In episode 58 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden interviews Jason Smith, the founder of LeLaren Fence, to discuss his entrepreneurial journey in the fencing industry. Jason shares valuable insights on sales, marketing, and the importance of knowing your numbers in business.
Tune in to hear about the impact of mentorship and the benefits of building relationships in the industry.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:21] View on Competitors vs Allies.
[00:06:23] Starting a Residential Fence Company.
[00:09:35] Overcoming Business Challenges.
[00:13:34] Building Your Personal Brand.
[00:15:28] Innovation in Fence Installation.
[00:19:37] Sales Strategies and Storytelling.
[00:22:25] Pricing Strategies in Sales.
[00:24:38] Knowing your Business Numbers.
[00:29:22] Succession Planning in Business.
[00:31:45] Social Media Marketing Strategies.
In this episode, Ken Baden and Jason Smith highlight the significance of understanding your numbers for achieving business success. Jason emphasizes how a grasp of key financial metrics and performance indicators was pivotal in driving the growth and longevity of his business.
Moreover, Jason underscored the value of seeking guidance from experienced industry professionals. He highlighted that being open to seeking help and advice can yield valuable insights for making informed decisions and positioning the business for long-term success.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheKenBaden
Jason Smith
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lelarenfencing/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lelarenfence
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-smith-25310823/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lelarenfencing
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
LeLaren Fence: https://lelarenfence.com/
Welcome to the Kitchen Table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
All right. Welcome back to another episode of the kitchen table podcast for business is done. I'm your host, Ken Baden. And I don't know why I always like announce that because it's clearly me. It's my show, but that's okay. We'll keep saying that, but I've got my man, Jason here today. Jason comes to me from another good friend of mine, Matt Clements, who was also on this podcast. And at this point, man is a really just a good buddy of mine. Um, a good. I don't know, protege, so to speak. I'm sure he would be happy for me to say that. I've watched Matt thrive. So Jason, welcome. I'm happy to have you on the show. How are you doing today, man?
Fabulous. Doing good. Doing good. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Yeah, Matt's a good guy. Know him pretty well.
Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, really, I would say maybe mutual because he mentioned to me about you just like, kind of like you were somebody that he like looked up to in the industry out there. And I know you guys do different things, but as far as like your knowledge base, and, uh, he really had a lot of good things to say about you. And that's important, man, because I have a lot of mentors here that I've leaned on. And for me, mentorship, coaching, and folks that are willing to just kind of help out, even if it's just. There's always the possibility of reciprocity, but also just like, Hey man, somebody did it for me. And who knows this relationship could be a value. It might not be, but it can only help. Right. So I kudos to you for being one of those, because I don't think there's enough these days, uh, people willing to help out. So nothing else. Thanks for helping that or being one of those guys that would.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, uh, he's, like I said, he's a good dude. And yeah, yeah. That's, uh, happy to help man. It's it's, you know, that's what we're here for too. Right. Help each other and see if we can all thrive and succeed. So that's how we should be.
It's how it should be. But everybody, unfortunately thinks like that, man, you know, people get caught up in like, I don't know. Everyone's I think there's two mindsets. Everybody's a competitor or everybody's a possible ally. And that's the way I choose to look at it. But You know, you guys are out there in the Midwest, man. So first, you know, where are you from and what do you do and how did you get there, man? Give us the full story. I mean, because I know you're doing something very different. So please, you know, let us know how you got to your entrepreneur journey. I know you do fences and so on, but I'll let you tell that story.
Yeah. Yeah. So so located in northwest Indiana, we're about 35 miles outside of Chicago. Everyone's heard of Gary, Indiana, typically. We're pretty close to Gary. Gary, Indiana is in between where I'm at Valparaiso and Chicago. And basically, it was kind of kind of cool. You know, I started back in sales. That was always the journey for entrepreneurship, you know, that I found is a lot of times sales, right? It's either you're, you know, maybe the blue collar side of it is is the ballers and stuff. You start out with the tools and then you work your way. But I started in sales.
