like, I can't wait to go get in that thing back again. Nice. Is this your first? I'll call it a fast car because I don't know what kind of car. Yeah, yeah. I got a BMW M8. But yeah, it definitely is my first fast car. Last year, we bought a 76 Ford.

[00:06:45] And I think it does zero to 60 in just under a minute. Well, maybe there's some parallel to going fast in a car and going fast in life and going fast in business. Maybe even failing fast. I don't know, but maybe we'll find out. So I'd like to get started because I understand that you grew up on a farm, you know, playing in the dirt, playing in the mud. And I'm curious if that had anything to do with how you got into the irrigation industry.

[00:07:14] I would say no. I would love to tell you that it did. I do love the outdoors and I love the dirt. I can remember being out at Grandpa's Farm and turning on the hydrant and making a stream and a river. I don't know, probably just wasting water at that point, but just watching it go and channeling it, making a lake. But that was a lot of years ago.

[00:07:44] So how I got into the sprinkler industry was I was actually mowing for a company years and years ago and was enjoying making my lines perfect. In fact, I took my girlfriend at the time to go look at my perfect lines. But we were standing around one morning and they had a sprinkler division of a couple guys. And they said, hey, we need somebody to step up and do this. And I think everybody stepped backwards except me.

[00:08:13] So I was the guy. You were default, the only one. Yeah, it'll be me, I guess. So I went out and, of course, learned probably like a lot of guys do, under pressure and from a guy that likes to yell and cuss a lot. But, so yeah, we dug holes and he mostly fixed. He just told me, go dig here. And so I would go dig there.

[00:08:37] And after that, I think it was a few years later, I went back to college and had a marketing degree. And really wasn't at a time where people were hiring a lot. So I went back to sprinklers and we started a family and needed to have a job. So I just, I started doing sprinkler work. And I was working at GNC, selling vitamins and working sprinklers.

[00:09:06] And during the winter, I was waiting tables and doing about anything to get by. And then I got into car sales. And then all of a sudden there was an ad one day for somebody with sprinkler experience and car experience. Not car experience, but sales experience. Sales experience and sprinkler experience. And I said, well, I have sales experience and I have sprinkler experience. And so it was a, it's a company here in town. And I worked there for almost 17 years. And I thought, if I'm going to be here, I'm going to be in this business. I want to be the best that there is.

[00:09:37] That's fantastic. And it's 2026 now. So 30 years ago would be 1996. What year was it that you put your first sprinkler in? Not necessarily for yourself, just in general. I would say it was then. I mean, that was, I graduated high school in 94. That'll date me a little bit, but. Okay, we're close. So that would have been like a, yeah, probably, probably 95, 96.

[00:10:03] And for you young bucks listening, that's pretty much before AutoCAD as we know it. CAD, of course, existed, but I would have to guess you were not drawing plans on the computer in 1995. No, that was definitely just go get in the dirt, go get dirty, dig holes. I think I, I think I self-taught myself CAD. Wow.

[00:10:30] That probably would have been 15 to 17 years ago. I got, I bought RainCAD. And so I had this, I don't know, Accela CAD and RainCAD. And I remember trying to put a plan in there and I put my first head in there on AutoCAD and it covered the entire plan. The 101, you know, we had to figure out how to scale.

[00:10:53] I think it's awesome that you're in Nebraska because there's probably, there's probably some people that, well, this might not sound right, that can't pinpoint Nebraska on the map. It happens to me because I'm from Vermont and some people can't pinpoint Vermont on the map. But it just goes to show there's irrigation in every, probably every state in the country. And the irrigation market where you are is probably bigger than most people would expect, even if it's not as big as Florida and Phoenix and places in California.

[00:11:19] Can you tell us a little bit about your market and then a little bit about your company and just size and scale and what you guys do? Sure. We, irrigation in Omaha, as far as, you know, lawn sprinklers goes, we do a lot of poly pipe where I know a lot of places do PVC and it's only strictly PVC. We, we use PVC and copper for mainline.

[00:11:48] Um, but then from, from our laterals and everything standpoint, we use a lot of poly pipe. And, uh, I don't know. I think what we're seeing is that, um, the, the demand is more of a consumer wanting to be greener lawn, better than their neighbors. Hmm.

[00:12:10] The commercial industry is more like, Hey, we have to, we're going to put down the sod, um, because we have to have green. We have to have certificate of occupancy. So we're going to spend money on a sprinkler system today to make this green and we'll, we'll water it for the rest of the year. But a lot of commercial places just let their stuff, their stuff go. Um, there are some exclusive properties in town that want almost monthly checkups and, um, that those are great.

[00:12:39] Um, I mean, one, it's, it's, it's good revenue, but more so that it looks nice. Um, which I'm sure a lot of the sprinkler guys out there, um, are definitely into the, I mean, you can drive by a place and see that, Hey, they take care of their, their stuff. And you can tell the places that don't. Mm-hmm. So for SIS, are you residential and commercial? And if you are, what's your split? Residential and commercial. Yes.

[00:13:05] Um, I would say 25% commercial, 75% residential. Okay. And would that be based on number of clients or revenue? Cause I know there can be a difference. You could have thousands of resis that are revenue. Okay. There's a lot of houses. I mean, it's just like the game of Monopoly. You can have a lot of houses, but very few hotels and bigger, bigger places. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:30] And then, uh, just tell us a little bit about your, your company in terms of construction and service and techs and all that kind of. So seven years ago, I decided I, I was just going to get out of the sprinkler business. Um, I don't know, I got burned out and, um, was at a place that, um, it was just time to move on. And, um, so I, I left and opened a, um, a company that does erosion control that I didn't know anything about.

