October 29, 2025 • 27 mins
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I sat down with Jeff from Houston, Texas, who built a concrete leveling business making around $1,000 profit per job even though he’s only been doing it for three months. We talked about how he subcontracts all the work while still hitting nearly $20K in revenue and is on track for $100K profit his first year.
He explained how to find customers using Nextdoor, Google Business Profile, and Facebook Ads, and how he built a system that lets him quote and close jobs virtually without ever visiting the site. We broke down his process for outsourcing, building trust, and scaling fast even while working a full-time job.
Jeff also shared clever local business hacks from using multiple Nextdoor accounts to generating Google reviews efficiently, and his plan to turn concrete leveling into a subscription-style service for commercial property owners.
Check out Jeff’s website at texasslabguys.com and connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-price-30b44049/.
Enjoy!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's the best job you ever did?
The smaller jobs of fixing a sidewalk that's $2000, since
they're super easy, they take a couple hours.
I let you my life. Yeah.
I was like, hey, this is too easy.
I'm doing something wrong. What is going on?
It's not unreasonable to say that someone with a full time
job could run this business in five hours of quoting per week
they can make $10,000 of. Profit.
(00:21):
Yeah, for sure. What if I told you that concrete
leveling is a very big business?Not just that, but you can make
$2500 per job without owning anyequipment, without having any
employees, and without having toquit your job.
I sit down with Jeff today of Houston, TX.
He owns a concrete leveling business that is very
profitable. He's only been doing it for
three months and he is set to make $100,000 of profit his
(00:44):
first year. So we're going to ask him
exactly how do you do it? How do you find customers?
How do you fulfill the service? How do you talk about this stuff
when you don't even kind of knowwhat you're talking about?
We're going to cover all of it today, so let's go.
All right. So how long lived did you start
this business? I'm I'm a newbie.
I've been doing this for a solid90 days so far.
(01:05):
OK, so. Basically an expert, yeah.
What is your total revenue been so far?
We are just shy of $20,000 and majority of that has come in the
past 60 days, OK. Wow.
And how much of that is profit, give or take?
We're seeing anywhere from 30 to40% gross margin on each job,
OK. What do you think your net
profit will end up being once you're more at scale?
(01:28):
Once I end up at scale, well, itwill try to continue scaling.
My goal this year is to finish 250,000 top line revenue before
the end of the year and if we can do 50 to $100,000 gross
dollars as margin then that would be an outstanding success
plan for next year is 1,000,000 top line revenue OK.
(01:49):
And you know, anywhere from 20 to 40% margin I'd be extremely
happy with. Wow.
So so you're saying ran into theindustry, you didn't work in
this industry before, right? In the first six months you
expect to do 100,000 of profit. I hope too.
Yeah, and you're on track. We need to win a couple bigger
jobs, but we've seen some reallygood encouragement right out of
(02:11):
the gate. And so the market is relatively
saturated in the sense that there's a lot of providers, but
we have found a good way to differentiate ourselves relative
to a lot of the noise. And so my peers are typically
solopreneurs who own their own trailer, work for themselves and
once they hit a certain threshold of either either
revenue or margin, they just like to coast.
(02:34):
And that nothing's wrong with that at all, but.
That's your opportunity. Yeah, so everything after that
is just gravy for them. What I want to do is create a a
process that is repeatable and can be copied and pasted across
mid tier, smaller tier markets across the Texas coast and and
along the border of Mexico in order to own markets where
(02:57):
there's no providers currently operating.
So Houston has, you know, a couple million people living
there. I want to target Forte,
Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Excetera, where there's no
established providers, population of 200 to $300,000 in
my or Yeah, excuse me. Yeah, two 200 to 300,000 people.
Thank you. And little to no competition.
(03:19):
Yeah. OK.
So you kind of go find the solo provider who reached one
$200,000 in revenue and he's cool and you come in there and
say, hey, I can get you the nextlevel without you having to do
any additional work. So any additional jobs you want
above that revenue, mark, I'll send your way.
I'm going to work in my margin and we can work together.
Correct. OK, Yeah.
And So what that means is we winfewer jobs that we're bidding on
(03:42):
because we're not competing on price.
But there's such a high demand for this service in the state of
Texas that often times it's really only one of the
considerations that are factoredinto a owner's or businesses
decision on the topic. Do you have a harder time
finding good subcontractors or customers?
I have not. You know, it's been a huge
(04:03):
blessing. I've been so fortunate to work
with the people that I have and I am lucky on, on finding those
folks. And everybody I've worked with
so far has been honest and straightforward.
And I, I look for some common denominators.
HMI, who's the manufacturer of these trailers typically and the
main producer of the raw materials we looked at earlier
(04:24):
have a soft spot in their heart for veterans.
And so typically you see a lot of veterans that are owning
their own trailers that I found are, are so easy to work with.
OK. So what about customer
acquisition? How is that going so far?
We have a number of channels open.
So I, I sold my first job June 2025 and it was a lead that I
(04:48):
found through a Facebook lead. My cost per lead was, you know,
$4.60 or something, and I found that lead within an hour or two
of the campaign being approved and launched.
Now this is a Facebook ad campaign, not Marketplace or
groups. Facebook ad campaign, Yeah.
So within two hours of launch, you had your first $5 lead,
(05:09):
which turned into a your first customer, correct?
So you're like $500.00 for revenue.
This is so easy I left you. One Life Revenue.
Yeah, I was like, babe, this is too easy, I'm doing something
wrong, What is going on? But obviously there's some, some
lessons learned along the way. And I, you know, didn't make any
margin on that job because it was an hour outside of town and
I needed to factor in the team'stime of, of driving to the job
(05:33):
into the overall cost. And so I then forgot to turn the
ads off for a month. And so I paid, you know, $80
more, whatever it was over time.And so just stumping my,
stumping my toe, things that seem obvious, Yeah, I got.
Stumping your toe on $2500. Yeah, yeah.
So worse things to yeah, stub your toe on.