Me too. Me too. Trust me. And I mean, that's probably a lot of us, man. But hey, either way, it's to the same end. But that's why I'm shaking my head, man. Yeah, there's a lot of us. I love that.
Yeah. And, and so as bad as say as a salesman for, you know, in this area is predominantly steel industry. So I took it upon myself, try to try to teach myself how am I supposed to go out and sell to somebody and use social media when you don't think a lot of steel industries in there. So that's where I got caught on to guy named Ryan Stillman. You might've heard of him, right? Kenny. Yeah. Once or twice. Yeah. That was back in 18, 2018. I started following, uh, Ryan and. listening to his story and just so happened COVID hit. During COVID time, the company I was working for, I thought I was doing where I wanted to be, making $100,000, selling rolls to the steel industry. They came to me and said, hey, we got to cut back on sales and we're going to let you go. Now, what am I supposed to do here? And if it wasn't for something like getting into a network, getting around other people, I probably would have been back in steel mill. And as I'm sitting in my garage thinking, what the hell am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to get a job? I mean, people aren't even hiring in a pandemic, right? I mean, there's just nothing going on. So I get a call from a guy saying, hey, I heard you're out of work and why don't you come run one of my fencing crews? And I said, well, I said, it's not me, that's not the plan. He called me back about 10 minutes later and said, well, here's an idea, why don't you just run my business for me? And I'm like, run your, I said, wait a minute, so you're gonna go, you're gonna get up at about one and I'm gonna be out there hustling to try to make you money. I said, that's kind of not now. That's kind of not my forte either for you, you know, to run somebody else's business for. And then he called me back and he pulled his phone out. Right. He pulled his phone out and he starts showing me all these leads that he was getting. And I said, what's that? And it's all missed calls. I said, what is that? And I said, how many of those people have you talked to? And he said, none of them. They've called my phone and I haven't answered it. I said, excuse me. He said, well, here's an idea. Why don't you just start your own fencing company? I said, well, I'll tell you what, if I wasn't in the network and I wasn't in the group of the people that I was around, I would have had no clue. I wouldn't have known where to start, where to, I mean, nothing. And I literally said, okay, that's an idea. So I went over and met with the gentleman and he had a fence company himself, but wasn't answering the calls. And I knew that I could take the information that I had learned go out and sell jobs, now all I gotta do is figure out how to install them, how to get them in, you know? And Le Laron Fence was born from that. That's literally how I started a residential fence company. Last year, we had a little hiccup, but in the last two years, we've done, you know, being only four years in business, we've done pretty well for a fence company that was literally started out of a garage.
Out of a garage. There's the best kinds, man, so that's awesome. So I guess you you and that old that other fellow still keep up or I'm just curious.
No, it's a bad story with on that side, really bad story on that side. Yeah. Yeah. He was doing things that, you know, uh, you know, there's used car salesmen that give you other used car salesmen, a bad, bad name. Right. And this is what, you know, and contractors kind of sometimes have that same. That's that's that same persona that they're, you know, shady and this guy ended up being shady.
