Good Neighbor Podcast South Charlotte
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of South Charlotte.
Good Neighbor Podcast South Charlotte
Ep. # 113 Transforming Spaces: The Story of Michelle's Outdoor Design
Step into the vibrant world of landscaping and design with this special episode featuring Roberto Rodriguez, owner of Michelle's Outdoor Design. Discover the heartwarming origins of a business rooted in family history, where Roberto shares how his mother, Michelle, shifted from a corporate job to establish a flourishing landscaping company. Hear about the challenges and rewards of stepping into the family business and transitioning from a music and management career to outdoor design.
Roberto reveals how their services extend beyond traditional landscaping to include innovative hardscaping and custom designs that cater to each client's unique vision. He elaborates on their state-of-the-art techniques, such as drone photography and animation, which enrich the client experience.
With inspirational stories about community projects, including a church that developed a stunning walkway and fountain, this episode highlights the profound impact of thoughtful landscaping on people's lives. Gain insights into creating beautiful spaces and the commitment to client satisfaction that sets Michelle's Outdoor Design apart from others in the industry. Tune in for a journey that connects family, creativity, and a love for the outdoors. Don't forget to follow us and share your thoughts!
Michelle's Outdoor Design
Roberto Rodriguez
Wesley Chapel, NC · Fort Mill, SC · Mineral Springs, NC · Waxhaw, NC · Jaars, NC · Weddington, NC
(704) 320-5175
chamabob@hotmail.com
michellesoutdoordesigns.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Regina League.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We are here in the South Charlotte area and what I love to do is meet new local business owners new to me, let's say. And today I have Roberto Rodriguez. He is the owner of Michelle's Outdoor Design and by you are not new. You've been in this business since 2003.
Speaker 3:Welcome, hey, thanks for having me. I greatly appreciate it. Good morning.
Speaker 2:Good morning. So my first question if you're Roberto and you own it, who is Michelle?
Speaker 3:I get that a lot. Michelle is my mother. My mother got us into the industry back in 03. And about four or five years ago decided to take a little more seriously and get into the ownership of the company. But I grew up around it and didn't think I'd be here. But here I am.
Speaker 2:Wow, so she started. How did she start the business Give?
Speaker 3:us some. You know, crazy enough. She worked for an individual that had a company and for whatever reason or another I think it was like Christmas layoffs or something, I don't know he called her and said hey, we're not going to do the office position anymore, we need to think about it, but when I get back from vacation or Christmas. So she said you know what I'm out of here, we don't need to talk about it, I'm going to start my own company and we're going to figure this out. And my mom is a very headstrong lady. So she did. She figured it out, started off with a mower and a truck, and here we are, over 20 years later. We don't mow anymore, thankfully, but we still do any capacity in the yard. But it's been good. It's been good. But that's kind of how we got it started.
Speaker 2:Well, I know from experience I'm a master gardener and having your hands in the dirt, there's nothing like it, and then creating something and taking care of it, so it is so fun. So describe your journey into saying okay, mom, I'm all in.
Speaker 3:That's a tough one. Well, growing up around it, you it. I remember coming out of the front door and high-fiving the guys all the way to middle school Parkway here in Waxhaw. I really didn't even want to be a landscaper. I was a music guy. I played in the band we played at some bars in Charlotte. I was a gamer, really inside oriented. I said I don't want to be a landscaper. So instead I went to work at Domino's Pizza and at that age I really didn't know how seriously I take my jobs in general.
Speaker 3:Gotten to Domino's and I took it very seriously and I performed very well. I was able to be a general manager for a couple of stores and did good. And one day I was talking to mom and she said hey, why don't you try that management shtick over here, let's, let's figure it out. And yeah, I said you know what I told the franchisee, mr Mac Patterson, prairie Pizza. Hello, mac, very cool guy. But I remember talking to him on my last day and he said why, now, like you're just starting to get it, you know? And I said I don't know. Man, I got a calling, I guess I'm not really sure.