(05:55):
So Facebook ads, has that been like the the daily driver for
your customer acquisition? I turn those on and off.
We've seen Next door work well. Next door ads or organic stuff?
Next door organic. We have not done any ads.
We've seen the Google search organic, we've had folks refer
us, we've had inbound leads juston the website and through our
(06:19):
chat bots asking about inquiries.
And then I've taken a page out of your own playbook and done
some outbound texting campaigns to think HOA managers, property
managers, etcetera that are overseeing multiple properties.
And so by staying in front of them, that's generated a slow
(06:41):
trickle of volume as well. Nice.
And a lot of times you have to like, play the long game on that
and it's a little depressing forthe first month, but then they
start to come back, especially as you follow up, right.
And they're, you know, they're on a straightforward, you know,
salt of the earth type folks. Typically that's who I have seen
on average operate small businesses and or solopreneurs
(07:02):
operate that way. And so you have to build that
relationship and that's early tothat's that's the key to invest
in early on. Yeah.
But if you're just transparent from the get go, then there's no
reason that two folks who are selling two different things
can't complement each other. How much effort or time did you
put into your website or your Google Business profile?
I didn't spend too much time. I invested $0.00, I built it all
(07:24):
in Replit and so my goal is to just have easy clean landing
page. As I've started seeing a little
bit more volume come through then I've been playing with the
idea of having a professional build out website.
But right now it captures 95% ofpeople that are coming to my
website if they actually are interested, but actually forms,
chat bots or other items that I've set up.
(07:46):
OK. What other kind of clever
creative hacks are you doing to to find subcontractors or to
find customers, Something that might be outside of the norm?
Yeah. So I try to differentiate a few
ways. I mentioned the quality of our
services and the communication. And another thing I do for
residential jobs is I throw in afree power wash on the area.
(08:07):
And so I haven't structurally written in a way that, hey, you
level your, your driveway with us, we'll power wash your
driveway for free. My cost for that is typically
100 or $150.00 and it covers theentire property.
And so that comes 2-3 days afterthe levelling is done.
And so then I text the owner, especially if they've had a good
(08:27):
experience, I say, hey, our power washing guys going to be
there to do the driveway. I told him to throw on your
sidewalks as well for free whilehe's there if you want him to.
Do you know your backyard that only be $100.00 so it's a small
upsell to potentially cover the cost.
It's already baked into what my my top line quote.
Is so you just sub that out and eat the cost.
You basically work it into the quote and then find another
(08:49):
pressure washing company to do that.
Yeah, I want people to see effort and joy in every job that
we're doing. And a way that we can very
easily deliver on that is by leaving something cleaner than
the way that we found it. And there's a bunch of power
washing folks that we'll do it for less than $100.00.
So as we get more volume than I can maybe get better about
(09:10):
tightening that up. That's really smart.
Where did you learn that from? Like where did that idea come
from? That came from Jeff, the CEO of
HMI Aferdar. After I badgered him for three
plus hours up in Wisconsin and kept asking him the same
question, how do I differentiate?
How do I differentiate? And then finally, at the end of
the second day, he's like, you know, we have seen success with
(09:31):
this one thing. Yeah, not many people are doing.
I'm like, yes, thank you. Thank you, Jeff.
It's good the people watching this won't need to spend 3 hours
with Jeff. Yeah, to get that.
In great guy. I'm sure he's great.
Great guy. We love Jeff.
Yeah. So like me, you're a multi
preneur is what I call it. Of all the things you could have
started, of all the opportunities you saw out there,
why did you pick this one? So one thing that excites me
(09:54):
about what we're doing is that if concrete were a crop, then
Houston would be the largest farm in North America.
If concrete were a stand alone entity or country, that would be
the third highest carbon emitterglobally.
Texas alone accounts for roughly20% of new concrete being poured
(10:20):
in the United States and the twoleading markets are Houston and
DFW. And so in a effort to not
recreate the wheel, choose a service or a line of work that
has already been validated for centuries, that was something
that I wanted to bring a new, new and fresh look to.
(10:41):
The industry as a whole is laggard to technology.
I think it was. Mackenzie had them tagged as the
least technological Ford industry.
Concrete. In general.
And so there just seems to be some synergies and an
opportunity to disrupt with either a new look on marketing,
(11:02):
a new look on software, a new look or approach on delivering
the same value that everybody wants to buy, but in a more
efficient way with more modern tools.
Well, Houston and Dallas, we're not geographically constrained.
We grow out, right, not up. They're massive, sprawling
metroplexes. What?
What did you first see that kindof gave you the idea to even
(11:24):
start to look into this industrybefore you knew how big of a
market it was? Yeah, I, I had somebody quote my
house a year prior and they quoted me $2200 and I was like,
Oh my gosh, told me $200 to fix 12, you know, feet of a walkway
leading from the street to my house.
(11:45):
It's like, that's outrageous. So why did you want to fix?
Were you selling it? I'm not selling.
There's about an inch dip. There still is.
I'm, I'm embarrassed to say, butthere is an inch still tripping
hazard that my younger son had stubbed his toe a couple times.
And so typically from a residential side, you're trying
to remove tripping hazards or a liability standpoint.
(12:05):
There's aesthetics or vanity. You want your house to look good
or your neighbor just got a new driveway and you don't want to
pay 30 grand for a new driveway.So you'll pay 3 grand to level
your current driveway. And those are typical buying
levers to pull. But the opportunity screened
when that same company I had come out to quote me Level
(12:28):
Concrete, they were just acquired by KKR, which is one of
the large this quarter, one of the larger private equity groups
in the world in terms of assets under management.
Crazy. So let's talk about job size
then. What is your average job size in
with regards to revenue? $2500.
And what's your average profit margin on that?
1000. 1000 bucks alright so thirty 3540% profit.
(12:52):
Okay. And do you quote all the jobs
yourself? Yeah.