That's disappointing, man. But I know exactly what you mean, especially in what we do with roofing. And anytime you touch insurance, it's just like, my God, man. So you have to work, work harder to disassociate yourself from that. But it also provides opportunity to say like, look, this is what's out here. Here's why we're not that and why we can charge a premium because you don't have to worry about X, Y, and Z. And, you know, um, I look at that as opportunity, but I know exactly what you mean, man. A hundred percent. So, You got rocking and rolling during the pandemic, which ironically is the exact same thing. I started both with the first one. We started, we started during the pandemic. It happened like right after, unfortunately. So we got started. And then that spring, the next spring, so we only had the fall and then it hit that winter. And so like, our first spring was COVID, man. So I was like, well, this sucks, you know. And then during COVID, like two years in, it was the other company we had started. So I know all about that, man. But I love that you were able to so if you're anything like me, In those COVID years, the first couple were actually not bad, man. People were buying their, their, their stuck at home. No, one's really working. It was almost a little easier for a little bit. I mean, I don't discredit because trust me, like getting started and everything like that, that's difficult, no matter what, like that probably wasn't any easier, but have you found since then? Cause you mentioned last year, you had a little last year, everybody did brother. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like everybody did last year. I think that was the post COVID. Like, hey, it's been easy. Money was flowing. People were sitting at home. And now it kind of hit a wall. Everybody did not so great next. Most people that I know in these business associations last year, to your point. But that's another value, by the way, of belonging in those networks and those rooms is you can sort of gauge the market like, hey, everybody's feeling this, man. It's not just me. I'm not. Sometimes we panic as either salespeople or business owners like, man, You know, I'm really sucking, but it's like, well, the whole market sucking right now, brother. So you're actually doing okay. And it's important to know those things. Uh, but tell me about, you know, how that was for you because you mentioned last year, but I think it's important to share. Like I try to really share the struggles and the, and what I've done to, to, to fix that. If you would please like kind of go into, hey, we were rocking and rolling. And then last year was a little bit, but like what that was like and then what you're doing this year to kind of combat that for our, for our listeners.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so, so yeah, that's what we found is that we're starting to get to what we call pre pandemic levels back to, back to basically normal. It was a frenzy. I mean, it really was. It was very simple to go out and sell jobs, especially in the fencing world, the outdoor living space. It was people were, you know, they were taking advantage of the yards and they wanted to, you know, turn, you know, they sat out in their backyard and seen these fences and says, Hey, we need a new fence. So they were really taking advantage of that. And I think there was a little bit extra money around too, as well. Um, so yeah, so, so once we've started finding out that, that, you know, we're getting back to the levels that were pre pandemic branding and marketing has become, I mean, number one, number one, the use of social media, the proper way, the proper way to use social media and, you know, build a brand, a strong brand. And to market that brand, it's just highly important. And the people that don't do that, what we call the chucks and trucks, the guys that will do it for nothing, they're not going to be here for the long haul. They're not going to be here for the long time.
I couldn't agree more. I'd love for you to expand on that when you say those of us who use social media the proper way. you know, can you give some insight to our listener based on kind of what you mean by that and elaborate a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely. And this doesn't come from me, this comes from training, part of a group that's called Apex. I'm sure you've heard of that as well, right Kenny? Yeah. So, in these groups and being in these networks, I mean, you learn that you're not posting about, you know, what you ate and about The religion and the politics And it's things that you're not going to go on there and post about things that you wouldn't say in let's say church You know, you you wouldn't you wouldn't go out and say things like that and you're not going to post that on social media No one wants to see that, you know, what what you had for dinner utilizing social media similar to to as an advertising Um, you know, you give them content. Yeah. You give, you know, posts a day, every day, you're going to put a post out, you know, if you can do two posts, that's great. And do it almost like a commercial base, you know, for posts every fourth post. No, you're going to put in there something about that, what you do just to keep it fresh in people's minds. The other time is, you know, the other posts, you want to give them some kind of, you know, education, maybe something about telling that you're a real person. These people that put up pictures of their kids and avatars and all these other things, you know, people, people, Facebook stalk you. They will go, you know, I had a gal call me one time. She said, I did some research. Well, you know what that research was? She looked at my social media. She looked at me personally. She goes, I like, I like your business reviews. And I like, you know, your, what I see in my social, you know, in my reconnaissance. And so it's things like that, that you really have to utilize with social media in order to in order to build that brand and show people to keep it fresh in their mind that, hey, this is the guy you want to talk to about fencing. Not because I'm the pushy guy saying, look at this fence we built, look at this fence. You don't want to be that guy as well. You don't want to be the guy that's, here he is again, this guy with the fences. You don't want to be that guy.
