Epic Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Epic Entrepreneurs! What does it take to build a real and thriving business in today’s world? As entrepreneurs and business owners, we went into business to have more freedom of time and money. Yet, the path of growing a business isn’t always filled with sunshine and rainbows. In this chart-topping show, host Bill Gilliland; author of the best-selling book “The Coach Approach” leverages his decades of experience coaching proven entrepreneurs to make more money, grow the right teams, and find the freedom of EPIC Entrepreneurship.
Epic Entrepreneurs
The Balanced Business: Building Coastland Tree Works with Spencer Unger
What does it take to transform specialized skills into a thriving business while maintaining your sanity and creating a workplace people actually want to join? Spencer from Coastland Tree Works reveals exactly that in this candid conversation about his entrepreneurial journey.
After honing his craft through a comprehensive apprenticeship in Germany, Spencer returned to America with technical expertise and a vision for a different kind of tree care company. Three years into business ownership, he shares the unexpected challenges that technical proficiency couldn't prepare him for: "Just because you're good at one thing—being a good arborist or a good salesperson—does not mean you will be good at running a business."
Spencer's approach to growth focuses on customer relationships rather than aggressive marketing. "Once you have a customer, that customer can easily turn into 10 customers if you do things right," he explains, highlighting how word-of-mouth has become his primary growth driver. But what truly sets Coastland Tree Works apart is its deliberately cultivated company culture. Drawing from his international experience, Spencer has created an environment that contrasts sharply with industry norms—prioritizing open communication, respect, and inclusivity in a field often characterized by rough attitudes and high-pressure environments.
Perhaps most refreshing is Spencer's commitment to work-life boundaries in an entrepreneurial landscape that often glorifies burnout. "For me to be functional at work, I need to have personal life and space," he shares, describing specific practices like not answering calls after certain hours or on weekends. This balanced approach, combined with his philosophy that "the more knowledgeable and educated you are, the more passionate you're going to be," offers valuable wisdom for anyone building a business in a specialized field. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or already in the trenches, this conversation delivers honest insights about creating sustainable growth without sacrificing your vision or wellbeing.
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Hey there, welcome to this episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I'm Bill Gilliland, your host. I am the principal at Action Coach, Business Growth Partners and one of the founders of the Asheville Business Summit. But today I've got a very special guest. I am happy to have a chat here with Spencer. Can't wait to hear his story, Spencer from Coastland Tree Works. So, Spencer, tell us a little bit about you and your business and uh, yeah, and we'll take it from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, I'm a certified arborist, um, I've been working in tree care, which is, you know, big part of arboriculture. Um, I've been working in tree care now for 12 years. I started my career over in Germany actually. I started actually in landscaping but quickly had the intentions of moving towards the tree care and I did an apprenticeship with a pretty large company there in Berlin, germany, and got several certifications which are required in Germany in order to do tree work. So I got a pretty good basis of knowledge right away and skills too. So I really, you know, immediately my passion grew for the industry and I continued working there in Germany, gaining knowledge and experience, and then I always kind of had the vision of, you know, one day starting my own company. So that was like in my goals from the beginning.
Speaker 2:And in Germany, since I'm not a German citizen, I was, you know, living there under a visa and it's it's pretty complicated to start your own business in a foreign country.
Speaker 2:So I figured I'd have a better chance at succeeding with a business in my own country. So I moved back to America and I wanted to first feel out the market here, feel out the industry, get a sense of how things go here. So I worked for a couple of different companies as a full-time production arborist when I first moved here and then, as soon as I felt ready to take the dive, I started my own company. I just went for it and I started off very small, with just myself and minimal amount of equipment, but quickly realized that tree work is a equipment intensive and labor intensive business. In order to grow and and kind of get to a point where I want to be, you know, I had to make a lot of of quick growth and purchases and add some workers to the business in order to kind of just keep things rolling and yeah. So basically now, three years later, I've had my own business and we've had quite a bit of growth and things know things are pretty exciting, yeah, yeah that is exciting.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations on making making the leap. It's not, I mean, it's not for everybody, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I mean we're it's way harder than I could have ever imagined yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, it's different too.
Speaker 1:I've had several clients who started as a general manager and then became an owner, left or started a business, or maybe even took over the business they were in, and sometimes it just doesn't work because they were used to the job. Well, let me ask you this If you had to start it over again I mean you've been in three years what would you do differently?
Speaker 2:I think from the beginning I probably would have looked for some other forms of help as far as maybe investors or a partner or silent partner type of situation, because doing it all alone is rewarding, but you know it's extremely challenging and it's, you know, I've gotten to the point now where it wouldn't make much sense for me to look for another partner or investors, you know like of that type, like high-interest investors or something, because I've invested already so much myself. I kind of don't want to share this point, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it makes sense. I mean it's, it's. Yeah, a lot of people don't understand. Like I remember the first time I went in business one of the one of the first in the first business I had I remember thinking, you know, this is lonely. You know, in fact, what happened to me was my dad became my best friend because he had just retired and he didn't really come. He didn't want to come to work in the business. He didn't want to. I'm sure he would have if I'd asked him, but he uh, you know, but he was always there, he would. But you know, everybody else was you know you couldn't.