So one thing that I try to be different about everybody I'm
competing against will roll a truck to go to look at a job
site and there is benefit from building relationships with your
potential buyer. But my hypothesis on doing
everything remotely and virtually is that I can crank
out five or ten quotes and you know the time it takes me to
(13:16):
drive an hour outside of town, spend an hour with the home
owner, the drive an hour back. And so in those three hours,
maybe you have a 50 or 60% chance of wanting that job.
I'm okay quoting it all virtually over the phone by
collecting enough photographs. Maybe my win rate goes down to
25%. But if I'm doing 10 in the same
time, then I'm winning more gross revenue over time.
(13:39):
Well, if customer acquisition isin the bottleneck, then that
works perfectly. Yep.
You just keep things efficient and you're OK to lose customers
that would have said no if you were there in person.
You're just paying for rock density and low volume, Yeah.
So one thing that's dropping by today's the 20 is 23rd.
By the time this airs, we will have a tool on our website as
(14:00):
well that lets folks quote themselves.
It's got the level estimate trademark pending.
But one thing that I saw happen in solar, I have seen it happen
in other areas, is like quote yourself tooling so that you
create more transparency around what the pricing for different
jobs are. And so we ask a number of
qualifying questions. It takes less than 3 minutes,
(14:21):
but you know, what's the scope of the work being done?
Is it a driveway? Is it a sidewalk?
Is it a patio for a pool? How much square footage is
sinking and then how big are those gaps between slabs or or
materials that you're trying to raise it up to?
And that goes into our advanced calculation engine and it's it's
(14:44):
out of price. And So what I want to do is help
enable a self-service type modelover the longer term, starting
out just residentially so that we can have even more throughput
than just virtual bidding. Because right now, I'll talk to
the homeowner, we talk on the phone.
I asked for as many pictures, they text them to me, I review
(15:05):
them and then I provide a quote.You quote all the jobs yourself.
Correct. Yeah.
Do you have any issues when the subcontractor rolls up in a
different branded vehicle or is that a non issue?
So the stat that I've read that I don't know if this is true for
me or not, but the stat that I read says that 60 to 70% of home
owners are not going to be home when the job is being performed.
(15:27):
Interesting. OK, I didn't know that.
And so I don't know if that so this this is HMI I'm quoting and
they are industry leader in, in all the material materials and
and equipment. And so you know, don't quote me
on it if I'm wrong, but if I'm right then you can just take out
this port. Well if it's if only 30% of
(15:49):
people are home, then that's much fewer people that would
have an issue with a different brand, right?
And in my experience with the tree tripping business, people
don't care. It's a non issue.
Yep. What else are you doing in the
industry that's kind of progressive?
Like how are you trying to change things in this industry?
Yeah. So one thing I'm really excited
about, I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I want to
provide concrete leveling as a service.
(16:10):
So the go to market is going to be commercially focused or
industrial focused to property managers, folks who own new home
builders, maybe folks that own retail properties around town,
multiple retail properties around town.
And I want to be an insurance like product that gives them
(16:32):
unlimited to or up to a certain amount of concrete levelling at
each of their properties on an annualized basis.
Or maybe you get one free job per property per month or
something like that. And I want to sell it as a
higher ticket item that's in thesix figures that would have to
be, you know, budgeted for on anannualized basis for these
(16:53):
bigger companies. But that way I can create more
predictability to my top line. And I also will have higher
utilization and justification toown more assets.
If I know that I can cover my entire fixed cost based on just
this one contract, then that creates a lot more upward
mobility for growth. And since real estate and, and
(17:16):
these other folks are going to be prominent and in most cities
you go to, that type of thing can be a, a pathway if they own
equipment in multiple cities to expand geographies very quickly
or to easily target which areas you want to go to next based on
relationships that you've been. I think you'd have an even
(17:37):
better easier time selling that if you really played up the
liability side of it. And if you got some industry
facts talking about trip and fall lawsuits and how much it
could cost them and it's prevention is better than the
cure, etcetera, etcetera. Playing to the fear side of it
as opposed to like the aestheticside of it, I think you could
have some successor. Yeah, what you're saying?
Then the disease sell the cure. Yeah, that's right.
(18:02):
All right. So you're a father, too?
Yeah. You have a governing job.
Yeah. You have this business and other
business. Yes.
Is someone able to run a business like this while doing
all these other things? Or are you just like a superhero
of freaking nature? I don't know about that.
A lot of credit goes to my wife.She gets the the wife of the
year award for sure. I've just been so blessed to
have the ability to manage my time in a way that I need to
(18:25):
based on whatever's happening. Yeah.
And so I know by no means is this a Jeff is incredible, but
I've just been fortunate to workwith great people, to be
surrounded with a supporting andloving wife and have two
incredible boys that are not a headache but just a joy to be
rare. OK.
So if someone wanted to make 10,000 a month of net profit in
(18:46):
this business, yeah. How many hours a week ongoing?
Like of course, in the beginningthere's going to be more of it
over time. How many hours a week do you
think that would require? Yeah.
So our my biggest week was $10,000 top line revenue and
that took three jobs and I sold three jobs in two days.
And so that was just a bit of luck and fortune and then seeing
(19:09):
those through to fulfilment is something that I'm not
personally involved in the wholelot.
Yeah. And So what I require with my
sales is that we never booked jobs the same week.
And so we'll take 50% down payment immediately once the
sale is done and then the remainder is due after the job
is completed. And so I hold the Subs to a
(19:32):
higher, not a higher standard, but just to a, hey, we're going
to be there at 10:00 on Tuesday and they have to send pictures
and check insurance in order to do that.
So if your average job is 2500, you said, let's say 800 of
profit per job, give or take, you got to do about 12 jobs a
month to make $10,000. Yeah.
(19:53):
So they call it 3A week give or take.
Yeah. What?
What's your close rate on quotes?
On quotes. So in the past 30 days I've done
4 jobs out of my pipeline has about 30 or 35.
Of those 35, only like 12 or qualified, OK.
