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Welcome back to the Lawn Hustle.

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I am your host, Andy Wilson.

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I own and operate professional lawn maintenance in Newcastle, Indiana.

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In today's episode, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I want to talk about being

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a professional.

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What does it mean?

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Being a professional in business consistently demonstrates competence, integrity, and ethical

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behavior in all interactions and tasks.

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It involves mastering the skill relevant to your industry.

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In other words, in our industry, the green industry, I want to master the skills of

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laying stripes, edging that perfect edge down the sidewalk and the driveway.

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I want to lay the mulch to where it looks beautiful.

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I want to be a master at work in my industry.

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When you strive to be a professional, you adhere to deadlines.

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You maintain strong communication.

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And I would make a recommendation.

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Your communication in front of clients and in front of peers, in my opinion, is better

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without dropping the F-bomb every other sentence.

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You might not agree with me, and that's fine.

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We can agree to disagree.

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We can disagree without being disagreeable.

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But when someone's dropping the F-bomb every other sentence and they can't put a coherent

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sentence together without cussing, it makes them look foolish.

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We're not in junior high school anymore.

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It's probably past time to grow up.

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Well, now that I've said that, when you are striving to be a professional, you foster

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respectful relationships.

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You want your colleagues to respect you.

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I want other business owners in the green industry to respect me for who I am, to respect

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my business.

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I want my clients to respect me as much as I should respect them.

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Simply put, I want to be a professional.

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I want to run a professional business.

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And in order to do that, number one, I need to exhibit expertise.

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I need to have a deep knowledge of my field and apply it effectively to solve problems

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and to deliver value.

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When I have a deep knowledge in my field, when I make a recommendation to a client, they're

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going to be more willing to accept that recommendation because they know I've done my homework.

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I've put in the time and the effort, studying and listening and watching.

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I say studying.

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Get yourself involved in a good course, study, listen to good podcast.

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I have a list of about 20 to 30 podcasts that I listen to consistently.

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Number one on the list is the Green Industry Podcast with Paul Jamison because our beginnings

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are similar.

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We didn't have a lot of upfront money to start our business.

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We went through the similar struggles, similar financial setbacks.

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And the knowledge that I have gained by listening to Paul Jamison and many others has helped

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me increase my knowledge.

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It's helped me to become a better person, a better business owner.

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And for that, I am grateful because in the green industry, I want to know what I'm talking

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about.

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I want to be able to make recommendations that will enhance my clients' properties.

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I want to exhibit expertise.

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Not that I want to be a big shot.

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They say a big shot is just a little shot away from home because he can pretend.

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I don't want to pretend.

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I want to know what I'm talking about.

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I want to be able to make educated recommendations to enhance my clients.

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Number two, when you are striving to be a professional, it shows accountability.

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It causes you to take responsibility for your actions and the outcomes.

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Owning mistakes and learning from them.

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I would be a fool if I said I had never made a mistake in business.

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You wouldn't believe me anyways, but you have to understand failures are not fatal.

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Mistakes are not final.

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We have the opportunity to try again, to brush ourselves off and go at it from a different

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angle.

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Take responsibility for your failure, learn from it, and go on and achieve what needs

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to be done.

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When you are striving to be a professional, it demonstrates ethical behavior.

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It appears to the moral and the ethical standards of your industry.

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I am so happy that there are numerous podcasts on the air and available for us to listen

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to you.

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Why? Because it's raising the ethical and the moral standard of our industry.

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I know there are still chucks in the truck and dans in a van, but there are a lot of

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good people in our industry doing a lot of good things for our industry.

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I watched the videos of SB Mowing and Mosit Well, and they're doing these properties that

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are overgrown, that have been neglected for sometimes years.

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They're doing them for free to make a neighborhood look more presentable.

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Those are good people doing a good deed, raising the level of morality and the ethical standards

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for our industry.

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Being others with respect and fairness makes you a professional.

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You can't treat people any other way than the way you would want to be treated.

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I have a rule that I operate by, I want to be firm, fair and consistent.

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Firm, fair and consistent.

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I want to treat people with respect because I want to be respected.

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I want to treat people with fairness because I want to be treated with fairness.

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You do not demand respect.

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You earn it.

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And you earn it by the life you live in front of coworkers, in front of employees, and in

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front of clients.

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If they see you trying to take the easy road, they'll know you cannot be respected and you

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cannot be trusted.

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But when they see you going above and beyond, doing more than what you said you were going

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to do, it builds trust, it builds respect.

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The other day we rolled up in front of a house and evidently their trash had just come by

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and I told my helper, take that trash can and roll it up by his garage door.

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It's not our job.

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It's not our responsibility.

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And it's the little things that we do that are unexpected of us that will set us apart

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from everyone else in this city.

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I want to be professional.

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I want to conduct myself in a professional manner.

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And I want to live a life that displays professionalism.

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We're going to take a break and listen to a word from my sponsor.

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Link is in the bio.

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So today we're talking about being professional.

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I have some men in this industry that I look up to.

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And I know we're not to put men on a pedestal because men can fail us.

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Men can disappoint us.

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Men can let us down.

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But there are a lot of good men in this industry that have worked hard to achieve the things

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that they have achieved.

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I want to study them.

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I want to listen to them.

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I want to watch them.

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When you strive to be a professional, it prioritizes a continuous improvement.

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I should be better tomorrow than I was today.