I love all of that. And you're right. I mean, it's just building your machine. I've been recently actually like toying with the idea. I talked to a guy that has really built his brand up really, really well. He's not an apex, but he is a big, a very well known roofing figure. He was just speaking to like. making yourself famous, so to speak, but in the right areas, right? Like, and there's just so many other things, you know, if you're recording content, like reels and stuff, one thing I really hadn't explored is like almost doing that, but on like a commercial basis, and I haven't tried or anything like that. But I'm curious to see how that will do a little budget for that and see if that gets any kind of response. Cause you can run ads and stuff like that locally because they just don't feel like an hour market. I had a podcast actually a couple of days ago and he's talking about like TV, TV, TV. I think TV, depending on where you are, it'd be wonderful. And is it, he is, he's in, he's in Minnesota, which, you know, is not super close, but super far. But, uh, at least I think from you, it's up to me, it's like all in that area, but that could be really far from you. So, but it's not that far. You know, he's like, look here, people still watch TV. You know what I mean? So like, but in my, in my area, my demographic, I'm like, I wonder what. Of my actual demo would really be still watching for me to actually like get that return on investment or would it behoove me just to kind of focus more on social media? Cause if they're not there, where are they social media, maybe streaming services. So there's a lot of stuff and keeping that open mind. But like you said, marketing and building that brand, it's just, If you don't do that, if you don't build that brand, you're going to be lost in the sauce. And that's the difference between you and the Chuck in the truck. And nobody wants to be that guy. At least I don't.
Right. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. May as well. Absolutely.
So you've, you've got four years in, you're built literally out of a garage, a little hiccup last year, but you're coming out strong this year. You know, what, what do you guys anticipate in terms of this year? Not exact numbers, but just like, what's the plan for this year? Is it. hey, we're looking to catch our stride, grow by 10% or expand in new markets, or we're really just trying to make sure things are streamlined. Tell me about what your guys' plan for this year is.
Absolutely. So it's not new to the industry, but new to people and it's hard to get them to get the concept of, we don't dig holes anymore for fences. We don't dig, we do not, I mean, not to say that we don't dig them at all, because there's some, some cases and instances you have to dig, but we do what's called a no dig system to where we actually drive posts four feet deep in the ground and build the fence on top of that. And what that has done as it has taken away from these guys, you know, beating the hell out of my employees. the crews, these guys, the hardest thing about a fence is digging the holes, dirt removal. So we've adapted a system to where we drive posts into the ground and literally sleeve over top of them and build on top of those fences. It's steel foundation, there's no post rot for wood, it's stronger than regular vinyl in the ground, and aluminum, we're using I-beams. Wow. Yes, it's a great system. We're one of the only ones in the area to offer this type of additional foundation for a post.
Assuming there's some kind of special machine that does that, that you probably had to get your hands on that wasn't cheap.
Absolutely. Yeah. And multiple, right? Cause you can't have just one. You get one, you're doing one fence a day. Correct. And then our plan is to, and here's where the difference comes in, is the grandioso plan at the beginning, before we really got into this no-dig system, was to have three crews, three trucks, three sets of tools for all these guys. You're talking about nine guys. We're pretty close to, and we're running our numbers now, we're checking our efficiencies, but we're almost positive that we could, with five guys, a two-man drive crew, so two guys go out and drive posts all day, so they become experts. They know exactly, I mean, they are the experts in driving. Two guys driving, a three-man crew coming behind them and stalling the fence. Those guys don't have to worry about taking the tools out, driving the post. They don't have to worry about any of that. All they have to worry about doing is building the fence. They become experts in that field. And now we're almost positive that we're going to get about 80 to 90% efficiency out of the five guys, two crews that we would have if we had three crews, nine guys. Big difference.
Huge difference. Yes, you pass those savings and those efficiencies off to your customers.
Absolutely. That's absolutely correct. Now, now we can be more efficient. So our labor costs go down, our labor costs, and you know, we're able to obtain, you know, there was a two years ago, I was 16 weeks out. I was 16 weeks out. I had a friend of mine that was in the fencing industry and he told me that you're crazy to be 16 weeks out. That is, no one wants to wait 16 weeks for a fence and they will gladly pay additional cash in order to have that fence put in within four to six weeks. And he was absolutely correct. Raised my prices and I went to, you know, 18 weeks out. It was, it's just unbelievable. At that time, we're not seeing that same, uh, that's that same pressure that we were at that time. So it's, it's calmed down. Like I said, we are, we are at the pre pandemic levels again.