(20:14):
And so I'd say about a third, third, yeah, rolling, rolling
average of a 33%. Would you consider yourself a
killer salesman or? No, it's an area that I need to
be OK, better at. Well, that's good.
Most people are probably averageas well.
So let's say 33% close rate, youneed to do 12 jobs.
That means you need to quote 36 jobs.
(20:34):
Yeah, you just easily. Yeah, you work backwards, so you
want. 36 leads. Come on.
Yeah, it would be $10,000 a month.
Yeah, yeah. How many hours do you think that
would take to quote what let's what's we call like 10 quotes a
week? If it take a quote, if you're
asking the right questions only takes an hour.
And so from the time that the lead comes in to qualifying it,
(20:55):
I try to have no downtime. So Chris calls in.
I want to talk to Chris immediately.
I want to see what he's trying to solve.
I want to understand like, what's the pain that he wants to
get rid of and help him just come to a decision of this is
something I might want to do or not.
Yeah. So I'm trying less to sell you
and convince you to do this. I just want to understand the
(21:16):
pain that you're trying to avoid.
And once you understand that pain, then you can help that
person make an educated guess. OK, so it's not.
Ordinable assumption, yeah. It's not unreasonable to say
that someone with a full time job could run this business if
they acquired enough leads. Call it 3540 leads a month.
In five hours of quoting per week, they can make 10,000 a
(21:38):
month of profit. Yeah, if you have the systems in
place for. Sure.
What? Speaking of systems, what?
What is like your tech stack? So custom software plus my CRM
is high level. OK high level is your CRM you
built your website with replit? Any other tools like calendar
widgets or apps you can use? No, I found it just I do a lot
(21:59):
of texting. I see a lot great benefit in
texting the prospects and so high level has a good text chat
AI bot or whatever it is, we cankind of create guard rails
around it. And so the the ease of a lead
coming in and then setting up automations to reach out to that
person is pretty low hanging fruit.
(22:20):
And it goes a long way. If you get a text right after
you complete a form and then askif they're free to connect and
then call them, regardless of what they say, they can't talk,
they'll tell you. Yeah.
What are what are your ongoing costs in this business and how
do you manage insurance? Yeah.
So each sub has to have at least$1,000,000 of insurance, $1
(22:40):
million and then the CRM plus replet is less than $500 a
month. OK So I have multiple I forget
what tier it is in high level but you have like unlimited sub
accounts. Yeah, so I pay.
For that one and that replet is probably incremental $100 based
(23:00):
on whatever I'm trying to build something so 5. 600 bucks a
month. You don't pay for insurance
because your Subs do, right? And that's it.
And it's remote. Yeah.
What's the best job you ever did?
The most profitable? Job I ever did.
That's a great question. How did you find that customer?
Yeah, I mean the the smaller jobs of fixing a sidewalk that's
(23:21):
$2000 since they're super easy, they take a couple hours if
you're fishing in the right neighborhood.
Those are easy folks enjoy and appreciate that their sidewalk
looks better. I have a big float out pending
right now within a state way outof town up near it's Chapelwood,
Texas or almost in over in in Brenham.
(23:42):
And that would be a $60,000 job.And so that would be 50% margin
based on where it's, you know, quoted at delivery and things
always go wrong. But just having the flexibility
to handle that is baked in. 30,000 to profit on one job.
So that, you know, beat everything I did in the past,
you know, 90 days. That's what's cool about we're
(24:02):
talking about averages here. But then when you're an
entrepreneur, like I like to usethe baseball analogy, like
everyone else is sitting in the dugout the whole game.
But when you're an entrepreneur,you go up to back and you're
going to strikeout, strikeout, strikeout.
But then you'll have a Grand Slam that will make up for all
the strikeouts times 10. Right.
Yeah, that's what I love about this.
Yeah, I love that. And so if you have a good
understanding of what you're trying to fix and you can target
(24:24):
low complex jobs, thank big parking lot for a commercial
building, then those are 6 figure revenue opportunities
that require little to no complexity.
And then you just need to plan it out.
And so one thing I'm investing time in researching is how do I
create more efficient bids and more attractive bids for the
city of Houston and other municipalities?
(24:47):
But I'd see it as a big win fiveyears from now if I had, you
know, the Texas Department of Transportation, City of Houston
and, you know, Harris County potentially as as past customers
for either one or multiple jobs.Do you think people should even
consider getting their own trailer and doing it all
themselves, or is selling it outjust the way to go?
(25:07):
Really depends on what you want.I think over time I'd love for
this to be a full time gig and currently there's no need for me
in Houston to get my own trailer.
Over time, my vision is to expand into some of the smaller
markets in Texas where there areno competitors or providers and
that at that time it makes senseto to buy the equipment, but
(25:30):
your entry cost is for a van. So I think that van the size or
half the size of the trailer that we were in earlier is
probably about sixty, $70,000. And so it's not nothing which
creates and prevents some folks from entering into the market,
but there's a lot of opportunityon this tale of, you know,
smaller cities relative to maybeDFW or Houston that I'm really
(25:53):
excited about. Well, Jeff, thank you for your
time today. Yeah, thank you.
This has been an absolute treat.I've enjoyed it.
Been a long time follower. First time seeing you in person
or taller than I I'm. Being in a video, I get that a.
Lot and so thank you. I think what you're doing is so
cool. You're inspiring to not only
myself, but other folks that that were within your network
(26:13):
and and I want to you know, for whatever it's worth till you're
doing a great job and really appreciate the voice that you
have in Texas and and outside ofthat this great state.
Absolutely. Thank you.
For the kind words, where shouldpeople find you if they want to
learn more or connect with you? Yeah, website is Texas
labguys.com and love to connect if you're in Texas, If you are
(26:36):
within the commercial real estate world, I'd love to pick
your brain and figure out how we're we can better penetrate
this industry. And if you're in concrete
leveling too, I'd love to just meet more folks either within
concrete or concrete leveling. It's a relatively small world,
and the more folks I can meet either in Texas or outside, I'd
love to sharpen my own understanding of the market as
(26:57):
well. Or if you're on the coast of
Texas or in greater Houston, youneed some concrete level Texas
labguys.com. Yeah, Port Aransas, Brownsville,
Corpus Christi, just to name a few.