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I should be better next week, next month, next year than what I am this week, this month,

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and this year.

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How do I do that?

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Find you someone that you can look to, look up to, watch, listen, and learn from.

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Like I said earlier, I listened to probably 20 to 30 different podcasts.

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And the podcast that I have chosen to listen to, I chose them because they add value to

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my life.

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They add value to my business.

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These men don't know me.

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Probably never will know me.

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But they're making an impact on my life, on my business, on my family because I am learning

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from them.

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I read books.

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A leader is a reader.

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I watch their content because I want to be better than I am today.

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When you strive to be a leader, you seek to develop new skills.

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You stay updated on our industry trends and you improve your performance.

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EquipExpo will be here before we know it.

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Our industry's greatest show.

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The first year I went, I was just overwhelmed with the booths, the hats and the pins and

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the coffee cups or whatever, the tablets, whatever the giveaways were.

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I went to the demo area and I demoed some mowers because I was in the market for a couple of

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new mowers.

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It's so exciting to do those things.

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But this year, I will go through the booths.

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I will demo a few things.

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But more than all of that this year, it's about relationships.

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It's about building friendships.

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It's about interactions with peers that can make me better.

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I want this EquipExpo to be more educational than visitation of all the booths.

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I hope you understand what I'm saying.

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I want to learn.

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I'm going to take notes.

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I want to interview some people.

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I want to record some podcast while we're at Equip.

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I want to watch and learn on PodRow.

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I want to see people like Paul Jameson, Naylor Talefero, Cornell Mack, Prophets with Payjack.

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I want to watch these men.

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I want to listen to these men.

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I want to take notes because these men are successful, number one, in business and in

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life.

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So I want to learn from them because I want to be successful in business and in life.

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When you strive to be a professional, every day there's just a burning desire to be better

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than you are presently.

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You might be good right now.

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You might even be great right now.

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But you can be greater and you can be better.

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When you strive to be a professional, you manage your time effectively.

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You meet deadlines.

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You're organized.

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You balance competing priorities effectively.

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There's one pet peeve that I have.

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A cluttered shop drives me crazy.

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And we get so busy, it's easy to just unload and sit down.

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But every piece of equipment, every tool should have its place.

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That way when you need it, you don't have to search for it.

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As part of being a professional.

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A dirty cluttered truck drives me nuts.

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Why?

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Because I want the appearance of being a professional.

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And when I'm driving a vehicle with trash all over the floorboard, trash all on the

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dashboard, water bottles rolling all over the floor, the bed of the truck full of trash

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and garbage blowing out as you're driving down the road.

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That doesn't say to me that you're a professional.

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Or you might be busy, you might not think it matters.

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But when people see you, when they see your appearance, your vehicle, your clothes, your

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boots, what does it speak?

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I want to say professional lawn maintenance, they run their business professionally.

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I want to manage time.

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When I tell a client I'm going to be there at a certain time, I want to be there at that

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time.

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When someone calls, they get my information off of Google and they call.

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And I return a phone call within 30 minutes.

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I do that because I want to be professional.

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And most of the time, they say you're the first one that ever calls back.

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Or you're the only one that's ever returned a phone call.

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It's important because you want to conduct yourself as a professional.

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And you want to manage your time and meet deadlines and be organized.

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When you try to be a professional, it builds trust.

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And trust is another thing like respect.

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You cannot demand it.

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Building trust earns the confidence of your clients knowing that you are reliable.

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And can I say just be transparent with your clients?

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If there's something you don't know, you don't have an answer to, don't fake it.

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Don't act like you know what you're talking about.

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If you don't know what you're talking about, do your research.

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Tell them I'm not sure right now.

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Let me do some research.

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I'll get back with you.

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I'll find you an answer.

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When you try to fake it, they know you don't know what you're talking about.

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They know you're trying to pull a fast one on them.

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Just be transparent and say, listen, I don't know, but I will find you an answer.

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It builds trust.

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It builds confidence.

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It builds a relationship that goes just beyond, you do this job and I give you this money.

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When my son was in the hospital and sick, I could not tell you the number of clients

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that texted or called or emailed me.

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Hey, I just want to check on your boy.

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He's making sure he's okay.

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Don't worry about our property.

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It's just grass.

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Everything's going to be fine.

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You'll get to it.

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We'll get through this.

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Now had I not built a relationship with them, their reaction could have been a whole lot

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different.

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That because I have worked hard and diligently to build trust, to build respect, to earn

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their business.

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There's a relationship between me and my clients.

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I like to say 97% of my clients, I never hear a word from, but it's at 3%.

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You know what I'm talking about.

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In essence, being a professional reflects both the quality of work and the attitude towards

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your role and your responsibility.

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Nobody wants to hear you talk about how professional you are.

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You demonstrate how professional you are.

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Hey, I've enjoyed this podcast.

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I hope you have.

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I hope you have found some value in this and I hope something was said that will help you

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be a better person, help you to be a better business owner.

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If you have found value in this podcast, go to Apple Podcast and leave us a five star

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review and a kindly worded review.

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And if you go to Spotify, leave us a comment under the show.

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It helps boost the algorithm to push our show out to more listeners.

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I appreciate you.

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I thank you for listening until we talk again.

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I wish you nothing but success.

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I hope you have a great week and I hope your business absolutely crushes it this week.

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Until next week, God bless.

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We'll talk again real soon.