Hmm. I wonder, uh, everything you just said, by the way, I can't help it because I've, I've just been conditioned with. by sales consulting and sales management, you're a sales guy, but like, I'm a big facts, tell stories, sell guy. And like, every time I'm listening to somebody explain to me kind of how things like what you were just saying, as far as what you guys do uniquely to you with the post holes and like, even down to, Hey, you know, here's what, like that whole story that you get a sales guy, like selling that story of like, here's what makes us different. Right. Number one. You know, we use this machine and, you know, the cost of those machines like that justifies a certain level of, you know, legitimacy towards like our costs. Like, hey, we're using multiples of these, this machine, which allows us to do this. And we're one of the X percent that even doesn't in this state, how exclusive it is, the exclusivity of it, the training that requires, you know, to run the machines, but then also the efficiency of our folks, like what makes us different to like, Hey, we have guys that are literally trained. All they do is postal. They know how to run the machine. They know how to do it perfectly. Same thing with the guys that build the fence. Like I would, I would be pitching that on every single client, man. Like I could the whole time, like, Oh man, this is good. He, I hope he records this and like, I'm sure you already do, but if you don't have your sales guys go back and watch everything you just said and say, look, take this and use it when you build value. And really like drive that price point home because that there is like, and then we pass the savings on to you, Mr. And Mrs. Consumer, but man, like we're not going to be the cheapest and here's why.
Man.
Beautiful. Sorry.
Couldn't help it. Couldn't help it. Couldn't help it. That's great. That's, that's, that's good info too. I appreciate that.
I mean, I would be, uh, I love stuff like that, man, too, because it's like, look, people will pay a premium if they see, you know, people, what determines the inherent value of something where people are willing to pay for it. So if it's like, look, you know, like you said, like, Oh, I don't know. And I said, well, why not? You know, we're, we've got these fancy machines. Nobody else is doing it right. Like we're offering the best products, the best services. So yeah, we, we, we going to charge a premium. You could always. You know, uh, believable drops always there as long as you just don't start negotiating price. Like you, you know, you want to have a preset drop to where it's like, okay. Like I would do a higher authority. You know what I mean? So it's not just like, well, what about this price? I'm like, well, if you could have changed price the whole time, you know what I mean? Like you lose all credibility, but I don't need to tell you that. Cause you're in sales, but it's like, Hey, look, let me call, let me call the owner. Right. And see, right. Let me see. I can't do anything, but let me just see, but. I don't know. Again, I'm getting, I'm getting off in the left field of sales world here, man.
And I love it. You know, we don't offer discounts. Somebody comes to me and tells me that, Hey, this guy can do it, you know, $500 cheaper. We don't offer discounts, but what we can do, what we will do is we will give you credit towards an upgrade. We'll give you a credit towards an upgrade. You know, we'll add, you know, you wanted that other, you wanted that other gate on the other side of the house. Well, guess what? It's $800 to install. We'll give you $500 credit to, to, to that gate.