If you're just looking for namesjust to cut out potentially,
Yeah, Galveston. Yeah.
So Chris, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, man.
(27:17):
Absolutely.
What's the best job you ever did?
The smaller jobs of fixing a sidewalk that's $2000, since
they're super easy, they take a couple hours.
I let you my life. Yeah.
I was like, hey, this is too easy.
I'm doing something wrong. What is going on?
It's not unreasonable to say that someone with a full time
job could run this business in five hours of quoting per week
they can make $10,000 of. Profit.
(00:21):
Yeah, for sure. What if I told you that concrete
leveling is a very big business?Not just that, but you can make
$2500 per job without owning anyequipment, without having any
employees, and without having toquit your job.
I sit down with Jeff today of Houston, TX.
He owns a concrete leveling business that is very
profitable. He's only been doing it for
three months and he is set to make $100,000 of profit his
(00:44):
first year. So we're going to ask him
exactly how do you do it? How do you find customers?
How do you fulfill the service? How do you talk about this stuff
when you don't even kind of knowwhat you're talking about?
We're going to cover all of it today, so let's go.
All right. So how long lived did you start
this business? I'm I'm a newbie.
I've been doing this for a solid90 days so far.
(01:05):
OK, so. Basically an expert, yeah.
What is your total revenue been so far?
We are just shy of $20,000 and majority of that has come in the
past 60 days, OK. Wow.
And how much of that is profit, give or take?
We're seeing anywhere from 30 to40% gross margin on each job,
OK. What do you think your net
profit will end up being once you're more at scale?
(01:28):
Once I end up at scale, well, itwill try to continue scaling.
My goal this year is to finish 250,000 top line revenue before
the end of the year and if we can do 50 to $100,000 gross
dollars as margin then that would be an outstanding success
plan for next year is 1,000,000 top line revenue OK.
(01:49):
And you know, anywhere from 20 to 40% margin I'd be extremely
happy with. Wow.
So so you're saying ran into theindustry, you didn't work in
this industry before, right? In the first six months you
expect to do 100,000 of profit. I hope too.
Yeah, and you're on track. We need to win a couple bigger
jobs, but we've seen some reallygood encouragement right out of
(02:11):
the gate. And so the market is relatively
saturated in the sense that there's a lot of providers, but
we have found a good way to differentiate ourselves relative
to a lot of the noise. And so my peers are typically
solopreneurs who own their own trailer, work for themselves and
once they hit a certain threshold of either either
revenue or margin, they just like to coast.
(02:34):
And that nothing's wrong with that at all, but.
That's your opportunity. Yeah, so everything after that
is just gravy for them. What I want to do is create a a
process that is repeatable and can be copied and pasted across
mid tier, smaller tier markets across the Texas coast and and
along the border of Mexico in order to own markets where
(02:57):
there's no providers currently operating.
So Houston has, you know, a couple million people living
there. I want to target Forte,
Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Excetera, where there's no
established providers, population of 200 to $300,000 in
my or Yeah, excuse me. Yeah, two 200 to 300,000 people.
Thank you. And little to no competition.
(03:19):
Yeah. OK.
So you kind of go find the solo provider who reached one
$200,000 in revenue and he's cool and you come in there and
say, hey, I can get you the nextlevel without you having to do
any additional work. So any additional jobs you want
above that revenue, mark, I'll send your way.
I'm going to work in my margin and we can work together.
Correct. OK, Yeah.
And So what that means is we winfewer jobs that we're bidding on
(03:42):
because we're not competing on price.
But there's such a high demand for this service in the state of
Texas that often times it's really only one of the
considerations that are factoredinto a owner's or businesses
decision on the topic. Do you have a harder time
finding good subcontractors or customers?
I have not. You know, it's been a huge
(04:03):
blessing. I've been so fortunate to work
with the people that I have and I am lucky on, on finding those
folks. And everybody I've worked with
so far has been honest and straightforward.
And I, I look for some common denominators.
HMI, who's the manufacturer of these trailers typically and the
main producer of the raw materials we looked at earlier
(04:24):
have a soft spot in their heart for veterans.
And so typically you see a lot of veterans that are owning
their own trailers that I found are, are so easy to work with.
OK. So what about customer
acquisition? How is that going so far?
We have a number of channels open.
So I, I sold my first job June 2025 and it was a lead that I
(04:48):
found through a Facebook lead. My cost per lead was, you know,
$4.60 or something, and I found that lead within an hour or two
of the campaign being approved and launched.
Now this is a Facebook ad campaign, not Marketplace or
groups. Facebook ad campaign, Yeah.
So within two hours of launch, you had your first $5 lead,
(05:09):
which turned into a your first customer, correct?
So you're like $500.00 for revenue.
This is so easy I left you. One Life Revenue.
Yeah, I was like, babe, this is too easy, I'm doing something
wrong, What is going on? But obviously there's some, some
lessons learned along the way. And I, you know, didn't make any
margin on that job because it was an hour outside of town and
I needed to factor in the team'stime of, of driving to the job
(05:33):
into the overall cost. And so I then forgot to turn the
ads off for a month. And so I paid, you know, $80
more, whatever it was over time.And so just stumping my,
stumping my toe, things that seem obvious, Yeah, I got.
Stumping your toe on $2500. Yeah, yeah.
So worse things to yeah, stub your toe on.
(05:55):
So Facebook ads, has that been like the the daily driver for
your customer acquisition? I turn those on and off.
We've seen Next door work well. Next door ads or organic stuff?
Next door organic. We have not done any ads.
We've seen the Google search organic, we've had folks refer
us, we've had inbound leads juston the website and through our
(06:19):
chat bots asking about inquiries.