Speaker 2:That's kind of exact same situation on yeah, yeah, yeah I mean they're just retired too, and yeah, and he's kind of there, but, um, I didn't really want any help from the beginning, but you know I would.
Speaker 1:I mean, if he's got experience in business, I would, I would lean on him a little harder. I would, I would have leaned on my dad a little harder than I, than I did in the beginning, because he had a lot of knowledge and I could have used it and I was too stupid to know that at the time. So, yeah, I just that was just me, I was proud and you know, wanted to do it myself and you know it would. It would have been helpful. I mean, we got through, everything was fine, we're all good, but you know, it could have been easier if I just leaned on him for some advice or anybody really. Yeah. So what have been some of your biggest learnings as an owner and an employer?
Speaker 2:owner and employer, that owning a company and you know employing people and managing a company or working in that business are two completely separate entities. And just because you're good at one thing you know being a good arborist or a good salesperson or you know a good maintenance man does not mean that you will be good at running a business, and they're two. You know completely different things and those two things are kind of very hard to simultaneously. You know achieve or or excel at yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The more I'm getting involved in, the more, uh, I immerse myself into this business, the more I realized that I kind of can't wear all the hats, and I'm trying to, at this point, separate myself from the labor side of the business to just running the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, working on the business, not always in it. Yeah, exactly, so what do you think some of the common misconceptions about running a business are?
Speaker 2:I'd say number one is that it's easy. You know, a lot of. I spent a long time working as an employee and I, you know, see, on that side a lot of the employees think the business owner, you know, has it easy and that you know, basically they're just we're. We're the ones, the employees are the ones who are running the company, but you know, the owner or managers are just kind of sitting back and collecting uh money. But it's, it's an amount, immense amount, of uh stress for one. And also the work is very intensive and it requires a lot of time.
Speaker 2:And when you're an employee you can kind of go home at the end of the day and your day is over. You may think about what you're going to do tomorrow, but ultimately that's not really up to you and that you don't have to worry about it at least. And also on your weekends, you know your weekend is there, but as a business owner it's kind of like a 24-7 thing and I have to think about not just tomorrow or you know what my plan is, but I have to think about five years down the road and I also have to think about you know what happened for the past year or two, because it's you know, what happened in the past is relevant to what will happen in the future. So there's just a whole lot going on. You know behind the scenes that I think people don't realize.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred 100%. So what do you attribute your growth to?
Speaker 2:I'd say number one is customer relations. You know, I'd say the majority of my business comes from word of mouth. We do kind of minimal advertising. In the beginning I did a lot of maybe more generic type of advertising and magazines and stuff like that. But the conversion rates that I, you know, I can't directly see, but I ask here and there where my customers come from, and most of my customers come from, you know, google. Uh, not not even paid google advertising, just just a google page and uh, word of mouth like that's that's where it comes from. So, maintaining uh those customer relationships and nurturing them and, uh, you know, once you have a customer, that customer can easily turn into 10 customers if you, you know, do things right. And that's been very, very important to my growth 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously, referrals are the best kind of business you can get, so well done there. How do you balance your personal life and the business life?
Speaker 2:It's challenging and the way you know, it's important for me, because some I feel, like a lot of entrepreneurs out there don't really balance business and personal life.
Speaker 2:Like they just kind of feel like as a startup entrepreneur, a new entrepreneur, that you have to go through this period where you just work, work, work, work, work and all you think about is work and you put any free time you have, go straight into the business.
Speaker 2:And I'm more of a work life balance person and for me to be functional at work I need to have personal life and space. So it's been very important to me from the beginning to kind of uh, you know, make a point that I I don't answer phone calls after a certain time of night, that I I don't answer phone calls on the weekend unless it's an emergency. Um, yeah, I tried to really give myself some space from the business and you know it's always in the back of my mind and it's kind of hard to turn that off. But as far as like being actively working on the business, I try to really be like all right, it's, it's six o'clock in the evening, now it's time to stop till tomorrow, or you know it's it's saturday, sunday, take a break and we'll start again on monday, and I think that's really been helpful as far as, like, keeping me motivated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I like it. I just. I don't know about you, but I think all the studies show that the people who think they're being productive, working seven days a week, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:I don't think so.
Speaker 1:No, no. You get way more done when you work, when you're fresh and can work hard. I mean, you know, work hard for smaller periods of time. I think hard for smaller periods of time, I think. So. When you're hiring employees, what do you look for and how do you foster a positive and productive work environment.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the big things with my business was to create a different atmosphere, because the atmosphere and company cultures that I've run into in the tree industry and not to put a bad light on the tree industry but they weren't the atmosphere that I would want to work in.
Speaker 2:And I was lucky to have a different experience working internationally because I worked in germany for this, you know, almost 10 years and, um, the company culture and atmosphere in the companies I worked for in germany were way different than here.
Speaker 2:Um, like the, it just was a more friendly, more open, more um, let's say, positive like environment.