[00:13:59] I can remember going to my first meeting and the guy was like, you need to do this and this and this. And I just looked at him and said, no idea what you just said. So, but we're going to get it done. And during that first year that I was out of sprinklers, I, I had turned down probably $300,000 worth of work and, and gave it to my previous employer. Um, some other friends I had met along the way. And, um, I don't know, it was that winter, the next winter I, I was, I said, geez, maybe we should, uh, get back into this.

[00:14:28] It seems fairly, I mean, I know what I'm doing and we could, we could make a run of this. And so I called a couple other people and they said that they'd come help. And so it just kind of grew from there. And from there, so seven, seven years later, probably have about 25 on the sprinkler side, 25 employees on the sprinkler side. We have a commercial crew, a couple of residential crews, seven or eight service technicians, office employees, and a couple of managers and designers and salespeople. Wow. Wow.

[00:14:58] If, uh, if you're open to it, I think there's probably a high percentage of those that are listening that have gone through or are going through what you just described with kind of just feeling done. Like, yeah, either you're bored or you're frustrated, or I would love to know, again, if you're willing, what those, uh, thoughts and feelings were at that time where you, when you made that decision. I think a lot of it had to do with right now contractors.

[00:15:26] Um, and it was no matter how hard of work I did or the guys did, it was never really appreciated. It was, you need to be here tomorrow. Hey, to answer my phone, you know, I did a shitty job. I did, I did not do a very good job of planning and, um, and I need you to come get here tomorrow to help me out. And it was okay. Drop everything. Let's get out to this job. Let's hustle. Let's go. Let's go.

[00:15:52] And, and it was just a nonstop battle of locates. It was a nonstop battle of, Hey, I know you got out here right away. I really appreciate it, but you, you cut this electrical line. And so here's your bill for $1,200. Thanks for getting out here. You know, and it was, it was just a lot of go, go, go, go, go. And nobody appreciated all the work that we were doing. And it was just, okay, let's turn it on. Let's go to the next one. And it was just go, go, go.

[00:16:21] And, and it, and it did, it just got to a point of, Oh, it was just exhaustion. Do you think that that was because of the time, the time in our country that it was, do you think it was a type of clients that you had? Do you think it was how you interact with your clients? What do you think was causing that? And then now that you're in it again, does it come up and how is it different? It is different. Um, I've, I've made myself be different.

[00:16:49] Um, that company and even me, um, huge drive to have every job. We, I mean, it was a huge drive to have market share. I mean, if there was a job going in, in town, we wanted to have our flags on it. We wanted our heads in there. We wanted our guys there. And, um, and it didn't matter what job it was commercial residential. If there was a sprinkler involved, we wanted to be that those people. And so it wasn't a, I suppose profit wasn't even a huge concern.

[00:17:18] It was more revenue. It was just go get the money and we'll figure it out at the end of the year. And, um, and yeah, no, I've made myself change. In fact, last year we, we had kind of decided at the end of last year that we had kind of almost got to that point where it was, Hey, we're taking up too many clients and we need to maybe slow down a little bit. So we, we raised our prices a little bit to offset that and maybe even, you know, not

[00:17:44] purposely get fired per se, but we raised those prices and, and everybody stayed with us. We actually didn't lose any clients. Um, so that was, that was interesting. Yeah, I did. I have a lot of questions and I don't want to answer any questions for you. So I, I want to sort of, uh, maybe dig in a little bit more, but I heard an expression number of years ago and it was something like you get to choose the type of customers that you want or even create the type of customers that you want.

[00:18:13] And, and now that you're saying what you just said about your customers, I'm curious if you, that resonates at all or if you have any thoughts about that. Absolutely. Yes, I have thoughts. And, um, when, when we opened this business, um, one of my distinct things I, I wanted to do was not have those type of clients of that don't want to pay, but they want all of the work done, but don't want to pay for any of the work.

[00:18:41] And, and I think that there's an echelon of clientele that want to pay for expertise as opposed to just somebody going out, digging a hole, put into plastic because they're never going to be happy because they're never really getting what they want. They just get a little bandaid on something and they're out of there. And, um, and that's honestly, that's what we, we did 10 years ago. Um, it was go fix this real quick, move on. Well, then they were calling back. Well, they were upset that we didn't fix this. Well, we never tried.

[00:19:11] We never did those things. It was just go, go, go. And now it's, we're going to take a little bit more time on this client, spend some time there, figure out everything they need. And so it's, it's, it's more of a professional stance of we're going to really take care of you. You're going to have to probably pay a little bit more for that premium service. But we've also done the studies. We've, we've gone to California to train our guys at, um, at Hunter. We've, we've trained them in house.

[00:19:40] We've done things, we've seen things. And so similarly to, if you were going to see a veterinarian or a doctor or an attorney, probably the longer that they've been in business, the more they've seen and the better they are to help you. And we believe in that. Is there anything that you look for to identify if the client is going to be your client beyond

[00:20:06] the, the size of the house, the type of the property, the type of car in terms of when you meet them for the first time or they call on the phone there, is there anything that helps you with that filtering process? A little, um, not a lot. I mean, we, we still don't really turn down a lot of work. Um, I mean, our prices are, are, I think are mid to high. Um, so obviously that's, that's an immediate, Hey, it's going to be this much for us to even show up.