And then I've taken a page out of your own playbook and done
some outbound texting campaigns to think HOA managers, property
managers, etcetera that are overseeing multiple properties.
And so by staying in front of them, that's generated a slow
(06:41):
trickle of volume as well. Nice.
And a lot of times you have to like, play the long game on that
and it's a little depressing forthe first month, but then they
start to come back, especially as you follow up, right.
And they're, you know, they're on a straightforward, you know,
salt of the earth type folks. Typically that's who I have seen
on average operate small businesses and or solopreneurs
(07:02):
operate that way. And so you have to build that
relationship and that's early tothat's that's the key to invest
in early on. Yeah.
But if you're just transparent from the get go, then there's no
reason that two folks who are selling two different things
can't complement each other. How much effort or time did you
put into your website or your Google Business profile?
I didn't spend too much time. I invested $0.00, I built it all
(07:24):
in Replit and so my goal is to just have easy clean landing
page. As I've started seeing a little
bit more volume come through then I've been playing with the
idea of having a professional build out website.
But right now it captures 95% ofpeople that are coming to my
website if they actually are interested, but actually forms,
chat bots or other items that I've set up.
(07:46):
OK. What other kind of clever
creative hacks are you doing to to find subcontractors or to
find customers, Something that might be outside of the norm?
Yeah. So I try to differentiate a few
ways. I mentioned the quality of our
services and the communication. And another thing I do for
residential jobs is I throw in afree power wash on the area.
(08:07):
And so I haven't structurally written in a way that, hey, you
level your, your driveway with us, we'll power wash your
driveway for free. My cost for that is typically
100 or $150.00 and it covers theentire property.
And so that comes 2-3 days afterthe levelling is done.
And so then I text the owner, especially if they've had a good
(08:27):
experience, I say, hey, our power washing guys going to be
there to do the driveway. I told him to throw on your
sidewalks as well for free whilehe's there if you want him to.
Do you know your backyard that only be $100.00 so it's a small
upsell to potentially cover the cost.
It's already baked into what my my top line quote.
Is so you just sub that out and eat the cost.
You basically work it into the quote and then find another
(08:49):
pressure washing company to do that.
Yeah, I want people to see effort and joy in every job that
we're doing. And a way that we can very
easily deliver on that is by leaving something cleaner than
the way that we found it. And there's a bunch of power
washing folks that we'll do it for less than $100.00.
So as we get more volume than I can maybe get better about
(09:10):
tightening that up. That's really smart.
Where did you learn that from? Like where did that idea come
from? That came from Jeff, the CEO of
HMI Aferdar. After I badgered him for three
plus hours up in Wisconsin and kept asking him the same
question, how do I differentiate?
How do I differentiate? And then finally, at the end of
the second day, he's like, you know, we have seen success with
(09:31):
this one thing. Yeah, not many people are doing.
I'm like, yes, thank you. Thank you, Jeff.
It's good the people watching this won't need to spend 3 hours
with Jeff. Yeah, to get that.
In great guy. I'm sure he's great.
Great guy. We love Jeff.
Yeah. So like me, you're a multi
preneur is what I call it. Of all the things you could have
started, of all the opportunities you saw out there,
why did you pick this one? So one thing that excites me
(09:54):
about what we're doing is that if concrete were a crop, then
Houston would be the largest farm in North America.
If concrete were a stand alone entity or country, that would be
the third highest carbon emitterglobally.
Texas alone accounts for roughly20% of new concrete being poured
(10:20):
in the United States and the twoleading markets are Houston and
DFW. And so in a effort to not
recreate the wheel, choose a service or a line of work that
has already been validated for centuries, that was something
that I wanted to bring a new, new and fresh look to.
(10:41):
The industry as a whole is laggard to technology.
I think it was. Mackenzie had them tagged as the
least technological Ford industry.
Concrete. In general.
And so there just seems to be some synergies and an
opportunity to disrupt with either a new look on marketing,
(11:02):
a new look on software, a new look or approach on delivering
the same value that everybody wants to buy, but in a more
efficient way with more modern tools.
Well, Houston and Dallas, we're not geographically constrained.
We grow out, right, not up. They're massive, sprawling
metroplexes. What?
What did you first see that kindof gave you the idea to even
(11:24):
start to look into this industrybefore you knew how big of a
market it was? Yeah, I, I had somebody quote my
house a year prior and they quoted me $2200 and I was like,
Oh my gosh, told me $200 to fix 12, you know, feet of a walkway
leading from the street to my house.
(11:45):
It's like, that's outrageous. So why did you want to fix?
Were you selling it? I'm not selling.
There's about an inch dip. There still is.
I'm, I'm embarrassed to say, butthere is an inch still tripping
hazard that my younger son had stubbed his toe a couple times.
And so typically from a residential side, you're trying
to remove tripping hazards or a liability standpoint.
(12:05):
There's aesthetics or vanity. You want your house to look good
or your neighbor just got a new driveway and you don't want to
pay 30 grand for a new driveway.So you'll pay 3 grand to level
your current driveway. And those are typical buying
levers to pull. But the opportunity screened
when that same company I had come out to quote me Level
(12:28):
Concrete, they were just acquired by KKR, which is one of
the large this quarter, one of the larger private equity groups
in the world in terms of assets under management.
Crazy. So let's talk about job size
then. What is your average job size in
with regards to revenue? $2500.
And what's your average profit margin on that?
1000. 1000 bucks alright so thirty 3540% profit.
(12:52):
Okay. And do you quote all the jobs
yourself? Yeah.
So one thing that I try to be different about everybody I'm
competing against will roll a truck to go to look at a job
site and there is benefit from building relationships with your
potential buyer. But my hypothesis on doing
everything remotely and virtually is that I can crank
out five or ten quotes and you know the time it takes me to
(13:16):
drive an hour outside of town, spend an hour with the home
owner, the drive an hour back. And so in those three hours,
maybe you have a 50 or 60% chance of wanting that job.