I hope you guys are listening to this cause it's little things like that, that are the difference maker. Um, actually, you know what, can you, can you kind of, is there anything else that, cause I try to like, where's the value? Where's the value? Where's the value? Which is why I slid that in. But even still, man, like, you know, if you're listening to this, You get a guy like both myself, frankly, and Jason, you know, that come from sales backgrounds that are able to kind of share some of this stuff. Not everybody thinks that way, you know, you think so. Cause you and I think that way, but there are a lot of guys that don't know how to bid a job and they get out there and they get into this and they're just like, Holy crap. You know, what do they do? They give everything away and they learn the really, really hard way. If they're fortunate enough to survive. They learn they got to charge a premium, right? Or at least enough to make money. How do you know if you're charging enough to make money? What's your labor? What's your material, right? Put X percent. What percent are you trying to make? Like these are things that. come natural to us because of where we came from, but not to everybody else. So any words of wisdom there on like some of the things that perhaps you learned really early on that you kind of wished somebody might've warned you about, or just some of those valuable insights that you could pass on to our folks, uh, here and now that might be newer in business or even just struggling right now.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. One of the biggest glaring things for me was the, you know, you hear this all the time, well, you know your numbers, you need to know your numbers. Well, I'll be honest with you, when I started the business, I didn't know, numbers, okay, well, yeah, I know I charge this and this, you know, but what that really means is just like you said, how much is the cost of goods? What's your material costs and what's your net profit? How do you know, how do you gauge without doing a job analysis after you've installed a fence or installed a roof, how do you know that you actually made money? Did you go back and do the analysis on that job to see, okay, what was our efficiency? how much did we get done? And that is knowing your numbers. You know, not just, well, I, you know, I took in a million dollars worth of, you know, capital. That doesn't, well, if you spent, you know, 80,000 or 800,000 of that, well, did you really make money? And so the job analysis, your KPIs, those things, I mean, in every business is, and I knew these things, but what I didn't know is where to measure and how to measure. And without getting in the right groups, without getting in the right networks, that was an eye opening. I surrounded myself with individuals that had already paved the way. Why would I try to reinvent the wheel? And this, so knowing the numbers, knowing that we can install 0.7 sections per man hour with a three-man crew, knowing that, well, now I can now take that to the bid and bid accurately and know that even if somebody comes in and says that I can do this cheaper, by all means, let them do that. They're already telling you that somewhere along the lines, they're doing some, you know, is it their work? They're incapable of doing better work. So they're telling you right away that this is the price that I feel I deserve. And, you know, we're doing it by numbers. We are doing it by numbers. We're bidding our jobs by the numbers. I know that I can't go below this job, this rate. I'm not gonna make money. I'm not gonna, somebody's gonna have to lose money somewhere.
and being firm and not giving away, like, you know, not just giving. I can't stress that enough, man, because I think that like, especially in the group, the blue collar ballers groups, you know, it's a free Facebook group, but like, there's a lot of younger folks and they don't have to be young, but they can be young in business. Right. And it's just like, I know those growing pains, but I'm telling you, man, it's just like, Do yourself a favor number one and jump in groups like that. Jump in a group like blue collar ballers on Facebook, jump in any freaking group that you can free and just be vocal and don't be afraid to ask for help. Right. You know what I mean? Squeaky wheel gets the oil, man. If you don't and you're too proud to ask for help and so you can then afford to get in rooms that you don't feel like you belong and then, you know, jump in those rooms when you can until you do feel like you belong. Right. Like. That's the progression I made.
There's no way I would have started a business if I had never found a network like Apex. There's no way that I would have done what we've done in the past two years if I haven't found a fencing academy that I'm part of as well. These things, I mean, there's the blue collar ballers and there's people that help. And I mean, these things that if you are there and you don't know, you know, what a KPI is or how to analyze a job. You need to surround yourself with people that do because, I mean, this is the way to grow your business. This is a way to understand and know that you're going to be here for the next five to 10 years.
Could not agree more. And it doesn't even have to be like, you know, this isn't like a pitch or anything. It's just quite literally like find somebody who doesn't cost anything. Go find somebody in your market. Like Matt, with this gentleman here, man, Matt, literally from what I remember when he was telling me about Jason, it was because he had talked to him about like either possibly doing business together or looking at him as somebody who could be a mentor. Like I did that same thing until I could afford to pay for getting in a room, pay for like, you don't have to just jump right out and just, you know, jump into doing something like that before you can, there are people like Jason, there are people like myself that will help and gladly, you know, direct you rather than discourage. I mean, believe it or not, they're out there. And so you won't know if you don't ask. Absolutely correct. So Jason, you know, wrapping up before I get into where everybody can find you, you know, what's the future hold, man? I mean, like, where are your What's the big picture here? You're thinking to build the scale to exit or just kind of like something you'd like to build and kind of keep in the family? I mean, what's what's the plan for a fellow like you in the future with the fencing company?