[00:20:36] Um, other than that, I mean, we, we get their credit card right away. Um, and if, and you know, we, we just had, we've had clients in the past that we'll go do the work and then they're like, Hey, we, we want to delay on this or geez, we moved or whatever. And, and we're, we're just tired of chasing those dollars that we've already earned. And so we're taking a credit card right now, charging the price. And, and then if we go out there and do work, then it's on top of that. But now we have their number.

[00:21:05] And so if, if, if they don't want to pay for the premium service and, or give a credit card, I, you know, there, there's other companies that, uh, want to, want to chase that. You talk about the concept of putting professionalism back in our profession. What does that, uh, either mean to you or your company and how do you execute on that? This is a huge topic for me. Um, I've, I've thought this for a lot of years.

[00:21:33] I going to these commercial meetings, you know, the, the meetings would have an electrician in there and a plumber and, and, uh, and me and the superintendents and whatever. And everybody wanted to listen to the electrician, everybody wanted to listen to the plumber and they would take advice. And, and I said, well, this is, I, I also know hydraulics very well. In fact, I would venture to guess I know hydraulics better than a lot of plumbers that I know. And a lot of plumbers just put pipe together. They're not even considering hydraulics.

[00:22:01] Well, yeah, they know shit rolls downhill, right? Um, so, you know, we would go to these meetings and they said, well, the plumber thinks this, or the plumber knows this. And clearly I was wrong. I, I, I'm just, just a sprinkler guy. And I had a huge problem with that. And I wanted, and so I, I, I thought about it one day. I'm like, why, why can't we show up on these jobs and be just as important or, and, and, or know what we know and, and say, and say this with authority.

[00:22:30] Stand up for yourself basically. Right. Like, and what it is, is our profession has such a, I think a low entry point. I mean, there's a lot of places in the world. I know Texas, probably not so much. I know that you have to get a certification down there just to even get a license. But even in Nebraska, the only place that you really need a license is Omaha. That's, I think it's the only place that you actually need to take a test in order to get a license. And that's, that's just around the city.

[00:22:58] So even just, I don't know, 10 miles down the road, I can go rent a machine, go buy product at my local product place and go put in a sprinkler and, or fix something. And I'm a sprinkler guy. So low, low entry. So we have the low entry point. And then we have people that do, all they do is go fix the, you know, the, oh, okay. I've got a, I've got a leaky sprinkler head. So they go fix the head. Well, it could be the valve.

[00:23:25] It could be some other things and we know how to do true false tests in order to test those things to fix the right thing. But a lot of people don't. And what's happening is we have this low entry point and we have people not doing the professional part of that. So what I want to do is really make a stance of let's be more professional in this. So let's, let's raise the standards for ourselves so we can be these professionals. We can't keep saying we're professionals in this industry.

[00:23:55] If we let this happen down here, it's okay to be this. No, it's, it's not okay to be this. Let's raise the standard. So how do we raise the standard? We can, do we have more tests? Do we have more licensing? Do we do like Texas doesn't get certified? I think that bar needs to be raised. Mm-hmm. So if I agree with you and probably will, it's just a matter of how, I guess, and when

[00:24:18] perhaps, how do you communicate your company's professionalism with your clients to be able to match, you know, the price with the value and professionalism? Do you have any, you know, systems processes, standards, et cetera? It is tough. And yes, we do. We, every house we go to, we do an ohm check. Every house we go to, we do a pressure check. Does it drop? Is there, is there a mainline leak? Is there a valve leaking?

[00:24:46] Then we also, we read the kinetic pressures on every zone to see, you know, are they similar? Are they across the line? Is there a tree root restriction? We're trying to catch these things before they're an actual problem. And, and when you do that enough times, I think that your clientele, one knows about it, but two, hopefully they're telling other people that, Hey, I had these other people out here and these guys came out and did this. Um, you know, it's, it's tough to market said, said things because unfortunately, I suppose

[00:25:14] with, with any type of trade that there are people that absolutely say, Hey, yeah, we're, we're very professional and they're not. Um, so it's the, the proof is getting out there. Um, in fact, I, I, I bought a truck yesterday and there was a sign that was up on the wall from, uh, their owner that opened this place up years and years ago. And it says, why on earth would you market to get new customers? If you're not going to take care of the ones you have.

[00:25:45] Um, I was reading that going, this is perfect. I, I need to memorize this. And, and it's, I mean, we do that, but absolutely it's crazy to market and just not take care of the people that you have. Just, you just, uh, you know, had planted a seed, it created a thought that, uh, just to pick a number, if you had a thousand clients, thousand customers and you, uh, got a hundred dollars from each of them extra this year. And let's say it was a 50% margin on something. So it was $50.

[00:26:13] Well, there's 50 grand with no marketing, advertising, anything on top of it. Just a hundred dollars more can produce X profit from your existing service base. Yeah. I mean, we're not as big as the company I was at, but I, I did some math at that, at the last company and we were actively doing almost 7,000 service calls a year.