I'm okay quoting it all virtually over the phone by
collecting enough photographs. Maybe my win rate goes down to
25%. But if I'm doing 10 in the same
time, then I'm winning more gross revenue over time.
(13:39):
Well, if customer acquisition isin the bottleneck, then that
works perfectly. Yep.
You just keep things efficient and you're OK to lose customers
that would have said no if you were there in person.
You're just paying for rock density and low volume, Yeah.
So one thing that's dropping by today's the 20 is 23rd.
By the time this airs, we will have a tool on our website as
(14:00):
well that lets folks quote themselves.
It's got the level estimate trademark pending.
But one thing that I saw happen in solar, I have seen it happen
in other areas, is like quote yourself tooling so that you
create more transparency around what the pricing for different
jobs are. And so we ask a number of
qualifying questions. It takes less than 3 minutes,
(14:21):
but you know, what's the scope of the work being done?
Is it a driveway? Is it a sidewalk?
Is it a patio for a pool? How much square footage is
sinking and then how big are those gaps between slabs or or
materials that you're trying to raise it up to?
And that goes into our advanced calculation engine and it's it's
(14:44):
out of price. And So what I want to do is help
enable a self-service type modelover the longer term, starting
out just residentially so that we can have even more throughput
than just virtual bidding. Because right now, I'll talk to
the homeowner, we talk on the phone.
I asked for as many pictures, they text them to me, I review
(15:05):
them and then I provide a quote.You quote all the jobs yourself.
Correct. Yeah.
Do you have any issues when the subcontractor rolls up in a
different branded vehicle or is that a non issue?
So the stat that I've read that I don't know if this is true for
me or not, but the stat that I read says that 60 to 70% of home
owners are not going to be home when the job is being performed.
(15:27):
Interesting. OK, I didn't know that.
And so I don't know if that so this this is HMI I'm quoting and
they are industry leader in, in all the material materials and
and equipment. And so you know, don't quote me
on it if I'm wrong, but if I'm right then you can just take out
this port. Well if it's if only 30% of
(15:49):
people are home, then that's much fewer people that would
have an issue with a different brand, right?
And in my experience with the tree tripping business, people
don't care. It's a non issue.
Yep. What else are you doing in the
industry that's kind of progressive?
Like how are you trying to change things in this industry?
Yeah. So one thing I'm really excited
about, I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I want to
provide concrete leveling as a service.
(16:10):
So the go to market is going to be commercially focused or
industrial focused to property managers, folks who own new home
builders, maybe folks that own retail properties around town,
multiple retail properties around town.
And I want to be an insurance like product that gives them
(16:32):
unlimited to or up to a certain amount of concrete levelling at
each of their properties on an annualized basis.
Or maybe you get one free job per property per month or
something like that. And I want to sell it as a
higher ticket item that's in thesix figures that would have to
be, you know, budgeted for on anannualized basis for these
(16:53):
bigger companies. But that way I can create more
predictability to my top line. And I also will have higher
utilization and justification toown more assets.
If I know that I can cover my entire fixed cost based on just
this one contract, then that creates a lot more upward
mobility for growth. And since real estate and, and
(17:16):
these other folks are going to be prominent and in most cities
you go to, that type of thing can be a, a pathway if they own
equipment in multiple cities to expand geographies very quickly
or to easily target which areas you want to go to next based on
relationships that you've been. I think you'd have an even
(17:37):
better easier time selling that if you really played up the
liability side of it. And if you got some industry
facts talking about trip and fall lawsuits and how much it
could cost them and it's prevention is better than the
cure, etcetera, etcetera. Playing to the fear side of it
as opposed to like the aestheticside of it, I think you could
have some successor. Yeah, what you're saying?
Then the disease sell the cure. Yeah, that's right.
(18:02):
All right. So you're a father, too?
Yeah. You have a governing job.
Yeah. You have this business and other
business. Yes.
Is someone able to run a business like this while doing
all these other things? Or are you just like a superhero
of freaking nature? I don't know about that.
A lot of credit goes to my wife.She gets the the wife of the
year award for sure. I've just been so blessed to
have the ability to manage my time in a way that I need to
(18:25):
based on whatever's happening. Yeah.
And so I know by no means is this a Jeff is incredible, but
I've just been fortunate to workwith great people, to be
surrounded with a supporting andloving wife and have two
incredible boys that are not a headache but just a joy to be
rare. OK.
So if someone wanted to make 10,000 a month of net profit in
(18:46):
this business, yeah. How many hours a week ongoing?
Like of course, in the beginningthere's going to be more of it
over time. How many hours a week do you
think that would require? Yeah.
So our my biggest week was $10,000 top line revenue and
that took three jobs and I sold three jobs in two days.
And so that was just a bit of luck and fortune and then seeing
(19:09):
those through to fulfilment is something that I'm not
personally involved in the wholelot.
Yeah. And So what I require with my
sales is that we never booked jobs the same week.
And so we'll take 50% down payment immediately once the
sale is done and then the remainder is due after the job
is completed. And so I hold the Subs to a
(19:32):
higher, not a higher standard, but just to a, hey, we're going
to be there at 10:00 on Tuesday and they have to send pictures
and check insurance in order to do that.
So if your average job is 2500, you said, let's say 800 of
profit per job, give or take, you got to do about 12 jobs a
month to make $10,000. Yeah.
(19:53):
So they call it 3A week give or take.
Yeah. What?
What's your close rate on quotes?
On quotes. So in the past 30 days I've done
4 jobs out of my pipeline has about 30 or 35.
Of those 35, only like 12 or qualified, OK.
(20:14):
And so I'd say about a third, third, yeah, rolling, rolling
average of a 33%. Would you consider yourself a
killer salesman or? No, it's an area that I need to
be OK, better at. Well, that's good.
Most people are probably averageas well.
So let's say 33% close rate, youneed to do 12 jobs.
That means you need to quote 36 jobs.
(20:34):
Yeah, you just easily. Yeah, you work backwards, so you
want. 36 leads. Come on.