Speaker 3:So went to work for mom and worked there for a couple of years and I had a pretty good opportunity to move with my girlfriend at the time to Virginia Beach and work out there with a pretty large company and I decided to take that. I went out there, worked with them for a couple of years where we did facilities administration and like the larger projects that field techs don't normally do, like HVACs for pools and elevator shaft events and stuff and then COVID COVID changed everybody's life. So, talking with now my wife same lady we decided, you know, it's time to go back home and work for the company for a little bit. And uh, came back and ended up going pretty well and just decided I think it's natural to go ahead and step into the, the shoes of management or ownership. And uh, you know, here we are four years later owning um.
Speaker 3:But that that was uh, it was an experiment. That's experience for sure. But one thing I learned that really keeps me wanting to come back to it is I really enjoy the planning more than I thought I would At first. It used to just be cranking out designs, you know, sell, sell, sell, and it got to a point where seeing the results with the client when the project is done, that's what does it. When you could say hey, remember that idea that we had here. It is Told you, we can do it.
Speaker 2:Well, you must have a good eye because, you know, a lot of people just don't have vision. So that's amazing. So tell us about all the services you guys can provide. That's amazing. So tell us about all the services you guys can provide.
Speaker 3:So we specialize in landscape hardscape installs like patios, trees, plants, shrubs, with lighting elements involved. That's a big part of it. We do a landscape renovation, so bed renovations, sprucing up mulch, pine, straw, removing old stuff, putting in the proper plants we're not going to put your little gem, magnolia, right next to your house and then design services. So if you want to call us up and say, hey, I really like your style, I like your designs, I like the 3D on the computer, all that stuff, I got someone else who's going to build it, but I want you to design it, sure, not a problem. Now we're still going to put an estimate towards building the project and we always aim to do that. But the design services themselves are pretty thorough. Well, we go out with a drone, we take drone shots of your home, we animate that on the computer, we do Zoom calls. Everything is very client focused. Everything is very client focused. You know, the hero of the story is not the contractor that does it, it's the homeowner that had the idea.
Speaker 2:We're just here to provide a vision to that Describe one of your recent projects that you're super proud of.
Speaker 3:Oh man, so we are south of Waxhaw, right by, like, cane Creek near South Carolina. We did a church Unity ARP here, I want to say, about three, four months ago. It's a walkway and a water fountain across a graveyard and that was a really unique experience. But we put a plan together and, man, it was crazy, this water fountain's maybe I wanna say it's like 10 foot tall, pretty big water fountain, but everything was catered specifically for the church.
Speaker 3:They went through years to get it approved before even approaching a company. But when they came to me they said hey, we, you're right around the corner from us, by shops, less than five minutes, which was really cool, and it's in my community too. You know that was. It's not traveling an hour to go build somewhere. It's going to build next to the corner store that we used to go on the way to high school. So went over there, showed him what I had, and I remember going to one of the final meetings and there's like 50 people there and it's a whole committee having to approve this thing. Here I am over the corner like, oh, just the builder guy. Yeah, and it was very cool. We did lighting in it. We had a lot of feedback from the community. It was a very interesting project, but that that one you can see pictures online on Google and Facebook Instagram. That one was really cool. We had a good time installing that and it was right right close to home.
Speaker 2:Well, and I'm sure so many people get to see that too, and now get to see your work because it's public, it's not like someone's backyard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. We had one of the days that we were finishing up. It was a very elderly lady, actually the project manager from the church that contracted it. She said that lady used to babysit me when I was like 10. And this lady is like 90. And she's coming through with her walker and her help and they're going down the walkway and she comes up and said nice job, young man. And I said well, what do you think? And she said you know, it's nice being able to get out there without being on the grass, because I'd just be on the road right now, I wouldn't need to be down here. So that was almost instant gratification. That was very cool to be able to actually change how someone interacts with their loved ones, with their loved ones Absolutely Well, and just transforming a space is magical.
Speaker 2:So, with you based in Waxhaw, where do you guys primarily, how far out will you go for a job?