[00:26:39] And I figured out if we put one nozzle in each one of those houses that, I mean, we're, we're actively trying to clean these nozzles and take them apart and do this and do this and then try to clean the filters. And if we just replace it, bring the old one back to the shop, clean it later. Hey, there's lots of options. There's lots. And, and it, and it was mind boggling. It was like $25,000 worth of nozzles, one nozzle. Like, is there, is there ever been a customer in the history of doing service calls that

[00:27:09] argued that you didn't need a three or $4 nozzle? Or a screen for that matter. Right. Like, yeah. Just, and, and, and yeah, often you can't clean a nozzle enough to make it what it was once at one time. Yeah. How about as it relates to, you know, not the actual work being done or the strategies or measuring the ohms, is there anything that you have standardized in your company with

[00:27:34] where the truck parks, how they greet the customer, what they're wearing, those sorts of things? All of those things. In fact, I, I made a book years ago, like a 25 page deal about, yeah, park on the right side of the road. Don't ever park in the driveway. Check, check your breath, check your hygiene. Um, we're going to wear, our service techs wear either tan or black, um, pants, cargo pants, um, but some type of pants like that.

[00:28:04] Um, not nice khakis or anything, but you know, something that looks industry. We all wear sprinkler shirts and or sweatshirts. The installers are allowed to wear t-shirts, but if you're a foreman or a service tech, you're having a collared shirt on. Um, cause I think those are all, I mean, if someone's going to judge a book by its cover, then the cover better look good. I read something the other day. It's, it's, it's the lab coat theory. You know, if, if a doctor walked in and you have a lab coat and a stethoscope, I'm going to listen to you.

[00:28:34] Are you going to question if they've got a degree or not? You just assume it. They have it. They have the outfit. So yeah, if you're, if you're wearing what you're supposed to be wearing, you're, there's something to that. It's the lab coat theory. So there's a challenge to some contractor out there. Wear lab coats as your uniform. Maybe the techs and a stethoscope. So you can find that, that break in the pipe or if water's going through it. Who's that? Bastione? Battistone. Battistone. Yeah. Kevin. And he wears that onesie.

[00:29:04] The jumpsuit. Yep. Yeah, exactly. That's why I got the nerd on. Cause at least it's something to bring it together. You know what he does. I mean, he's got Hunter. He's got, you know, he's got his name. I mean, he's ready to go to work. I'm glad that you mentioned that because part of the profession is knowing what you're doing. Obviously. The other part of it is looking like, you know what you're doing because people see irrigation guys out there around.

[00:29:30] And if, if a high percentage of the industry is wearing cutoff raggedy jeans and they're smoking cigarettes and they look like they just were walked out of the woods, that doesn't look good for our profession. So it's why I kind of think that part of our profession is just being professional. In order for us to say we want to be better, we have to start with us. A hundred percent. Yeah.

[00:29:52] Um, so we're just on the cusp of, uh, smart irrigation month and I'd love to hear your thoughts, um, on just the smart products that you might use as well as what you think, what you'd like more contractors to understand about smart irrigation in general. We don't use a ton of smart irrigation.

[00:30:18] Um, more so we try to be smart about the way we use the products. Um, where I know there's a lot of ET based things. Well, um, I, one of my degree, not, I don't call them degrees, I guess, but one of my certifications, I have a CLIA. So, um, landscape irrigation auditor. And so we learned in that, in those textbooks is how to water your scheduling.

[00:30:45] So if you have a spray zone, um, you know, that the spray's putting out a certain amount of precipitation. Well, we have a lot of clay soil around here. So if you water and it's almost like a three to four minute timeline in this and where we're at. So if you water more than three minutes with a spray head, it's running off, it's collecting, it's causing mold down here. Um, it's not, it's running off your side hill. It's, it's bad practice.

[00:31:12] So what we've done is we've taught our guys to water spray zones for three minutes or rotor zones are 10 to 12 minutes. And what we're doing that is multiple times a day. We're having two on two offs or, or whatever. So we're teaching our guys how to water without some of those products per se. It's, it, but it is amazing to me. We get to these jobs and people are still watering 15 minute sprays and half hour rotors. And people are calling in and saying, I'm watering all the time.

[00:31:41] And I'm like, yeah, but you're just not watering right. Um, and you go out there, lessen their water, but do it smarter and boom, it's green. And they're just baffled by it. We use a lot of MP rotors. We are doing a lot of, um, wands, uh, wifi wands. In fact, we, I just programmed a weather track clock this morning, um, that I've never programmed before. That was exciting to get on the computer and figure out how to do all of these things.

[00:32:10] I actually had to call weather track because I, I knew what I wanted to water. I knew what was right, but they were like, Hey, we handle all this for you. You just type this in and, uh, it does it for you. And I'm like, well, that's pretty cool. Almost what I'm hearing is that smart irrigation doesn't just mean products. Maybe it means process. Maybe it means, uh, uh, learning. Maybe it means, uh, trying to be the best irrigator you can be. And, uh, it's not just buy this product, put it up, save water.

[00:32:38] Well, I learned we were doing a design. It was probably 10 years ago or so. And it was at one of the colleges around here and they had MP rotors, every zone. And they had, um, a really nice clock that was ET based and yada, yada. Well, we presented a price and the owners were like, well, that's too much. And I said, well, we can change out these MPs. We're going to put in normal spray nozzles. We can change this out.