Speaker 2:Uh, where here it's, for me it's been more kind of like a hard, you know, just work, work, work. Um, maybe more a rougher environment, and so it was important for me to to create a atmosphere where anybody is welcome, um, and you know everybody should feel comfortable and it's a friendly environment where the ball, where me as the boss is not gonna be yelling at people and grumpy all day and kind of, you know, like a more open environment where if someone had an issue like, we can talk about it instead of just this you know, really rough environment which I've seen in a lot of tree companies with a lot of yelling and stuff like that. So it's been really, really important for me when screening employees that they're not just hard workers or capable, but they fit. They'll fit into the atmosphere that I'm trying to create and so that's. That's been a big thing and I think because I'm not just looking for someone who physically can fit the job or mentally fit the job, but that their personality fits my company culture I've had greater success with employee retainment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, obviously, if you get somebody who fits the culture and fits the mold and fits in, then obviously they're going to want to be part of that culture for a long time and so they're going to stay. So Be Epic is my tagline and it's an acronym, sort of the first two letters are one acronym. So when I was writing a book a few years ago, I wanted to, so I came up with this idea of epic and it needed to spell something. First. I couldn't spell anything, but I came up with the buckets of success. So let me get your thoughts Just one or two sentences or words about these as they apply to you and your business. So the B in Be Epic is bring the energy. So what are your thoughts on bringing energy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the having employees and and culture that is, like you know, energetic and exciting and I think fresh, like when. I think energetic, I think a fresh and and just different, like a different appearance, um, even like as far as a company logo, you know, like anything like that to me is energetic and exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love it. Okay, the E stands for education, and obviously you were well-educated in the tree industry, but there's other kinds of education too. What are your thoughts around education?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean education, you know, is so important. Knowledge is power, and what I tell my employees all the time is that the more knowledgeable and educated you are, the more passionate you're going to be about what you do, and I think that says everything. I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that. The more knowledgeable you are, the more passionate. Wow, I never thought about knowledge leading to passion. That's cool. I actually thought about being passionate about something and then wanting to learn, but I think it works both ways. I think that's a great point. All right, the P is for planning. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Planning, I mean, is without a plan, everything's kind of up in the air. And I mean with tree work it's so important because if I don't have a game plan and you know, have an idea of how long jobs are going to take me or what I need, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1:Not only that, but it's going to be dangerous, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:The start of every job is, you know, a plan, right yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. I love that. Yeah, the I stands for inspiration.
Speaker 2:Yeah, inspiration like that's. You know, when I look at my company and what I want it to be, where I want to grow in the future, I look at you know my competitors, my, you know the companies that I want to be like, and that's where I get my inspirations and maybe not just be like them, but maybe inspired to be better than them. Yeah, that's a big thing for me.
Speaker 1:No, I love it. I love it. There's nothing wrong with a little good competition. It's going to make you better. It's going to make you better. I love that. And the C stands for commitment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, commitment, I mean. I think that a business is is really hard, um, and it's up and down and you know. You just have to tell yourself that you wanted this for a reason and you can't give up. Like you, you just can't give up, no matter what. If you've had a bad day, a bad month, that you just have to stay committed and keep going. And if it's not working what you're doing, then you need to change, not just give up, and that's really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So what's the next big thing for Coastland Tree Works?
Speaker 2:next big thing for coastland tree works? Um, at this point like, uh, we're, you know, we're running one crew and we definitely want to get to the point where we can start another crew. Um, but that's, you know, going to take more equipment and you know that's probably the the point we're at, that we need to look into some more equipment. Then we can start adding in another crew and, you know, trying to take on more jobs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love it. Yeah Well, there's ways to ease into it, but it's kind of you do kind of have to get a whole crew, it's just hard to kind of figure out what comes first at this point.
Speaker 2:The more crew or the more equipment. You know it's. It's yeah, I've found in the challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've found in most businesses that have a pretty high equipment or capital costs it's kind of a the stair step thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You, you, you, you get the crew, you get, you know, you, you can get the crew, you can rent equipment for a while, but then you got to buy it eventually and then you know, and then yeah, so then you get more equipment and you got to get the crew, you got to get the business. It kind of it works. It works though. I've seen it. I've worked with a lot of people in the in the sort of what I'd call the trades businesses or uh, uh, play people with crews and trucks and vans and that sort of thing. That's exciting.
Speaker 2:Keep growing, get another crew I love it and also the more equipment we have. It definitely speeds up our efficiency. So the more efficient we are, the more jobs we can do and the more money we can make. Yeah, 100%, Definitely we're at a point where we need more equipment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the more people you can serve. The more people you can serve, the more yeah. I mean you just got to get there little by little, yeah. So what's the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:The phone is the easiest way. You know, my phone number is 302-390-1780. Or email is also very convenient. It's just coastlandtree at gmailcom Got it coastlandtree at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:Got it, that's cool. Well look, this has been great, thank you for being part of this. Yeah, for being part of our community and all you're doing, and we know you're going to continue to grow and continue to be successful. So thanks for that. Thank you, yeah, and until next time. All the best.