Speaker 3:Oh boy, we like to stay close. I like to kind of stay within a 45 minute or hour long radius, if you would, but depending on what we're doing, we will do some traveling. So you know, being that we're right close to Lancaster, south Waxhaw we are the farthest that we've been so far is Lake Norman, up in Mooresville. We did a really large lighting project out there for a gentleman, very cool. That was through a manufacturer too, so it was very cool to have some calls on that. And we've been down to like Edgemoor, out to Indian Trail, even into Rock Hill and some places across the river. So we're, I would say, south Charlotte, south Charlotte, maybe upstate South Carolina, but around the Charlotte area for sure.
Speaker 2:Do you do commercial as well as residential?
Speaker 3:Yep. Commercial and residential. Everything from small walkways to kitchens, fire pit, areas, that and such what do you wish people knew about you?
Speaker 2:Because obviously you're in a very competitive industry and you want to share with us what makes you different from the others.
Speaker 3:Oh, man, well, I think it's that landscaping, cardscaping we like to call it outdoor living. Outdoor living is incredibly vague. Over at City Hall you've got inspectors for electrical and carpentry and all that kind of footers and stuff. There's nobody that does that for outdoor living. A lot of the times you might have had an uncle that used to be an electrician Nobody's uncle used to be a hardscaper. Everybody knows a little something about something, except for hardscaping. So it's very vague and my my point on that is that it's good to have someone to guide you through that. Um, it's, it's like making a sandwich with dry ice clothes. It's so hard to be able to understand a lot of these elements, but it seems so simple, uh, and a lot of times it's well, it's just a hole, man, or it's just a couple blocks or a quick set of steps. It's not. There's a lot of engineering.
Speaker 3:The industry has turned very professional in the last 10 years. So one thing that we really noticed is it went from a guy with a tattered shirt and sagging pants to now people are pulling up in $120,000 trucks wearing matching suits, and it's a pretty large industry that a lot of people are starting to take hold of. So my one thing would be to make sure that you have an advisor for the project With us. We always want to promote whenever we're on a consult or talking to clients we've worked on in the past, or prospects, but hey, we don't even have to do business together. My goal is to teach you about your backyard and hopefully in that you can see that a company like mine because there are other great guys around too a company like mine is going to be able to handle your project specific problems accordingly, and not what we think is going to work, it's what we know is going to work.
Speaker 2:That's, that's amazing. Well, I know you've got great reviews and in business, over 20 years, is your mom still involved?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, my mom does the hardscape, that's right, the landscape branch. I do the hardscape. We have decided that assembly line. She is already very proficient in the landscapings. So you know, if we're on a consultation, sometimes we'll go together and they say, you know, robert, what about plants? And I say, well, maybe an azalea? Mom will say, no, I don't know, stay in your own lane, I'm going to handle this. And to that I say, mom, there's no such thing as a quick set of steps. So I say, mom, there's no such thing as a quick set of steps, so I'm going to handle this. So in turn, it makes us very effective at the tasks at hand. So I divert all landscaping to her, she diverts the hardscaping to me.
Speaker 2:I love it. I've worked with some husband and wives and they say the only way to make it work is stay in your lane.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, there's a method for her.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it. Well, roberto, it's so nice to talk with you and meet someone that's just right down the road. Waxhaw is such a growing area, so I'm sure it's been amazing for you guys. So how do our listeners find you guys?
Speaker 3:Social is first, always social is first. Social media has just especially since COVID has just transformed the way that everybody interacts. So definitely Google. We have hundreds of pictures on Google, facebook, instagram. You can check out our website. There's a spot there for you to inquire with our office. It goes straight to the office. I get the emails too. For inquiries you can call me 757-755-0036. It's out of state area code. I like the mystique. Or you can call our office at 704-320-5175 and talk to Michelle herself. From there I'll be able to receive the call if it's something for me, and maybe we try to figure out something for a client from the backyard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Michelle's Outdoor Design. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure getting to know you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPSouthCharlotte. com. That's GNPSouthCharlotte. com. That's GNPSouthCharlotte. com, or call 980-351-5719.