[00:33:04] And the designer was like, well, Hey, we have this type of soil. It's not going to work. And I, and I challenged them. I said, well, if we, instead of watering this for 12 minutes, as you suggest, why don't we water for three minutes, three minutes and three minutes, it's still the same amount of water. We're just going to break it up and we can still get the intake. And, um, they ended up using that and, and we did exactly what we said we were going to do. It was just how we delivered them.

[00:33:31] I love that because I think that a lot of smart irrigation month, maybe just by default becomes about products. It does. And it might be actually the right time of year for everyone in the industry, just those who, you know, work in the industry, not the homeowners and your clients, but those in the industry, maybe this is the month to like reflect and say, okay, I know what I know, but what do I not know that I should go learn this month?

[00:33:58] What controller have I never used that I should go try so I can increase my, my knowledge of products that I don't know about? Yeah. Um, I think on that weather track clock, I mean, there were some terminologies on there that I had not read. You know, I, I, I, I, I've got a CID, I've got a CIC, but you know, after you get done reading those in your, you know, your continuing education, people don't talk about distribution uniformity.

[00:34:27] What is that? Where in the manual from the old Rainbird ESP or even Hunter Pro C, I'm just to name a few common brands. Does it talk about that in the controller settings? It's, but so. I'm sure Hydrawise does, but not the old timers. Absolutely not. And so reading some of these things, I was, I was kind of challenged to be like, or mad, what's MAD? What does that stand for? And I'm like, I know what it stands for. Why, why do I know this? You know, like, but getting in there and figuring out these different calculations.

[00:34:56] And, um, it was actually fun to get back into. So yeah, smart irrigation month, maybe just re, re going back. If you know it, if you don't know it, maybe just taking a second and opening up a textbook and figuring it out what MAD is or what DU is and, and some of those things. Yep. And if, um, if you're new to the irrigation industry, just speaking to people who are listening and let's say they just started this year and they might be slapping heads

[00:35:23] in the ground and, you know, somebody says, oh yeah, we're, we're putting six over here in this zone, but we're putting five over there. Asking those why questions. Well, why are we doing that? Why is this pipe one inch, but that one over there is inch and a half and learning through asking questions, which, which would of course take a manager, supervisor, or foreman willing to actually answer questions instead of just say, just do what you're told, which happens all the time as well. Yeah.

[00:35:50] I, I still think it's funny when people say, well, how many, how many heads can we put on this zone? And I'm like, well, I don't know how big's the main line. And they're like, why do we have? What's our pressure? One, what's your nozzles? I mean, what, what are we using? And it's, yeah, it's just math equations, but it's, uh, it's just knowing those things. Yeah. And I like how when we first started talking, you mentioned, you know, plumbers and electricians because in many ways toilets are very similar to each other. And of course I might not know what I don't know.

[00:36:20] So maybe they're not similar to each other, but it seems as though a toilet is more of a toilet. They're going to have the same, you know, gallons or liters per flush, generally speaking, versus irrigation. You can have heads of all shapes, sizes, flow rates, pressure requirements. I feel like that's different than inside plumbing work. Yeah. Of course there's some plumber that's watching this and they're all mad now that all the

[00:36:45] toilets are different, but yes, there are quite a bit different, um, inside diameters to pipe nozzles. Um, geez. Yeah. Yep. Lots of design. Uh, I'd love to learn. I saw on your website, you've got this philosophy of the purple cow and it stuck out to me. And I would love for you to talk about that. A guy in the corner over here shaking his head. It was just, oh, you're letting him go off. Here we go again. Yeah.

[00:37:13] So the purple cow, you know, it, it, it came, you know, one, there's a book called purple cow. So I did not originate this. And, um, somebody else brought it to my attention was actually a, um, a guy in, uh, one of my groups, my, my morning coffee group or whatever. And he's a, um, dentist and, uh, yeah, there's actually the book. Cool. Um, but he had the idea.

[00:37:42] So he, it is literally, you know, I think people talk about, um, oh, how the phrase is if you keep doing the same thing, don't expect different, different outcomes. And, um, the purple cow kind of came in as if you're driving down the road, you know, I think when you're younger, it's like, Hey, there's a cow. And then the next year it's like, Oh, there's cows.

[00:38:09] And then pretty soon by the time we're our age, we don't even see the cows. And so a sprinkler company. So at first it's like, I've got a sprinkler company. And then you're okay. Well, how come that company, what are they doing? Oh, let's do that. And well, that company is doing that. Well, let's do some of that. And, and so you're, you're making your company, everybody else's company. So more and more brown cows, you're just making another brown cow. That's not standing out. That's not different.

[00:38:38] That's boring. No offense. I mean, and, but how do you make, so if you're driving down the road and all of a sudden you saw a purple cow, you'd go, what in the heck is that? What makes it, you'd know where you were. You'd talk about it. You'd tell your friends about it. I saw a purple cow. Here's where I was. You guys got to go see it. So I kind of took that into our business as how can we be a purple cow?

[00:39:05] How can we one be noticed, have people talk about us, be different, not the same as everybody else, and then hopefully get different results. I mean, we sat there at the end of last year going, we did a lot of things, right? Why does it feel the same? Why do we feel like we need to do more? We did a lot. Well, it's not necessarily more. We just need to be doing it different. And so that's the purple cow is.

[00:39:33] So I wanted to figure out what can we do different? And a lot of that professionalism came back in there is, can we offer a package? Because I don't think that we can just stop. We're not going to go do our normal service and just do this. I think it has to be brought in a little way. So it was, what package can we do?