Yeah, I'd love to see a build build and keep in the family. But, you know, one of the eye opening things to me is that when you start to build the exit, you need to start six years, six to seven years in advance to build. It's not, well, I'm going to retire next year. You know, you need you need to have everything in line and in order. And again, finding the right people to set you up for that, you can make it to where the business actually pays for your exit. And you can leap past that onto a family. I would have never known that without being into networks and groups. I would have never known. I just thought, OK, well, I'm going to retire today and just turn the keys over. You know, or try to try to sell it. I would have never known that that succession planning is seven years, six to seven years. I mean, so there's a lot of thought and process that goes into it. And don't try to reinvent the wheel yourself. You don't have to.
I love that, man. Yeah. Somebody told me that your first The first business or PE experience don't reinvent any wheels, just, you know, find something that worked and do that. And then you can get all creative after the fact. And I don't know how true it is, but it's, it's worked for me. I've not tried to reinvent anything either, but I have. The fortunate foresight only of experience and having been a part of several of these other startups to at least have known, but to your point, like even prepping for PE and stuff like that, well, look, these guys could be doing anywhere between a three and five year due diligence period that they're going to due diligence period that they're going to spend millions on to make sure that you're the right person. That's if you do want to exit, right? Not to mention, like you said, a succession plan or management succession plan, there's trust in the States determines there's so many things that to your point, without getting in the right rooms, I would have never known either. most of which I actually have taken care of, believe it or not, already. So I'm like, I'm so blessed to have gotten those things set up. Now we got to go out and do it. You know what I mean? Like, that's all great, because you could also just gone out and kicked ass and hit the goals and like, but for me, I'm the kind of I'm betting on it happening. I'm all in so it better. You know what I mean? All in. Too late. Succession plan's done. Trust us.
There's no plan B, Kenny. That's right.
Damn right. Yeah. I tell you what, I've quite literally put my money where my mouth is on that one, man. More than you know. But look, we're going to go make it happen, man. So it's going to be a big year for us. I have a feeling Jason's going to be a really big year for you guys too. Where can our listeners find you on social media so we can check you out, reach out to you and your company?
Yeah, absolutely. Facebook for sure. Social media, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, all the popular ones. Myself personally, LinkedIn. And, you know, the website, you know, spent a lot of money on the website and Google, you know, to make sure that we're, we're on the top of the page. And so SEO is important as well. So, so those, those avenues for sure.
What's the name though? Like, so they can find it.
So yeah, so it's Leland Fence. One more. Lee Learn Fence.
Lee Learn Fence. In your name though on Insta. Yeah, Jason Smith. Jason Smith. All right, there we go. Just Jason Smith, Insta, Facebook, across the board. You got it. TikTok too.
Um, TikTok, I'm, you know, I'm a little weak on the tech. Okay.
Okay. I wasn't sure you mentioned TikTok, but I didn't get the name. So, all right. So it's Jason Smith on Facebook, on Insta, and then Lee learned fence. If you guys want to Google check out the company itself, reach out to Jason. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have. Um, any final words of wisdom or imparting thoughts on our, on our audience, Jason, before we head out.
No, I just wanted to tell you, thanks for having me on. It's been great talking with you. And I sure hope somebody got some value and just kind of opened their eyes up to some of the things that I was experiencing. I'm four years into this business, and there's a lot of things. You don't know what you don't know. So hopefully, if you can take something out of this is really know what numbers are and where you need to know your numbers. And if you don't get in some rooms, find some people that are like minded like you are and get working.
He's so very right. If you don't know your numbers and don't be ashamed to say that either, by the way. And like you said, get in the right rooms, do the right. I sincerely hope somebody, I think they did. I think there's a ton of value here. Jason, thank you for coming on. And to his point, if you don't know, make sure that you do right. There's too much opportunity out there for all of us. And there's too many people willing to help. And there's too many tools for you to be sitting there, not getting the answers. So Jason, thank you so much again for coming on and gracing us and bringing us all that value. I got a ton out of it. I'm sure they did. We can't wait to follow up with you in the near future, my brother. Thank you again, and we'll talk to you soon. Yep, thanks a lot.
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