Yeah, it would be $10,000 a month.
Yeah, yeah. How many hours do you think that
would take to quote what let's what's we call like 10 quotes a
week? If it take a quote, if you're
asking the right questions only takes an hour.
And so from the time that the lead comes in to qualifying it,
(20:55):
I try to have no downtime. So Chris calls in.
I want to talk to Chris immediately.
I want to see what he's trying to solve.
I want to understand like, what's the pain that he wants to
get rid of and help him just come to a decision of this is
something I might want to do or not.
Yeah. So I'm trying less to sell you
and convince you to do this. I just want to understand the
(21:16):
pain that you're trying to avoid.
And once you understand that pain, then you can help that
person make an educated guess. OK, so it's not.
Ordinable assumption, yeah. It's not unreasonable to say
that someone with a full time job could run this business if
they acquired enough leads. Call it 3540 leads a month.
In five hours of quoting per week, they can make 10,000 a
(21:38):
month of profit. Yeah, if you have the systems in
place for. Sure.
What? Speaking of systems, what?
What is like your tech stack? So custom software plus my CRM
is high level. OK high level is your CRM you
built your website with replit? Any other tools like calendar
widgets or apps you can use? No, I found it just I do a lot
(21:59):
of texting. I see a lot great benefit in
texting the prospects and so high level has a good text chat
AI bot or whatever it is, we cankind of create guard rails
around it. And so the the ease of a lead
coming in and then setting up automations to reach out to that
person is pretty low hanging fruit.
(22:20):
And it goes a long way. If you get a text right after
you complete a form and then askif they're free to connect and
then call them, regardless of what they say, they can't talk,
they'll tell you. Yeah.
What are what are your ongoing costs in this business and how
do you manage insurance? Yeah.
So each sub has to have at least$1,000,000 of insurance, $1
(22:40):
million and then the CRM plus replet is less than $500 a
month. OK So I have multiple I forget
what tier it is in high level but you have like unlimited sub
accounts. Yeah, so I pay.
For that one and that replet is probably incremental $100 based
(23:00):
on whatever I'm trying to build something so 5. 600 bucks a
month. You don't pay for insurance
because your Subs do, right? And that's it.
And it's remote. Yeah.
What's the best job you ever did?
The most profitable? Job I ever did.
That's a great question. How did you find that customer?
Yeah, I mean the the smaller jobs of fixing a sidewalk that's
(23:21):
$2000 since they're super easy, they take a couple hours if
you're fishing in the right neighborhood.
Those are easy folks enjoy and appreciate that their sidewalk
looks better. I have a big float out pending
right now within a state way outof town up near it's Chapelwood,
Texas or almost in over in in Brenham.
(23:42):
And that would be a $60,000 job.And so that would be 50% margin
based on where it's, you know, quoted at delivery and things
always go wrong. But just having the flexibility
to handle that is baked in. 30,000 to profit on one job.
So that, you know, beat everything I did in the past,
you know, 90 days. That's what's cool about we're
(24:02):
talking about averages here. But then when you're an
entrepreneur, like I like to usethe baseball analogy, like
everyone else is sitting in the dugout the whole game.
But when you're an entrepreneur,you go up to back and you're
going to strikeout, strikeout, strikeout.
But then you'll have a Grand Slam that will make up for all
the strikeouts times 10. Right.
Yeah, that's what I love about this.
Yeah, I love that. And so if you have a good
understanding of what you're trying to fix and you can target
(24:24):
low complex jobs, thank big parking lot for a commercial
building, then those are 6 figure revenue opportunities
that require little to no complexity.
And then you just need to plan it out.
And so one thing I'm investing time in researching is how do I
create more efficient bids and more attractive bids for the
city of Houston and other municipalities?
(24:47):
But I'd see it as a big win fiveyears from now if I had, you
know, the Texas Department of Transportation, City of Houston
and, you know, Harris County potentially as as past customers
for either one or multiple jobs.Do you think people should even
consider getting their own trailer and doing it all
themselves, or is selling it outjust the way to go?
(25:07):
Really depends on what you want.I think over time I'd love for
this to be a full time gig and currently there's no need for me
in Houston to get my own trailer.
Over time, my vision is to expand into some of the smaller
markets in Texas where there areno competitors or providers and
that at that time it makes senseto to buy the equipment, but
(25:30):
your entry cost is for a van. So I think that van the size or
half the size of the trailer that we were in earlier is
probably about sixty, $70,000. And so it's not nothing which
creates and prevents some folks from entering into the market,
but there's a lot of opportunityon this tale of, you know,
smaller cities relative to maybeDFW or Houston that I'm really
(25:53):
excited about. Well, Jeff, thank you for your
time today. Yeah, thank you.
This has been an absolute treat.I've enjoyed it.
Been a long time follower. First time seeing you in person
or taller than I I'm. Being in a video, I get that a.
Lot and so thank you. I think what you're doing is so
cool. You're inspiring to not only
myself, but other folks that that were within your network
(26:13):
and and I want to you know, for whatever it's worth till you're
doing a great job and really appreciate the voice that you
have in Texas and and outside ofthat this great state.
Absolutely. Thank you.
For the kind words, where shouldpeople find you if they want to
learn more or connect with you? Yeah, website is Texas
labguys.com and love to connect if you're in Texas, If you are
(26:36):
within the commercial real estate world, I'd love to pick
your brain and figure out how we're we can better penetrate
this industry. And if you're in concrete
leveling too, I'd love to just meet more folks either within
concrete or concrete leveling. It's a relatively small world,
and the more folks I can meet either in Texas or outside, I'd
love to sharpen my own understanding of the market as
(26:57):
well. Or if you're on the coast of
Texas or in greater Houston, youneed some concrete level Texas
labguys.com. Yeah, Port Aransas, Brownsville,
Corpus Christi, just to name a few.
If you're just looking for namesjust to cut out potentially,
Yeah, Galveston. Yeah.
So Chris, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, man.
(27:17):
Absolutely.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!