[00:39:57] And so we, I don't know, we Googled, we searched, we did chat GTP, we did Groke. We just tried to find everything that we could find in different states, in Nebraska. What is everybody doing? What is the most we could do at a sprinkler service call? What all could we look at? And so we took notes. We wrote them all down. In fact, we had a lot of overlaps. I mean, there was a lot of overlaps, which is good.

[00:40:25] I mean, that, you know, everybody's doing a similar thing, but we wanted to do the most. And so we've sold a few of these this year where we've gotten the service calls and we schedule them out for almost six hours on a smaller yard. But we're doing every little bit. We're cleaning out the valve boxes. We're cleaning out the clock. We're going through the programs. We're taking pictures of everything. Just about anything you could possibly think of at a service call.

[00:40:52] Pressure checks, alms checks, bolts checks. I mean, if you're at home listening and you go, what about this? It's probably in there. But yeah, it's going out and testing and making it all right. So the idea is, is it's perfect now. Now we're going to want to come out maybe in the fall and do a winterization and maybe in the spring and do a turn on.

[00:41:17] But I think what happens is a lot of what we're running into is 20 to 30 year old sprinkler systems that are running because they're plastic. They're not going to go anywhere in the world. But we're running into where the nozzles aren't. They're just not working as well as newer nozzles where there's new technology. I mean, you would if you were driving a 30 or 40 year old car and you got into a brand new car, there's a lot of technology differences. And you know from selling sprinklers, there's a lot of new stuff out there.

[00:41:46] So let's take these new stuff, offer them up, fix up what they have, make it perfect, make it runnable. And that's what Purple Cow is, is making a difference. So one, we're recognized and two, maybe we're talked about a little bit. Yeah, that differentiation, 100%. Do you think that Purple Cow is one thing like what you just mentioned with building this inspection, which I want to ask you more about here in a minute?

[00:42:12] Or is it more of a sort of way of operating? Meaning, can your service techs have the creativity to find something that stands out that's different on their own? Definitely the second. It's definitely a way of thinking. I knew we couldn't just take it and go company wide. We're going to do it with everything right now. But I feel like the more we're bringing that in and the more we're doing and the more we're

[00:42:39] teaching it, the more it is more of a cultural recognition. Yeah. I can't speak to the service side as much because I would imagine there's less bidding happening, like comparing a service price from a company to another company because generally they're lower tickets. But like on a new install, let's say, I always felt and I'm a believer of being different. So if they had four people give quotes, three of them look alike and the prices could be all over.

[00:43:06] But then if one is different, whatever that looks like, that to me is the place to be. So when you started talking about the purple cow, I'm like, well, that's this, that's different. That's being the one that has the design up front. That's the one that has fill in the blank. And then you can talk about your price. Hopefully it's higher than the others or at least reasonably. Yeah.

[00:43:28] I've, I've always wanted to deliver a product where I, the goal and unfortunately it's very rarely that do we get there, but I've always wanted to say, so do you want to put this in next week or the week after? And I've never set a price and have them go, that sounds great. And it wasn't a price thing. It was because I've said, I, you know, we, we know about hydraulics. We know about your yard. You've told me everything you wanted. I've supplied everything you wanted.

[00:43:57] Where can we go from here and have them say, let's move forward. So I did hear that you have a, it may have been what you just mentioned, 151 point inspection. Is that accurate? I actually don't know how many points there are. We've printed it off a few times. I'd have to go back and recount. I don't know. I like 151 because it's different than 150. So the number 151 is already differentiating.

[00:44:22] And it reminds me of maybe if you take your vehicle in for a service checkup or even an oil change. Sometimes they just go over all the stuff. Well, there was a local guy in town did HVAC. And I think that, you know, they, they went through a similar industry. You know, there's a lot of HVAC companies and there's a lot of companies that you could call and come check out your air conditioner or your heater, whatever's not working. And this guy said, I don't want to just come out there and charge $95 to come check out your air conditioner.

[00:44:52] I want to come in there and look at everything that you have. And then if I find anything, let's fix it today. Well, so he's not writing tickets for $95 plus, you know, a $35 part anymore. He was writing tickets for $295 just to come look at it. And then if you were going to sign up for this thing, and so it's $295. And then if we find anything that's on top of it, so he was writing tickets for five or $600 in the HVAC industry.

[00:45:18] And, you know, I, I, I sat down, he was a neighbor of my mom's when I was younger and, and I remember talking to him and he said exactly these things. And it, and I still remember him and it, and it still holds true. Yeah. I think there's a lot of lessons from AT&T. You can go do 10, yeah, you can go do 10 service calls and $95 or you can go do two for $500. I, to me, I'd rather go do the two. You got happier clients. You got happier techs. You got a happier gas bill.

[00:45:46] I mean, there's so many reasons to go. I mean, pretty much 95 bucks just gets you to the driveway. Doesn't necessarily get you out of the truck even really. Yeah. And in these days, yeah, I don't even, yeah, I can't do anything for $95. Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing how many times I still hear from contractors that they get annoyed when they get called out for a service call and then turns out it doesn't, it's not even necessary. Like it's actually working and then they feel guilty.

[00:46:13] Usually they have to like provide an invoice for something that they didn't perform any work, but they did perform the work because they went to the job. What they might not have done is communicate. Here's our fee to show up. Yeah. Communicate the fee. Definitely. And if you're showing up, I mean, we have certifications. We've learned this. We have industry knowledge. And even though we just went up there and turned the dial or turned the backflow on or

[00:46:41] whatever, there's an old saying, the submarine repairman, how the Navy had this submarine and nobody could fix it. Nobody could fix it. And they're, they're trying to pay all these people, big money, you know, a million dollars to come. I mean, the submarines were billions of dollars. Right. And nobody could fix this thing. And they finally called this old guy that I don't know, it was their last chance.

[00:47:08] And the guy kind of walked around the submarine, kind of touching it and feeling it, listening and doing whatever submarine repairmen do. And he, ah, he got it. And so he walked out to his truck and he got a hammer and he hit the submarine and he goes, all right, now, now turn it on. And it fixed. And he sent him a bill for a million dollars. And they're like, well, a million dollars. What? I don't understand. Yeah.

[00:47:34] And he says, well, um, you know, I came out and fixed it. And they said, well, we're going to have you break it out. And he's like, okay. So he broke it out into $999,000 and knowing where to hit it and a hundred dollars for a hammer. But it's, it's the knowledge of where to fix it, how to fix it. And that's what they're paying for guys. If, if, if we're the professionals and we're saying that we're professionals, then be the

[00:48:02] perfect, tell them that there is a service call and, but tell them that we're the reason why they're calling. If they could do it themselves, they do it themselves. Yep. Yep. I've had people, uh, you know, we get all kinds of random calls in at Sprinkly supply store for all kinds of stuff. And I've had people say, yeah, my backflow is leaking. Yeah. It's just their test cock. You know, it was turned for the butcher and they turned it on themselves. They didn't realize they had to twist it and, you know, but that's knowing what to do. And if a guy shows up and it's going to be $150, they're actually just $150 to show up. Yep.

[00:48:31] It is. It is. By the time you pay for a vehicle, the insurance, I mean, all the overhead, the employee and the knowledge. I mean, we're, we're as owners paying for, um, them to learn. I mean, there's times that, you know what, we can't charge extremely high for this, or we can't charge for this, but hopefully when they're out there that we're learning from our mistakes, we're learning from what we're doing. We're out there teaching them. Um, and, and that comes at a price. Mm-hmm.

[00:49:00] I do want to ask you a couple of product questions, mostly because you've been in the industry a long time and that is, are there products today that you're still using that are more or less exactly the same product could even be make and model? PGP. Okay. We use, we use a lot of PGPs. Um, you know, um, we now, I guess they call them the PGP ultra now with check valve and, and whatever.

[00:49:28] Um, and, and I guess the reason why is, um, you know, going to the distributor ships, uh, and, and looking at the warranty bins, they seem to have the lowest. Maybe their, maybe their sales guys were just going in there and emptying them sooner, but they seem to have the, the, the least amount of heads and we've had actually really good luck with them. I, you know, I, I, I don't mind other products. We'll use rainbird.

[00:49:56] Um, we've, we've, we use some rainbird parts. We use some of these parts. We use some of these parts. Mostly what we're trying to put in is a sprinkler and irrigation services sprinkler system. It's, it's not, we're putting in a hunter system or a rainbird. So we're putting in our system. It's just, that's the, those are the parts that. I think that's actually a message as it goes back to bringing the professionalism back to the profession is that, especially if you're new and you're listening, you're just starting your contracting business, you should be selling you and your business and your brand.

[00:50:25] You know, if it's hunter rainbow, toro weather track, weathermatic, whatever, whatever that comes second only when asked into the details. Otherwise you're taking your client right down into the details and moving the focus from your brand to someone else's brand. And once it's on someone else's brand, it could then go to contractor A, B, and C as well. At least that's just my feeling on it. I agree with that. Yeah. Um, and I also think it's a little bit interesting to see.

[00:50:54] How similar the products are much of them as it relates to just spray heads, rotors and valves, like going back 30 years, more or less, they're about 80% the same. Yeah. And I'm curious if you have any thoughts or have had just in your time in the industry, you know, have you reinvented a product that's never been made, but could be made that you're like, God, this would be so much better if it was just like this. Wow. Whew.

[00:51:24] I've never really tried to reinvent the wheel on those type of things. I, I, we've, we've done a lot of weird things with some sprinkler parts. Um, uh, we, we, we had somebody that wanted to fill their fountain, but it was high. Um, and they didn't want it to be seen or come up. So we, we, we took a 12 inch spray head and poked a bunch of holes in it and it comes up and sprays down into it and fills it up. Um, we've, we've, uh, yeah, we've done a lot of wild things, but I don't know that I've ever

[00:51:53] looked at a spray head and went, oh man, I, I think I'm smarter than those guys that have been studying these things as engineers for years and years and years. I, I don't claim to be smarter than those guys. I'm going to take their, their expertise and use it to the best of what I know how to do. Yeah. Uh, you know, I think, I guess I think about those things a lot, you know, just even in terms of like, all right, we use 24 volts AC. Why?

[00:52:19] I don't know why I, we could make a lot of guesses why there's probably a reason why, uh, there is a reason why DC doesn't work because it can get reverse polarity and if the wires cut, right, it can stick open and stuff. But a lot of that we can solve with today's technology. So just think that there's times now because there's different technology available, we're at a point where maybe we can do things differently that we couldn't before. Yeah.

[00:52:45] Um, I think one of the things that we, um, that was kind of fun that we've used definitely different is we, at our local zoo, which I think is like rated the number one zoo in the world. They, they opened up a new elephant building and, um, they wanted to have dust control in the building, but there was obviously nowhere to put the heads underground because elephants can dig four feet. Um, so that was interesting.

[00:53:10] We actually took a sprinkler system and flipped it upside down and put it up on the ceiling. Um, and we did a lot of testing to figure out how far, you know, angles, cause your angles are upside down. Okay. Yep. So if you're, if your angle is, you know, on a, on a PGP number two or whatever, you know, it's 30 degrees. Well, 30 degrees upside down is, is actually at a steeper angle down. So we actually figured out that we had to use low angle nozzles. They would actually go flatter.

[00:53:39] And so that was, that was kind of an interesting. That's reverse theory on that. Yeah. Cause low angle upside down is possibly high angle. Yeah. So we took a, we took a cherry picker and got ourselves 30 feet in the air and tried out different nozzles and tried to figure out what, what the pattern looked like on the ground. And then we would measure it and try to figure it. And so then I would go back into my CAD of the building and then I was able to take different angles and stuff and, and use those in there.

[00:54:07] So that was, so that was, I guess, a little bit different techie. Yeah. That's a great story. Before I ask you my last question, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you would like to share with industry that was listening? You know, tenacity, just the key to it of this, the get, you gotta get up every day. You gotta go do it.

[00:54:38] Just, I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of humans, not just sprinkler guys or plumbers or whatever, just humans that, I don't know, they're, they're, they're going through something or they, they had a bad day. I mean, we all have bad days and we're all going through stuff, all of us, all the time.

[00:54:58] And, and, and, and, and show up and, and be a leader. Um, because, uh, I don't know, I, I read something the other day and it said is, um, you know, attitudes are contagious. Um, is, is yours worth catching?

[00:55:24] Um, and, and so keep, keep the positive attitude, keep going. Fantastic. Fantastic. I'm fine. Glad someone finally said those words of wisdom. Um, so I think everybody say that, is that a joke? No, I, I mean, I do hear it, but it's that, I mean, I, I think that that's the lessons that need to go out there is if you're not into what you're doing and you're only into this industry less than a hundred percent and pick another one that you can be a hundred percent

[00:55:53] or 200% into. I got off the phone one time with a gal that yelled at me, um, just belittled me on the phone about her yard. I don't know, like the second of July, because she wasn't able to have her fourth of July, but she could still have her party, but her yard was just going to look horrible. And, um, I remember getting off the phone after being yelled at and thought, what am I doing? Am I sure on this planet to make green grass for people that just yell at me?

[00:56:21] And, and, and what I've realized is I'm more into the people business than I am the sprinkler business. Um, I, I, I have employees that, um, I know their families, they know me and, um, some of the, some of our clients. And, and, and so I feel like I'm more in the people business than, than the sprinkler business anymore. And I had no idea you had one last nugget of wisdom to drop for everyone.

[00:56:49] That might be the best thing you've said in terms of how I see things as well. Um, fantastic. So I think that what I'd like to ask you is that if there is, uh, doesn't matter the size of the company for somebody listening, if you could give, if you could give them one piece of advice on how to be more professional or elevate their business in a professional way, what might that be? You can only pick one.

[00:57:15] Um, I would say recognize that in order to make our industry more professional, it has to start with you. It has to start from the, the, the top down. It, um, you, you can't expect everybody to do things if you're not doing them. Um, you, you have to show professionalism. I mean, there's, there's a few places in town that, um, they're, you know, they'll get online

[00:57:45] and put bad reviews of other companies. And I, I just don't, don't do that. Um, you know, it, it, I think it goes under the old adage of do unto others as you want done to you. And so you have to start with you. You have to start being a professional. You have to open a book and learn you, you have to, um, teach.

[00:58:07] Um, we, we can't continue down this road of trying to trade other technicians or trade other foremen. Um, there's only so many foremen and all they're doing is collecting $2 more with them and $2 more with me. And then, then they go over there and they make $2. So, so they got an $8 raise and we're all poorer for it. Um, so we need to train, we need to teach. And in order to do that, we have to know what we're doing and we have to get out there and do those things.

[00:58:37] Love it. Well, if somebody wants to learn more about the purple cow and, uh, everything you've been up to, how can they reach out to you or would you like them to reach out to you? What's the best way? Yeah. Um, I don't mind. I think my email and our websites on our website, um, it's, um, sprinkler and sprinkler, sprinkler irrigation.com. Oh, sprinkler irrigation service. Perfect.

[00:59:06] Just goes to show that, uh, you can actually run a great business and not have to know every little detail. Wow. I feel. Yeah. Well, that's, that's real right there. So that we're keeping that in there because that is what makes this authentic and real right there. But call and say, Hey, um, you know, I, I want to talk to Dustin direct. I, I, um, I, I run a business out of wherever you're at and run ideas by me. I, I love talking about ideas. Fantastic. That's great. Dustin.

[00:59:36] Well, thank you so much for, for sharing and, uh, being honest about some war stories and, uh, what's made you successful. And, uh, it's been really fascinating for, for me to listen and to learn. And I'm sure that it is as well for our audience. So thank you so much. Thanks for having me.